Dear Editor
How often have I bored people, going on about Canadians aping Americans? I have known a few Americans. They range from the sublime to the ridiculous, like the people of any nation. I had a passing acquaintance with a well-spoken American, an educated person, who had moved to Canada for several reasons, one being the kind of behaviour such as we are being subjected to in Canada now.
If he is still alive, he must be a disappointed man.
In travels abroad, I have also encountered the Ugly American ‑ foul-mouthed, arrogant, my rights rule, you don't have any. And yet they are still catered to because they have money. I remember when we'd be shocked at the deeds of the Mafia of gangsters, of lynch mobs in the United States.
In 1812, the Americans tried and failed to win Canada by using war. That didn't succeed, but as the years went by, because of our often hollow-headed governments, it seemed they would conquer Canada by the wallet, since they began to own most of our major businesses.
In recent years, however, they have competition in many other foreign countries taking over Canada in the business world.
There is a third way of taking over and I'll come back to that.
We find out what an individual is like, what a country is like, when times are tough. To use the best, or one of the best, examples of that is the behaviour of the people of Great Britain, and particularly the English on the east side of the island during the Second World War. They lived under the fear that any family could be informed their soldier son had been shot dead in France. They were bombed night after night. Whole cities were turned into piles of rubble.
They kept their sense of humour. They kept on and on to the end.
The whole world is at war with COVID-19. In Canada we have become a little worn down with restrictions imposed on the advice of medical experts. We have seen businesses flounder (although others have grown wealthy) and we have known the deaths of many, many people. But weighed in the scales with what the British Isles went through, we surely could have kept on to the end.
But suddenly we are held hostage by a bunch of people, calling themselves "patriots," who demand their "rights" while trampling on the rights of others, costing the people of Canadian millions of dollars, shutting down businesses, thumbing their noses at law and order.
So here comes the Ugly Canadian. We have adopted the ideology of the Ugly American, so we can become USA North without a shot being fired.
We have become them.
There is a Latin saying, which translated into English is: "Who stands to gain?"
In any situation we should ask that question.
So, down with the Maple Leaf, up with the Stars and Stripes, away with a constitutional monarchy style of democratic government, abolish medicare (it was just a communist plot). Trump as governor and the Proud Boys of the Senate (they did get their start in Canada).
Pardon? That's not what you wanted?
Then why did you indulge those who, when they're grown big, turn and spit in your face.
And they spit in my face, too. They will be catered to, over and over, because they stand to gain their selfish ends by blackmail.
I don't gain anything, nor does Canada.
Christine Pike
Waseca
