O Canada!

The reality-based community in the US, having read Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, is weighing its alternatives. The San Francisco Chronicle ran this poll today, and as you can see many eyes are gazing north. Would you please google the Canadian embassy's website for me?

But other Americans are suggesting a different approach. Since it was the South that once declared it was OK for states to leave the union if they wanted to, and since the South now controls the US government/church, maybe they wouldn't mind if all the blue states just left together and formed Ecotopia or something. The Blue States of America? The Republic of Reality? Not contiguous, of course. That's a problem. You'd have to go through two Ashcroft border stations when you drove from California to New York, and there might be a problem with airspace rights.

Fortunately, Heather Merriam just emailed me the solution.

Thanks, Heather! Do you think they'll have us? Let's practice up.

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

---

Update, 11/4: If you're single, here's a welcoming Canadian website where you can start the northward migration.

And, joking aside, there's a thoughtful post by DHinMI over at Daily Kos about the political victories progressives have won in the past by standing pat and, in fact, sitting down.

Update, 3/27/05: Some more thoughts on Canada and its big neighbor here.

Comments

[Keith]

Yes, yes, yes... Now you're making real reality-based sense! First, an impertinent excerpt from the Ottawa Citizen (via the Nov.3,04 Victoria Times Colonist) by Charles Gordon, headed "How to know when an election isn't Canadian." "Religion. In the United States, religion matters a lot. Both presidential candidates seem to be rather devout types, but even if they weren't they would have to pretend to be. God enters many political speeches and, of course, blesses America at every baseball game during the seventh-inning stretch. # Now that the Americans are over their hang-up about electing a Roman Catholic, it is probably fair to say that it is not which religion a candidate has that matters. It is whether he has one or not. # In Canada, religion plays [sic ?] only when a candidate is deemed to have too much of it, as in the attack on Stockwell Day's [Canada's Pat Robertson] fundamentalist beliefs in the 2000 election. In the U.S., you can never have too much religion."
It is ironic (more scrap irony for the irony bored?) that not one of America's Founding Fathers who played a key role in framing the Constitution and drafting the Bill of rights even remotely resembled anything like an orthodox churchgoer and clearly felt no need to pretend to be one. They all strove mightily to install checks and balances to preclude for all time exactly what we're now seeing unfolding before our very eyes way down yonder in Jesusland.
It was way better back when Lyndon Johnson said,"the only thing that can hurt you in Texas politics is to be caught in bed with a dead woman or a live man." Now he would have to add, "or not to be, or not pretend to be, a regular churchgoer."
The devil of it (literally?) is that would-be electees must subscribe, or at the very least pretend to subscribe, to some form, any form, of popular mythology, no matter how absurd it may be so long as it is on the list of culture-sanctioned, generally approved Judeo-Christian iterations. The result, the inevitable result, as we now see unfolding, is a politics of deception that fosters lies and lying liars, delusion and confusion. It is the Taliban mentality, but both the Taliban and the evangelicals are forbidden by faith to perceive that they are not opposites at all, as each devoutly believes, but are mirror images of each other, and that each is behaving acccording to precisely the same principles: the first principle being that the devotees are not permitted to entertain that awareness - upon pain of rejection in the one case and in the other, death. Thank goodness the evangelicals are more restrained in this day and age, but the principle remains the same. Sad to say, if you're unaware you're not aware then you're not aware you're unaware.
Once again, Voltaire deserves the last word: "Men will continue to commit atrocities so long as they continue to believe absurdities."
Now, where did you put those dry immigration papers?

[Rusty Ladd]

I am so grateful for the remarks and the map. It is clear that you, Keith and Heather have no use for the the evangelical communtiy and feel perfectly free to offend, ridicule and demean the millions of us, your countrymen, who voted on the strength of our poor, stupid, misguided convictions. How dare us believe in God! How dare we vote our convictions! How dare we disagree--to think Bush could be wrong but not be a liar--to believe Christ may have an edge on Voltaire! How dare we have a living faith!
For a nation that desperately needs uniting, you guys continue to voice the most divisive rhetoric imaginable. If the Democratic Party, which this country desperately needs to be a vital part of the political system, continues to choose its candidates based on your perceptions of who the rest of the country is, it will continue its demise into the forgotten pages of a once proud political history.

[Robert Silvey]

Dear Rusty, I will let Keith speak for himself, but for myself I will say that you attribute to me feelings and thoughts I do not have. Of course I am sorry that Kerry lost, and I do fear profoundly for our country under the leadership of Bush. I do strongly feel that many of Bush's actions as president have been profoundly immoral, so it continues to be difficult for me to understand how thoughtful people like you who are deeply moral could possibly vote for him. I'm not attacking you—I simply don't understand—perhaps I'm the stupid one. Look, I'm beginning to try to wrestle with these issues here and here. I'm going to write a lot more about it, because from my point of view liberalism is a lot more like the teachings of Jesus than conservativism, especially as it is practiced by George Bush. That's why I wrote the piece last Sunday. If I thought Bush's actions were what the Prince of Peace recommended, I wouldn't be so convinced he's a hypocrite.

You should also understand that this map and this post are a joke. True, it's a joke that stems from a deep sense of alienation from many of my fellow citizens; anger at the lying, divisive tactics of Bush during the campaign; and fear that we are entering dangerous seas without a captain—and we should discuss all those issues. Perhaps the place is in the comments of those more serious posts, or by email, or better by phone.

We do need to unite, and I pledge to do my part. I'm sure you will too. After his divisive press conference today, I do not think Bush shares our concern.

[Rusty]

Dear Bob,
I do understand the map was a joke. Part of my point is, that if I made a similar "joke", made a USA map printing California and New York pink, and labeled those areas in a derisive manner, your commentors would justly call me devisive, hypocritial, insensitive and uninterested in bridging the difficult issues that so divide this nation. They apparantly cannot understand that to ridicule a person's faith can never be a joking matter. If your aptly quoted adage, "By your fruits you shall know them" holds any credibility, then surely a fair minded commentator can recognize hypocrisy when he sees it.
As between you and I, I depart this note as you and I always part: in peace between ourselves, in admiration for your intellect, for your love of your family, and for your love of country.

[Keith]

Hello, Rusty, Keith here. Thank you for your thoughtful comments. You seem like a very fine person, and I am truly sorry to have trampled on your feelings. It's never any fun to cause someone, anyone, needless distress; but I need for you to bear with me and stay with the principle long enough for the implications of faith-based politics to become clear. Three minutes' thought is about all it takes to see that the kind of merger of faith and politics that we are now witnessing threatens to undermine the foundation of liberty and justice for all that I trust we both treasure and hope to see preserved. Please excuse my presumptuousness, but from the tone of your comments I am guessing that, for example, you would favor prayer in the public schools and leaving "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. I, on the other hand, support the principle that the faith, any faith, of the majority must never be permitted to override the rights of the minority. Now, staying with the two seemingly-but-not-really small faith-based representative examples I have suggested, please stay with the principle until the implications become clear. Let us suppose that Islam continues to proliferate at it's current exponential rate until it claims a majority of believers in your home area, and you find yourself in the minority. Hard to imagine, I know, but please stay with me. Now let us suppose that the new majority begins pressing to make a small change in the wording of the "Pledge" so that "Under Allah," is substituted for the current wording, as everyone knows the original use of the word "God" in that context clearly makes reference to the Bibilical Jehovah, Allah's chief rival. The question is, how would you feel about that "small" change were you in the minority? And when your Muslim neighbors begin pressing, politically, for daily prayers to Allah in the public schools, would you continue to feel that faith and politics make good bedfellows? No doubt daily Koran readings would soon be on the agenda, then Muhammad's precepts would begin showing up on the walls of courtrooms, and so on and so forth. I think you get the picture. What seems like a small thing in the beginning may have enormous implications not far down the road. The framer's of the Constitution were acutely aware of this and they must have hoped we would be too. If, indeed, America, the miracle of democracy, is to be truly indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, it behooves each of us to remember, and honor, the principle - and to remain acutely aware of its implications - that majority faith-based beliefs must never trump minority rights. I think it was Thomas Paine who said this, and the Founding Fathers knew from bitter experience that it was true: "To say 'believe as I believe or God will damn you' is one small step removed from saying 'believe as I believe or I will kill you.'" As A.E. Housman so pointedly put it, "Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out, but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time."

[Rusty Ladd]

Dear Keith,
Thank you for a most gracious apology which I absolutely accept.
As a matter of fact, I do not believe in teacher/administrator led prayer in public schools for precisely the same reason you cite in your "pledge of allegience" example. I have imagined myself in exactly the same situation as you describe and for that reason, at the very least, come down against teacher led prayer. I also happen to believe, as the old adage says, as long as they have math tests in school, there will be fervent prayer (student initiated, on an individual basis) in school.
I accept the "under God" part in the pledge as purely a cultural device. If I lived in an Islamic United States, I could pledge allegiance under Allah as a cultural convention of the land to which I was pledging my allegience.
Part of my point to Bob's blog is a very serious concern that the country is drifting toward a one-party political structure. That is, to any serious student of history, a disaster for our country. This country needs a viable multi-party structure (at least two parties) and my fear is that the Democratic Party is becoming more and more marginalized. If your Party could see its way to some legitimate compromise on its "social issue" agenda, it could regain its position as the party of the common man, I believe, with surprising ease. Many of President Bush voters could have been attracted to the economic and foreign policy positions if that would not have forced them to vote for what they believe to be personally immoral social positions.
Your comments on the danger of a fusion of faith and politics has merit but I disagree with what I believe may be a couple of your assumtions for the argument.
I believe a political party driven by any religious mantra is one of the more dangerous entities to the survival of a democracy. Let me be clear: I have no use for a C

[Keith]

Rusty, in reference to your closing line, rest assured I regard your comment as deserving of a solid B+ at the very least. Of course, if you actually intended to say more and the gremlins are to blame, I'll look forward to hearing the rest of what you were about to say - and defer asssigning a grade until later. More actually, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your comments and how much more relieved and hopeful I feel after reading them. If only I could feel that the majority of Bush supporters share your approach and attitudes I could feel more confident that all is likely to turn out okay at the end of the day. You speak of "your party." Truth to tell, not only am I not a Democrat, I guess I'm what you might call a "carpet blogger," an unrepentent Canadian hoser. (Aside: I guess you know the difference between a Southern redneck and a Canadian hoser? I thought so. If you're a Southern redneck, you have at least one child born on a pool table. If you're a Canadian hoser, you have at least one child conceived on a pool table.) And, yes, in Canada we already have a multi-party system that sorta works some of the time, but somehow we manage to muddle through, albeit with more than a little goofiness thrown in for good measure. But we did manage to steer clear of Iraq, you have to give us that. Anyway, Rusty, thank you for your hope-inspiring response. Bob assures me you are not merely sterling, but pure gold; and I'm a believer.