I think Canada has less of the bad and more of the good, but that these are just shades of grey.
To the extent there are actual substantive differences, I think these are more systemic than cultural. Canada doesn't have a "right to bear arms" or death penalty; it has government-funded health-care; it didn't support the war in Vietnam and isn't at war on the ground in Iraq. Canada abolished slavery 70 years before the United States did; Canada doesn't have the sharp edges of racial conflict that exist in American history or some American cities today. But thanks to the media, Canada imports racist attitudes and a lot of other cultural memes from the US.
It's naive to think Canada doesn't have these social problems; it's absurdly cynical to think that the problems in Canada are equivalent in scale to those in the US.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2008-02-04 02:54 pm (UTC)To the extent there are actual substantive differences, I think these are more systemic than cultural. Canada doesn't have a "right to bear arms" or death penalty; it has government-funded health-care; it didn't support the war in Vietnam and isn't at war on the ground in Iraq. Canada abolished slavery 70 years before the United States did; Canada doesn't have the sharp edges of racial conflict that exist in American history or some American cities today. But thanks to the media, Canada imports racist attitudes and a lot of other cultural memes from the US.
It's naive to think Canada doesn't have these social problems; it's absurdly cynical to think that the problems in Canada are equivalent in scale to those in the US.