"Before you take exception to the metaphor or pigeonhole me as anti-American, let me say that if Americans want to be Americans, best of luck to them. It's just that I don't want to be one."

Right on, Murray Dobbin. Exactly.

And FFS, it's 'AmericaniSe me' in this fuckin' country.

Dobbin is not only an anti-American, he's a *professional* anti-American, as in, that's his friggin' job - bashing the US and Americans at every opportunity for every imaginable sin. I did indeed take exception to his "metaphor", which if it had been applied to an ethnic group instead of a civic nationality would have been justifiably labelled promotion of hatred.

His metaphor wasn't just about foreign policy or economics or how the US treats Canada. It's a generalized attack on an entire citizenry. It's ugly propagandizing by an arrogant socialist who wrongly assumes that Canada's political culture leaves no room for individualistic or minarchist thought.

Socialize me? No thanks.

Arrow--LOL!!! You're completely right of course!!

Individualist, I guess it's easier to just insult Dobbin, labelling him "anti-american", "arrogant" and "socialist", than to actually argue using logic and facts, ie the specific points he raised about democracy, etc. If you really want to convince us that labelling people is bad, maybe a better way to do that would be to NOT label people yourself, and especially, not to make insults the entire substance of your argument.

Okay, democracy...

Until recently, we had a virtual one-party state in Canada, and may be poised to return to it soon. Our first-past-the-post system gives us little better a claim to democracy than the Americans have, and our unelected Senate might well put us behind them.

Health? Well, that's shooting fish in a barrel. The problem is that too many Canadian left-wing commentators deliberately blur the line between public single-payer insurance (what *really* makes our system better than the US one) and public provision of services, so that any move to include private providers in the healthcare system is decried as creeping "Americanization". Having public health insurance doesn't mean that all hospitals and health workers have to be employed by the state.

Economics? Well once again, Bush and his cronies screwed things up royally. Trudeau (and yes, Mulroney too) did much the same thing to us here years back. Of course, what are the chattering classes in both Canada and US screaming for - a return to the Keynesian tax-and-spend money shotgun?

As for education, I'd be very surprised if Canadian students were that much better in terms of basic literacy, given the lowering of standards, the fad-obsession of teachers and the politically correct indoctrination our Canadian schools are obsessed with at the expense of basic knowledge and skills. Of course, our education system is centred around getting as many students as possible obtaining general arts degrees, while stigmatizing college and vocational training to such a degree that the Ontario colleges have to put out ads challenging this kind of academic snobbery.

Research? Well, it's good to see the world getting more competitive. I'd say that Dobbin's points speak more to emergence of these other countries than to the downfall of the US. I think much of his rhetoric about the US fading in power is just wishful thinking on his part.

Good government? Well, nothing reveals Dobbin's opinions on what constitutes "good government" more than the following...

"What happens to government when it is controlled by people who are hostile to the whole notion of governance? It gets handed over to their friends and hangers-on for their own personal wealth and benefit. "

No, it's when government takes control in a heavy-handed manner over an economy that it truly gives itself to power to heap goodies on their favourites. Think Bombardier.

I believe in government regulating industry in the public interest. But Dobbin conveniently equates big government with good government, and government as being good to extent that it can engineer politically popular outcomes in the marketplace. And as we must always remind ourselves, who watches the watchers?

Propping up uncompetitive companies just because you like their owners or they have their headquarters in your riding or they're in a region that tends to vote for your party or they champion a politically popular technology is also a form of corruption.

And my real problem is Dobbin is that he implies that individualism and belief in small government are un-Canadian. I am Canadian, but I don't share his "communitarian" values.

Individualism is not necessarily self-destructive. Suspicion of others is sometimes justified. Small government is not necessarily a sign of decay. Equality of income is not the only measure of social progress, and is in fact often a poor one.

Not your entire claim is without merit and i see you are starting to come around to what I've been clain with repect to entire populations, BUT Bubba,

Until you can show mw that you are as you claim, an individual and not the property of some or the other state apparatus, You are registered and owned by the state
They hold the paper on all of us.
To be an individual you must know who you are and even the phrase "Know who you are' hasn't your full knowledge.

Reagan said words to the ffect that a country should have a government not a government should have a country.

A real individualist will fight against both state and big business, especially the multinational corporate mafia control of the economy, as we have now.

The only difference between Soviet state capitalism and the multinational control of the economy, especially of foods, is the colour of the chains and the flags they're working under. The ultimate purpose is total control by a special interest sector.

True individualism can only be achieved with laws protecting the people and the prevention of rule by power elites. Regardless what ideology, or religions they work under. Exactly the same laws as we have on our roads.

It is interesting to see somebody knocking Keynes, while the banks are "creating" unlimited, imaginary capital for world control, especially through the financing of wars.

But then, what can we expect from people who are blinded with the nonsense of labeling everything as "right, or left wing", ignoring the crimes of their favourite side.

The long and short of it is that both state and corporate capitalism, in other words both "left and right" have been and are legalized crime waves, now forcing the world into suicidal self destruction.

Even if and when both criminal idiocies have been are being taught in our universities as "sciences".

What's the difference between Soviet "Stakhanovism" and the capitalist "productivity" nonsense?

Ed Deak.

sasquatch2, haven't you noticed that Bush's government is HUGE? It's not accurate these days to generalize that the US is about small government, since it's not reality under the Bush admin.