O Canada

[kemonomichi]

I recently had a rant on someone's lj about things I thought should be changed in america when they posted something about The Westboro Baptist Church. It made me think a lot about the differences between Canada and the states and this morning I found a really great article (reposted on tumblr) from a 2003 Pittsburgh Post Gazette editorial:

An

Comments

[kamikaze43v3r]

Hey~!! ;A; I still want to go there!! *clings*

Singapore is a lovely place but we do have death penalty, ban homo activities and don't allow marijuana >_> But it could be our strict police, government, local superstition and culture x'D

One day I will go there!! Canada 8D!

[kemonomichi]

I hope you can! (These days the gov is running ads on tv to promote "immigration counseling" and that would-be immigrants should be careful to seek those approved by the gov. only so people don't get swindled by fake agents asking for money to make you get in the country. I thought it was kind of awesome)

[kamikaze43v3r]

But I'm running very low on money... I don't think I can visit canada until like.. in a decade T^T Your country and the government is awesome :'3

[tasukigirl]

Lol. I guess that's what happens when your country is founded by convicts and puritans. They won't let go of their guns or religion. :)

Personally I find it annoying.

[kemonomichi]

I get ya.

What annoys me the most though, is when people argue that having similar gun laws would infringe on people's rights rather than protect the population. I just don't get it. I think public safety is more important than having the right to own a gun and carry it everywhere.

Ugh.

[tasukigirl]

It's in our bill of rights, hence people get all uppity. Strangely they don't feel the same way when it comes to citizenship. Then it's all about historical context. Ugh. It's this sort of hypocrisy that makes me hate my fellow Americans.

[kemonomichi]

Personally I think it's scary as hell - If I were to sit down at a restaurant in a mall or another public venue and saw someone at another table, eating quietly but with a gun holster at their waist, I would get up and leave right that fucking second. I mean, yeah, I get that it's in the bill of rights and that this kind of thing likely had reason to be there in that historical context but for the love of God, we're in 2011, and I think that it's an outdated load of crap.

Gun control laws aren't made to infringe on people's individual liberties and rights - They're made to PROTECT those damn individual liberties and rights.

[kemonomichi]

A lot of people here complain that Canadian heath care is sub-par, and it's true you don't have the same service and speed you have in the states... But that's because you can't compare a private health care system whose patients are also clients in every sense of the term, with free-for-all government funded health care.

I fractured my elbow 2 summers ago and even though I had to wait 2 hours before getting a cast and being sent home, it didn't cost me a thing, and I understand that people with more severe injuries had to be treated before me.

I know that if I have health issues I won't have a 10 000$+ bill waiting for me at the end of the line. And if that's not worth all my tax money then I don't know what is.

[kemonomichi]

Funny thing is - Yeah, the doctors here don't make nearly as much money here... But they're still payed more than the average job for people with that level of education (Compared to teachers or Architects or scientists, for example) It's the gov. and our tax money that pays their salary so that's why it's not as much as in the states.

Doctors here get in the profession because they know they'll earn a lot, and I'm sure some of them do it bc they want to help people, but yeah, Canadian doctors are not humanitarian in general. Medical errors can occur everywhere, too.

[nosferatu_blue]

I'm late with this, but I had to add a ♥ to this post. After the disappointment with the recent election, I'm happy to read about the things that still make this country great.

Do you have the link to the original article? I'd like to bookmark that forever.

[kemonomichi]

Ahh sorry, no, I don't have a link to the original article - just the source being the 2003 Pittsburgh Post Gazette. I grabbed the article on the stereotypicalcanadianmoose on tumblr, I think :P

I totally agree about the recent elections though! Living in Quebec and with the results we got, I think we kind of have a collective voter's remorse with the NPD wave that swept the province, seeing as even destroying the Bloc while trying to out the conservatives amounted to them getting majority. Bleh.