As nonsensical as all that is, what’s really galling is your suggestion that you paid your debt in full to this great country—simply by “working for the Dean campaign”!

If you have so little regard for the rest of us and—more importantly—for the democratic principle that all sides abide by the results of elections, then perhaps it’s best that you stay in Canada. Heck, if this global warming stuff pans out, Canada just might warm up enough to (finally) be worth the trouble of annexing, and your country will rejoin you.

Finally, it must be pointed out that net emigration between Canada and the States is significantly in favor of the U.S. Perhaps not all of your new friends are quite as smitten with big gummint as you are.

What if Canada turns further rightward? Well, they’ve got quite a ways to go. The Soviet Union is long gone, and Sweden isn’t exactly letting anybody in. We had a list of countries at the time we were thinking of ‘cutting and running’, and don’t have any plans to move further down on the list at the moment.

Stay and fight? Hey, I paid my dues, first working for the Dean campaign, and then somewhat less enthusiastically, the Kerry campaign. I went door to door in the swing state of New Hampshire (and now realize I should have done that in Ohio).

The trillions in US debt, is what we saw it looming over our retirement. It was a choice between make as much money as we could in our earning years and hoping we’d fall into the right side of the wealth divide when the chickens came home to roost, or invest in living in a fiscally more responsible country.

As for anyone missing us, we left lots of friends and family behind, so I’ll try and ignore that last comment.

———

Dan -

Thanks for the civil reply. I’m pleased to hear from a ’sane’ voice from the other side. Like most human beings, I’m not a walking stereotype, and despite the fact that I don’t agree with ‘whipping’ the Muslims and giving them access to technology , I can understand your motives and can’t argue with your ultimate good intentions.

In some ways, we left partly because of the acrimony you speak of. It had reached the point where we couldn’t have any discussion any more, because the very idea of ‘intelligent, spirited dialog’ without shouting and epithets had become a Liberal weakness in itself, at least according to the pundits on the right.

I definitely agree with you that civil discourse is the way that any government should operate, and fortunately that has not been lost in Canada, and shows no sign of leaving it yet.

Just read your op-ed in the LA Times online. I’m a born-again Christian and probably politically to the right of Barry Goldwater. I’ve been an ex-pat for 18 years, in Greece where I preach the gospel in the open air. I feel the heat of the threat of the rise of radical Islam here, and it’s frightening. I believe we need to be confrontational with the Islamicists, and then after we’ve whipped them, help them into the 21st century through access to all kinds of education and technology. I know you don’t agree with this, but that’s ok.

I’m sorry you feel the way you do about the political landscape in the US. I really miss the US, although Europe does have some good points. I hope that the hatred and bad feelings that I see on both sides of the political spectrum via the web mellows into intelligent, spirited dialogue in which we can disagree without being disagreeable, as the old chestnut goes.

Here’s hoping in the future sometime that, whoever is in charge of our government, civil discourse will rule.

I thought that I’d write this to you as a saner voice from the other side of the fence before the inevitable rabid-right hate mail you’ll probably get.

sincerely, right but not rabid— Dan Truitt