Stop Threatening to Move to Canada

I feel bad for Canada.

Less Loon, More Lunatic (source)

Not too bad, mind you. I mean, poutine is delicious and they do have a sensible drinking age there. But bad in the sense that every time a political group in this country doesn’t get their way they threaten to move to Canada.

I don’t know where this threat originated. I know Canada took draft dodgers during Vietnam, and before that accepted escaped slaves during the age of underground railroading. Maybe the threat comes from there. Regardless of origin, though, it’s a common refrain for spoiled, pig headed political brats on both sides of the political spectrum. Pig head Democrats threatened to move during the (admittedly disastrous) Dubya years. Republicans threatened it during the (admittedly embarrassing) Clinton years. Hell, I remember being what? Must have been six to ten years old sitting in a crappy Mexican restaurant with a friend and his incredibly Liberal mother – I knew she was notoriously Liberal before I even had a working comprehension of political differences at all – listening to her threaten to move to the Great White during Bush Sr.’s term. Can’t even remember why. Doesn’t matter. Her team was losing on something or other.

Of course, the latest incarnation, spawned by the Supreme Court’s ruling that Obama’s Health Care Plan is not unconstitutional, has a special level of irony. This considering Canada’s penchant for socialized medical care. But whatever. Spoiled, pig headed people aren’t going to let things like facts get in the way of a good threat. That in turn won’t stop people from pointing out the hypocrisy of it all.

Hey, if you’re the kind of person who throws a fit every time something happens that you don’t like, please by all means leave the country. The ability to compromise and to deal with shit when people with opposing viewpoints get something they want and to somehow coexist is kind of important for a proper Democratic Republic. One might argue that you, hypothetical expatriate, are why things are so jacked up around here – cynical assholes appeal to your assholeness, which causes you to vote for them, perpetrating continued assholism.

I would prefer the country be made up of people who want to stay and work to make things better for everyone, rather than people who want to complain because Red Team of the Blue Team didn’t win. This isn’t a team sport, people. We’re not soccer hooligans. We’re supposed to be an enlightened citizenry that stays informed and chooses the best available leadership, not chooses people based on who we want to lose the most. And if something doesn’t go our way then we’re supposed to compromise, not take to the internet and register our supreme discontent with… okay well, I’m kind of doing that right now.

But poor Canada, should they agree to let these whiny people move in. Because they will pack up all of their belongings, along with all their bullshit and irrational anger and intractability and penchant for complaining, and they will bring all of it with them. And it will be the same thing over again, only slightly colder. If I were Canada, I’d start putting up the wall right now.

Maybe if you’re lucky, Canada, those people will threaten to move to Greenland.