We did invent the internet. The original DARPA Net was a US government research project that first spread to US government institutions followed by research institutions, followed by Universities and ultimately moved outside of the US.

You can blame us for what happened to the American Indians but please remember what the Spanish did in central and south America.

I hope our Canadian and Australian friends will remember their own history as part of the British Empire.

You’re right, though. They shouldn’t be throwing the stones. In fact, nobody has the right to throw them.

People who live in glass houses and sip tea shouldn’t throw stones.

I go to school in Vermont, USA and I have to say that most of the year its a frozen wasteland. I become quite bitter towards everything.. and everyone. Hell, even my own roommates.

So I devise we make a weather machine, or allow global warming to happen and everyone should be more happy.

BTW, I’m listening to Rammstein ‘Moskau’… Shows how closed minded some of us are.. hah.

Dope is “legal” over there, so I recommend getting stoned as much as possible.

Oh and by the way, I just have to add this in, to the Canadians that think American’s are idiots for thinking you live in igloos – we don’t really think that, we just have a sense of humour, and not all American’s are saying that you live in igloos, just some of them who happen to like to joke around, and don’t even think of saying I’m contradicting myself because I said “to the Canadians that say Americans are stupid because of the igloo thing” , not “to all Canadians”

I have been to the USA several times and on the whole have found Americans to be one of the worlds more friendly and generally pleasant nationalities. Yes, sometimes they are a little ‘too’ patriotic for my tastes, but this is far more acceptable than the rabid xenophobia that is firmly entrenched almost everywhere east of the Danube.

Are Americans stupid? Of course, aren’t we all! This comes from having a state education system. Lets face it, anything the government are involved in is not going to work very well.
I believe we have the same system in the UK.

Media is controlled in America? Of course. Please don’t be so naive. If I have to explain that to you, you really are in trouble. But show me somewhere it isn’t controlled and also not a warzone, I will go and live there.

I think most people who have something bad to say about the USA get that from the media , or some fat mate down the pub who tells them jokes about it, an American girl/boy who snubbed them completely or have a general inferiority complex that manifests itself in a dislike of America/Americans.

Never forget that the people who lead us are the most manipulative, cunning, nasty, cheating individuals we have in our country. Better not to judge a whole country by the lowest common denominator.

I am starting to bore myself now. Goodbye

And most people outside the US know jack about American history, government, and politics, so I don’t know why they always tout superiority. What the Anti’s don’t know about the US could literally fill hundreds of book shelves.

Ya gotta love the Canadian who said that they learn multiculturalism in school while Americans are learning white supremacy (aka Patriotism). LOL Meanwhile, this peace loving and “tolerant” Canuck is writing hate speech on a website. It can’t get any more ironic than that!

Why was he re-elected in 2004? The war. Was it necessarily support for the war on moral grounds? Not really. Bush got a ton of red state support in 2004. Why? This is just a hunch of mine, but not one without careful and considerable observation. It comes down to one thing: Vietnam.

It’s a very personal, walking-on-eggshells sort of issue. The U.S. military has always recruited heaviest in the south and midwest. A lot of men in “fly-over” states either enlisted, or were drafted into Vietnam in the 60’s. They thought they were doing the right thing. They saw all these hippies burning their draft cards and running off to Canada. They went off to war and when they came home, were treated very badly by the country they thought they were serving.

Something like that you never forget. Their kids and grandchildren hear tales of how all these hippies and “intellectual sissies who think they’re so damned smart” spat on their loved ones way back then, calling them “babykillers”, god knows what else, and it breeds quite a bit of contempt. As a result, as long as there are people protesting the war, they will be there to support it, even if only out of spite. I don’t agree with it, but I understand where it comes from. That’s just how it is.

When I was 24 or so, I went up to Vancouver to visit some Canadian friends. We were drinking in the park (a federal offense, but a rarely enforced one apparently. Not a cop in sight and a police station across the street). Anyway, some other People came over and sat with us. Like clockwork, as soon as they got word that there was an American in their midst, they didn’t waste a second at jumping in to screw with him (me). What’s funny is that it’s always the same thing: BEER, “american beer sucks” blah blah blah.

What is Canada’s friggin obsession with beer? I rarely drink. When I do, it’s usually a single malt of some sort. When I DO drink beer, it’s almost always a microbrewed amber (usually Fat Tire), which happens to taste nothing like Coors or Budweiser and has an alcohol content of something in the neighborhood of 7-8%. How fast are you looking to get loaded anyway? Does Canada suffer some collective alcoholism that requires their brewskies maintain at least a 20% ratio of kick to keep people from getting jitters and hallucinations?

Re: “the perceived willingness of Americans to sacrifice key civil liberties”

If that’s their perception, they’re as ignorant of our politics as we are theirs. We live in a democratic republic. Our decisions are made by a proxy system of congressmen/women and Senators. As has been shown oh-so-many times in the past, their votes on such policies do not always reflect the wishes of their constituents. There is a reason “crooked as a politician” is a cliche.

re: “Racism is prevalent in the south”

It’s always funny to hear Brits invoke racism toward America. Gee, uh…I guess you got us. Racism certainly is present in the U.S. and admittedly reaches much further north than that. I just have one word for you: Apartheid. At least we abandoned institutionalized racism in the 60’s. You kept that puppy going until 1990.

As for the Canadians assumption of our perception, that they live in igloos and riding polar bears, etc. Well, that’s just silly. Maybe it’s because I live in a border state and have visited countless times, but I’ve never had that impression myself. Don’t even try to duck the “eh” thing, I’ve heard it enough to know that’s pretty much accurate. Not to mention that nobody had any opinion of that until SCTV started running the Bob & Doug Mckenzie stuff. You made that bed, go lay in it.

It cracks me up how Canadians never seem to grasp the irony of lambasting American products, yet the parking lot at the shopping mall in Bellingham is full to the brim with Canadian license plates during the holidays. Perhaps they’re right. We should stop exporting our crap to Canada. They’ve clearly shown us that the need to do so no longer exists: They’ll come down here and get it.

What’s equally amusing (and pathetic) is that if you ask any Canadian what makes Canada great, they won’t hesitate to spout off a long list of their differences with the U.S., but tend to fall short on delivering much of anything outside of topographical beauty, beer, and hockey. Yeah, I went to a hockey game when I was 12 once. It was kinda fun, I guess.

See, Americans don’t really give a damn about Hockey. Most of us don’t anyway. Go to any American sports bar on the day of the Stanley cup, I guarantee you will get a seat. Go on the day of the Superbowl and there will be a line around the block to get in. I mean, we’ve got the NHL, it has it’s fans, but if you were to ask the vast majority of Americans if they’d rather see the American Olympic Hockey team win the gold vs. finding $5 on the sidewalk, I’d be surprised if less than 99% said “find $5 on the sidewalk”. You got us, your Hockey prowess far exceeds our own.

For some reason this really bugs Canadians. Maybe some day they’ll grow up and accept that they live in a world where different athletic mediums are dominantly popular in certain geographic regions. For example, I know nothing about cricket, well beyond identifying a cricket bat, but I’ve not one iota as to how it’s played, or what the rules are. At the same time, I’m not the least bit offended that this sport is widely popular in India, Great Britain, and countless other countries, while baseball or American football is not. It’s not something that would really concern any rational person, but rationale might be a little much to expect from a country that can only seem to identify itself on how “not like America” they are.

About the supposed, “American Empire” ….. I could never really figure that one out, yanno? Don’t you have to have colonies to be an “empire”?

Actually, the Revolutionary War all started with the “Stamp Act”. Americans didn’t want to be gouged and threw a fit which led the Brits to fight back – and one thing led to the next… We broke free from them. They had actually been bullying us for a long time. Quite brutal leaders they were.

However, none of this is to deny how Americans are bullies too, of course. Just sayin….

By the way, Troy, I noticed that you don’t spell “neighbor” with a “u”. What’s up with that?

The British…ah the British.

If America is so imperialistic where oh where do you think they got that from?

It seems that addicting legions of people to opium in a certain oriental country is OK.
The monarchy seems to have all kinds of money…from, um…British taxes and probably alot of “acquired” goods from, um…colonial conquests.

Remember that the US was once a British colony. Seems they got sick of your elitism and sent you back across the pond…or to Canada.

The US has in recent decades assumed the role that the British had. The US is not acquiring new colonies constantly as the British have either. And admittedly, the US has not always been an efficient global policeman. Big messes.

However, there have been all kinds of times in Canada where there would be a big ice storm and neighboring US states would send logistical help immediately. We do the same for them. Neighbors.

And isn’t the US like a policeman, don’t want the pesky bastards around when times are good, but if we’re in trouble?

There are all kinds of things to despise about America…

But I would rather get that information from someone like Bill Maher.

At least he is removing the plank from his own eye.