We Should See Other Blogs

Here in Canada, we have an election approximately every two years or so. This is because we have a minority government. The Conservatives (who are actually called what they are here) got less that 50% + 1 in the last few elections, so they basically have to work together with the other parties to get things done.

This of course means that not a whole lot gets done. Or at least when things are done, they’re driven to the ideological centre instead of the comparatively hard right where The Right Honourable Stephen Harper would, I think, gladly bulldoze us.

It’s a good thing. The various parties dangle the spectre of election in front of eachother, everyone goes home suitable angry and frightened, and the secretaries and bureaucrats who actually do things do things. There is no radical, decisive action, everything is completely gridlocked, and the boat doesn’t get rocked.

This is, I think, how government should be. It should be a lot slower than it is to make big decisions. Take, for instance, the American PATRIOT act (another in a long series of American legislation named the opposite of what they actually are). It was obviously sitting in a drawer somewhere, waiting to be trotted out at the appropriate moment. Should it have waiting a while so cooler heads could prevail? I think so. It’s a bad piece of legislation written by people who are very much not the patriots they think they are.

In this sense, the Republican victory this year is a good thing. There will be no groundswell of liberal or conservative change. The two parties will dangle the “American public” and the “mandate” they received in front of eachother, everyone will go home suitable angry and frustrated, the Democrats to their secret Communist societies, and the Republicans to their secret extra-marital homosexual trysts, and the secretaries and bureaucrats who get things done will get things done.

It’s a beautiful thing.

I got a call a few minutes ago.

Me: Hello, [my company name], Dan speaking.
American (really fast): What sort of cutter grinding do you do?
Me: Just about any that can be done.
American: What kind of machines do you have?
Me (thinking how in the world this will help him): We 10 [machine name]s and…
American: I’m surveying your shop. I hope you don’t mind.
Me (thinking this a telemarketer or something): Sorry, where are you calling from?
American: [company name] about 18 miles across the border. I’m looking to get some cutters reground but maybe I’ll just call back next century. *click*
Me: WTF just happened?

This whole conversation took place in under a minute. It was perhaps the rudest phone call I’ve had in a few months. And of course it had to be an American. *sigh*

We got a new machine today — a very nice, sturdy piece of well-needed equipment, I might add — that everyone has been looking forward to for quite some time.

I walked into the shop to catch a glimpse of… the American flag. No, wait, two American flags. And what appeared to be bunting. All over our new machine.

Now, I’m no anti-American zealot. I love Americans as one might love one’s gun-toting, Bible-thumping, gas-guzzling, war-loving older brother. But I don’t want the flag plastered all over my workplace. We’re not that way in Canada.

It puzzles me to think of exporting something with your country’s flag plastered on the front. Sure, “Made in America” somewhere on the packaging is a nice touch, a sign of quality, perhaps even a testimony to decent engineering. Maybe a little flag somewhere near the ingredients. But on a stationary box that someone’s going to place in the middle of their shop? Isn’t that just a little… rude?

To the south, Americans seem more socially conservative than they have been in fifty years. Although social liberals in the United States most certainly exist en masse, it seems axiomatic that the States’ social policy is drifting right-of-centre. Partly driving this shift is the disproportionate power of the evangelical political arm, which is to the social conservatives as the gay lobby is to the social liberals. The shift is also driven by the hopelessly broken American electoral system, in which the only two parties of any consequence, the Democrats and Republicans, are essentially cut from the same cloth and advocate policies differing from eachother in (what looks like to the rest of the world) minor details.

Yet, the United States has the largest military force in the history of mankind. The country is a cultural hub for the entire world. It’s the consumer power that drives entire economies. It’s a geopolitical superpower unlike any other before or likely to arise anytime soon.

What’s a simple Canadian to do? I am not an American, yet I am affected by the actions of that powerhouse on my doorstep. I am affected in countless ways. Some of these ways are too subtle to quantify. Others are so obvious they’re not worth talking about.

I come from a long tradition of Canadian social liberalism, in that I’m Canadian. I also come from a short tradition of social conservatism, in that I’m third-generation immigrant stock. Depending on who you choose to believe, the influence of the United States in Canadian politics and social life is a terrible intrusion or conversely a long-needed correction.

I’m not going to spell out some long argument in favour of social liberalism, nor am I going to cast (too many) aspersions on our neighbours to the south. I will, however, point to results as a guide for my own cast of mind.

Canada is a secular government. This is, of course, ridiculous, as no-one can be truly secular. Everyone has a religious bias of some kind. Yet, secular government is the best thing we’ve found yet to protect disparate people from the ravages of raw religious power. We insulate everyone against that possibility by forcing those in power to separate church and state, to keep religion out of politics, to keep religion out of schools, and to keep religion in the churches and mosques. Impossible? Yes. But it works. It works most of the time. The balance sometimes sways too far in favour of anti-religious sentiment, but secular government works.

This secular government has resulted in acceptance in the form of multiculturalism, rights for minorities, gay rights, voting for women, abolition of slavery, tolerance, and that sort of thing. Some of these values are strongly antithetical to my beliefs as a Christian. Yet I accept that in a secular state, I cannot legislate lifestyle. If I could legislate lifestyle, I would be doing damage to my reputation as a Christian, and to the reputation of Christians as a group, and to the liberty of other consciences than my own. Thus I accept — and seek to protect — the secular state, and accept that this secular society will by definition accept and mandate things I find reprehensible.

What does this have to do with the USA? In the US, there’s a grand tradition of social liberalism as well. Yet there’s an even stronger current of social conservatism — the country was founded by religious fundamentalist extremists, after all — that stretches back to the USA’s very beginnings. Also, while Canada was founded by agreement, confederation, and negotiation, America was founded in the crucible of violence, civil disobedience leading ultimately to war, a war prompted almost purely by economic considerations.

The founders of the USA were, despite their origins, quite interesting people. They envisioned a secular state. They referenced a God that seems, in retrospect, to simply be some sort of elemental force. They separated church and state. They had seen what religion and political power does when mixed and didn’t want it repeated.

What happened?

Why is it now that some amorphous political arm of a bunch of squabbling evangelicals can command policy shifts in the world’s only remaining superpower? What happened to that secular state? Why does Canada embrace diversity while America embraces homogeneity? Why does America look like, to the rest of the world, verging on fascism?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. Part of it may be that the static political system in the US has existed so long that every participant instinctively knows how to game it. Part of it may be the almost comical fear that seems to pervade the US experience. Part of it may be the fierce nationalism that seems to periodically seize the national mindsphere.

As far as I can tell, it’s not a good direction to travel in. Isolationism? Bad. Fierce nationalism? Bad. Lack of tolerance? Bad. Religion dipping its censor into the inferno of politics? Superbad.