Toronto writer Kathy Shaidle is fed up with the reflexive and unreasoning anti-American attitudes of so many of her fellow Canadians, per her opinion piece in the Dallas Morning News this week.
(The Dallas Morning News site requires a lengthy and intrusive registration, so will go out on a limb here and excerpt extensively.)
Being an American trapped in a Canadian's body means always having to say, "You're stupid."Posted by Alan at December 30, 2003 05:29 AMI once was one of those smug sneerers at our southern neighbor, the product of a typical Canadian upbringing: my memorizing Trudeaupian doctrine about our superior "cultural mosaic" and the Yanks' inferior "melting pot."
The U.S. Bicentennial made a particularly indelible impression. I was 12 in 1976, the perfect age to be scandalized for life by red, white and blue toilet seats.
And like all Torontonians, I have my share of Stupid American Tourist Stories: loud, super-sized folks wearing what appear to be pajamas, asking if they can walk to Niagara Falls from here.
So, what happened?
Well, I am a recovering liberal, and Sept. 11 is my dry date.
That morning, my leftist life flashed before my eyes. I remembered to my shame all of those "Yankee, go homes" I had chanted as a Reagan-era peacenik. And rolling my eyes at the tacky teddy bear memorials at the Oklahoma City bombing and muttering, "You would think a building never had blown up before."
How sophisticated I was. And how sick.
Wherever I go, conversations like the following are commonplace:
"Bush."
"I know."
"I hate him."
"I know."
I have worn out my computer's "delete" button, weary of asking co-workers to refrain from sending me "funny" e-mails about setting George W. Bush on fire.
I have taken to wearing a Stars and Stripes scarf. When asked about it, I explain that I use it to strangle old draft dodgers.
I really want to buy a gun (somehow) just so that I can refuse to register it.
I even have developed a taste for iced tea.
No, I am not entirely friendless. I have "met" new pals online: fellow Canucks equally outraged by the World Trade Center attacks and appalled by the matter-of-fact "they asked for it" attitude that permeates elite Canadian culture.
A few thousand of us attended a pro-U.S. demonstration in April. We gathered at City Hall, where I had demonstrated against the United States on a regular basis all of those years ago.
A dozen very young counter-protesters showed up, too. Those kids chain-smoked, swaggered and even sang "Give Peace a Chance."
The deja vu was dizzying. I pitied the angry, stupid girl I used to be, and I fumed while the arrogant little brats booed a speaker at the podium whose father had died on Sept. 11.
Their hatred of Mr. Bush is palpable. I had hated Ronald Reagan just as much. Then, I had started hearing about parents in the former Soviet Union who named their children "Ronald."
I believe I am on the right side of history now. Just on the wrong side of the border.
Tip via NRO's The Corner
Kathy Shaidle's blog