canada

[Samnospam]

How do you people tolerate living under a monarchy? In this day and age, living under a system where lordship over the masses is inherited? Even if in name only, it is so offensive that it should not be tolerated. Are you people so placid that you allow someone to call themselves your ruler? It makes me want to riot just thinking about it.

[dagwud]

r3020, I have to disagree in that I think Iranian leaders have to be very worried about now.  The Egyptian revolution was orchestrated and led mainly by younger adults of which Iran has millions of and who are young enough to have not been alive during the rule of the Shah of Iran or the U.S. hostage incident.  Yes Iran had locked up or possibly executed many of the leaders from their 2009 demonstrations that took place after their bogus election but I'm thinking their is no shortage of young adults longing for change that have to be very encouraged by the success of the Egyptian people to bring about change in their country. 

Another thing to consider is that new advances in electronic communication such as Facebook and Twitter make it even harder for the rulers of Iran to shut down all forms of communication for their people.  Satellite TV and the internet make it much harder for these oppressive rulers to keep their subjects down on the farm.

I'm thinking since Obama was deemed fit to receive the Nobel Peace Prize after just eight months in office then it only follows that Al Gore should get the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership role in creating the internet. 🙂

[dagwud]

Hopefully the recent events in Egypt will make many in the Middle East think twice about taking up arms with Bin Laden when they realize they can bring about positive change without having to strap on a suicide bomb and kill themselves along with innocent women and children.  Hopefully this will make it harder for Bin Laden and others to recruit new members.

[kraft-t]

Perhaps by choice. A tradition they wish to maintain.  For the most part they are free to do as they want to do.

[schnurrbart]

Wonder how it is that in Iraq, afghanistan, iran and a few other muslim countries, every mother's son has an AK47 and/or rpg?  They are/were mostly run by dictators and kings???

[tomtoolbag]

  Have you read any of the MSM stories about lost weapons and ammo? Sure, a lot of those weapons were former military arms, but where did the rest come from, considering that they are heavy and bulky to move?

  It's similar to the amount of opium being grown in Afghanistan, where it was eradicated before the 2001 invasion but is 4, 5, 6, ? times that amount now. With all the electronic and satellite surveillance of that country, and the massive amounts that is grown, it's safe to say that it's not coming out by some pack-mules through a rough mountain pass.

  So, how do any weapons get there???

[schnurrbart]

I'm not wondering so much as to how they get there as much as I am wondering why they aren't in the other countries.  There are militants all over the place but in Egypt big knives seemed to be the only real weapons.

[Red Steele]

Funny and clever reply!

You have to remember that Canucks ancestors were Tories that were run out of America, so they are dyed in the wool subjects of the British crown. I don't imagine that they mind being sheep.

[bruce MN]

One of the most clever replies I've ever seen here.  Kudos Sam.

Followed by one of the more ignorant posts I've ever seen here from you. You sound like one of those folks who would like to think that every American today is descended from that little band who landed at Plymouth Rock.

Do you think there was nobody up there before the relative handful of American colonists headed up there? If they hadn't so thoroughly looted their contemproraies here before heading that way they most likely wouldn't have been all that welcome, but like any immigrating force that brings alot of money with them they were allowed to stay, if only tolerated.  What they left here more than anythign was strings of warrents.

Canada  had it's own indeigenous population which has been intergrated and intermixed genetically with much more smoothly than here. And of course the big French influence, big long before the Brits officially colonized Canada. The praireis are crawling wtih Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Danish immigrant descendants. And lots and lots of Russians and Germans. And religious groups in colonies..Amish, Mennonites Hutterites.

And I suppose a smattering of descendants of Tories who migrated per Revolution.

[Canuck_2]

Cute Sam.

I expect you know the answer to your question but just in case others do not understand we have a different form of government than you do.

We have a parliamentary system.

No president so the Queen of Canada is our head of government.

If this was changed then we would have to change a lot of things in how our government operates.

As it is we do not elect our Prime Minister. He/she is selected from and by the party with the majority of members elected and can be changed without an election since they hold that position with the agreement of the rest of the Members of Parliament (MP).

The Queen while being the official head of government is represented by our Govenor General who really wields the power of declaring who is able to be Prime Minister and is also responsible as the Queen's representative to official calling of elections at the request of the Prime Minister.

If you followed our politics you may remember the kerfluffle when our present Prime Minister ran into a situation which was about to see his government defeated in Parliament went to the Govenor General, at that time Michaelle Jean and asked her to prologue Parliament so he had time to redo the budget that was at the root of his problems. Partially because Harpers minority government had just been elected she, and she was the one that had to make that decision, allowed Parliament to be prologued for a couple months so they could come back with a budget that would pass.

Now if we were not allowed the freedoms that we have, and some would argue we have more freedom than your country, and had to live under a ruler like the Egyptians, Tunisians, Iranians etc. there would be rioting in the streets here too. 1 thing that would bring on the riots fastest is to have our health care system taken away and some thing like your system forced on us.

So you go riot because of our Queen and we will gladly stay home with our Queen 'ruling us' and with our health care system intact.