De-constructing Canada One Immigrant At A Time

a reply to: Metallicus

We can teach you to be Canadian. Come join us Metallicus. There's always room for one more.

We're pretty easy on the Queen requirement too. Just promise to be a good Joe, help your neighbours shovel snow, and try not to abuse the pogey. We'll have you dekeing in no time.

a reply to: CrikeyMagnet

Well, with a friendly invitation like that I might find it hard to turn down.

a reply to: Metallicus

I can understand an American who does not want to be Canadian.

The United States of America could be considered the most important political achievement of a period of history known as "The Age of Enlightenment", which was centered in France.

en.wikipedia.org...

French historians traditionally place the Enlightenment between 1715, the year that Louis XIV died, and 1789, the beginning of the French Revolution. Some recent historians begin the period in the 1620s, with the start of the scientific revolution. The Philosophes, the French term for the philosophers of the period, widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons and coffee houses, and through printed books and pamphlets. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the church, and prepared the way for the revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries.[3] A variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism and neo-classicism, trace their intellectual heritage back to the Enlightenment.[5]

The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the scientific revolution. Earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon, Descartes, Locke, and Spinoza.[6] The major figures of the Enlightenment included Cesare Beccaria, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Adam Smith, and Immanuel Kant. Some European rulers, including Catherine II of Russia, Joseph II of Austria and Frederick I of Prussia, tried to apply Enlightenment thought on religious and political tolerance, which became known as enlightened absolutism. The Americans Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson came to Europe during the period and contributed actively to the scientific and political debate, and the ideals of the Enlightenment were incorporated into the United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.[7]

America was very much a product of a new set of ideas centered on rationalism and the rights and freedoms of the ordinary man. Americans pledge allegiance to the abstract symbol of the flag and to the rational document, the Constitution.

The mindset is completely different from that which prevailed in the old monarchies, which derived from religious faith and family ties of blood embodied in royal families and dynastic elites, a mindset that was rational in context but also drew on the vast resources of ineluctable irrationality present in all human beings. A well kept Monarchy, like that of Great Britain, is a massively powerful institution that brings all the resources of the human spirit into the equation of social cohesion, unlike a merely rational democracy.

People who live within the very large family of the British Commonwealth and who understand what it is, value it highly. It is a pluralistic and inclusive conglomeration of countries with shared institutions and that is a welcome thing in a world where superpowers seem driven to extremes of polarity.

a reply to: CrikeyMagnet

As a Canadian, born and raised, I neither bear any ill will toward, nor feel I owe any specific debt to the Queen.

Its the Crown in this case and not the Queen . Canada is a Crown Corporation and they are referred to as the Crown . The Queen is a whole other story that has been somewhat a part of the story but one even Canadians would be hard pressed to fully understand , let alone articulate .

a reply to: ipsedixit

Well we have a "prime minister" which means he takes orders from someone...

She seems to be on our money too...

hmm...