Archive of entries posted on 17th February 2004

Love Thy Neighbor

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I usually like to make fun of other countries, because, well, I’m American, and it’s hard to understand the existence of other countries for any other reason than as targets of my ridicule. I’m going to try and be introspective, though, and I ask all other Americans reading this to do the same. For international readers, this isn’t really directed at you, but you can read it anyway or just play in your squalor.
Now, my compatriots, imagine for a moment you didn’t live in the most powerful, richest country in the world. Imagine there was another nation out there that made your homeland seem weak and pathetic in comparison. Pretend that your culture was stupid and silly compared to the great imports from some other land. And imagine that no matter how hard your nation tried, it would never have more than a fraction of the riches and power of some other country that shined above all others.
Now imagine that your meager, pathetic excuse for a “nation” sat right next to this Olympus, this god among worms. If your mind can grasp that, then you might understand how Mexico and Canada feels.
We, my friends, are a mansion of immeasurable wealth and size, a Xanadu, while on one side of us sits a two bedroom house you’d never give a second look at and on the other is a run down shack. So how do you think our neighbors look at us? They know they can never measure up, even if they tried, so there is some amount of spite directed at us.
Now, as regular readers of this site know, I make fun of the Canadians quite a lot while I hardly ever direct barbs at the Mexicans. There’s good reason for this. The Canadians actually try and convince themselves they are our betters, while the Mexicans pretty much have given up. Most of the Mexicans just try and escape to here, which make much more logical sense than pretending the cardboard box you sit in is a real fort. I think some people were shocked when they heard that some Mexicans heckled an American soccer team by chanting “Osama! Osama!” – shocked by learning that we Americans actually stoop to engaging in that European sissy sport and that the Mexicans could be so mean. While I can’t defend the former, the latter is expected. With how easy it is to illegally immigrate to this country, the Mexicans actually left in Mexico must really, really hate us.
Anyway, back to Canada (it just seems mean to bash the Mexicans for very long; poor guys – here’s a quarter). Canada likes to delude themselves into thinking they’re better than us, which, though it can be cute at times, is often annoying. They make fun of us for not knowing much about Canada without even stopping to think of our viewpoint on that issue, which is, “Why in God’s name would we ever need to know anything about Canada?” I mean, I don’t know the name of Canada’s president or prime minister or grand czar or whatever their leader is called same as I don’t know the name of the queen of the anthill in my backyard; it’s completely inconsequential to me. Canadians just can’t seem to accept that they mean nothing to us. Even Mexico has more influence on American culture than them; we have Mexican restaurants everywhere, but no Canadian restaurants. No one in America knows what Canadians eat, nor are they even slightly curious.
Still Canadians try to match up with us. They even have money just like ours, in all the same denominations, but not worth as much and in fruity colors. Have you ever held a Canadian penny? It’s a mind-blowing experience. There in your hand is something actually worth less than one cent. Seeing the Canadian penny is as close as the human mind can come to grasping the concept of absolute nothingness.
You’d think that they’d at least try hard to be useful at something – at one thing at all – so we Americans can respect them in some small measure. But, while we are busy fighting terrorism and standing as the one barrier against the whole world imploding, the top worry in Canada right now is that a puppet made fun of them.
So how does a nation get so silly and inconsequential? The Canadians are too focused on trying to differentiate themselves from us than improving themselves. Such as how they like to tout their universal healthcare:

“I just shot myself in a hunting accident, and then a moose trampled me, eh.”
“Well, I just put you down on the list and the doctor will see you aboot two weeks, eh.”

And then a great number of them are French speaking. FRENCH SPEAKING! Of all the cultures in the world to try and emulate, they chose the cheese-eating surrender monkeys. That’s almost a cry for help, as stark a sign of mental health problems as someone who likes to cut himself with a razor blade.
I guess my point is that we, as Americans, need to pay more attention to our neighbors… and not with mockery. Instead, they need our sympathy and our pity. As the greatest people on earth who ever were or ever will be, we Americans should help other nation make themselves better than they are (but still much less than us). We should gently try to guide Canada to better mental health. And, if gentle doesn’t work, then we go on to tried and true shock therapy. As for Mexico, I suggest a really large wall (hey, a few of them need to stay in their own country if it is ever going to improve).
In the least, we need to continue to try and understand what it’s like to live in other nations as it makes us better people, and, even greater than that, better Americans.
I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this subject… but no foreigners please. You people have enough problems as it is, and I don’t want to add to them by giving any of you of swelled ego by making you think your viewpoints matter to us Americans. Have fun in your “countries”.
Peace.
UPDATE: For more than you ever wanted to know about Canadians (which is, well, anything), check out the Carnival of the Canucks.