CAN-USA Tariff Strife (split from various pol threads)

[Mick]

There you go again, trying to fit me to "would not fight for Canada". I've repeatedly written that it depends on which country invades. How difficult is that to comprehend?

I won't fight for Canada against the US. Principle over country. By my principles, in the sum of everything there is not enough difference worth killing or being killed for in an exchange of US government for Canadian government. The US government isn't some kind of authoritarian hellscape. I've measured the lamentations of the people whose noses are out of joint against the definitions and examples, and found them laughably wanting. The change of circumstances simply doesn't merit it. Fools who want to die for public health insurance and gun control and ruinous environmental policies and racial and identity politics are free to do so if they wish. I doubt many would.

Go on: explain why living under US government would be sufficiently miserable to die over, or to pull the trigger on another human being.

If all you've got is "well, country" then we're back to "abstract fluff" - if the shoe fits you, wear it.

You mention health insurance, gun control, environmental policies, racial and identity politics as principles only fools would die for?

What about the principles of sovereignty, rule of law, elected representation, territorial integrity, and self-determination?

What principles justify one democratic country invading or annexing another democratic country against that country's wishes?

More specifically, if the US does invade Canada or Greenland, or annex either country against their respective wishes, would you hold the US government in the same esteem?

You wrote that "By [your] principles, in the sum of everything there is not enough difference worth killing or being killed for in an exchange of US government for Canadian government. The US government isn't some kind of authoritarian hellscape."

On the basis of principles, how can a United States that invades or forcibly annexes weaker allied democracies be regarded as anything but a threat worth resisting?

 

[quadrapiper]

It is interesting that the folks who rushed to call the possibility of a MAGA military intervention in a NATO nation a sign of a "mind virus" and a "conspiracy theory" with zero probability of happening are the same folks who later rationalized Trump's global tariff war as "tough love." Those same folks who dismissed his threats to economically subjugate Canada as being just talk, they are now rationalize why anschluss isn't really that bad a thing (in threads about both Canada and Greenland). Wanting self-determination before being forcibly absorbed into another country is now "abstract fluff" and "hand-waving at cloud-shaped diagrams". This is quite disgusting on a board that is supposed to be populated by people committed to defending Canada.

As far as clearly (for a given value of clearly...) stated ambitions, Trump is now 1:1 with Putin, with far more capability available.

I'm quite happy to have the PM et al making considered or fence-sitting noises if it strings things along and avoids drawing attention: outside of that arena, anyone loyal to Canada should be exceedingly wary of the US and considering what they could do to curb or harm the US generally* and specifically how they might resist in case of an invasion.

* For the moment, for most people, this probably means not buying American and encouraging one's MP to support divestment/divergence/self reliance, etc., not anything more exciting.

 

[ModlrMike]

Those who have nothing worth dying for, have nothing worth living for.

 

[McG]

Definitely forced annexation depends on context. Maybe you want to measure it by means, but I measure it mostly by ends. Some people would obviously be better off if their governments were extinguished and they were annexed, provided the new government gave them everything it already gives its citizens and possessions and is not worse than the previous one. That doesn't negate my belief that people prefer self-rule, even if they're miserable, but as a utilitarian measure there are some outcomes that I regard as beyond doubt. Given that, everything else is just discussing points on a spectrum.

Canada & Denmark are functioning democracies. This is not freeing peoples from oppressive or dysfunctional governments. The context of US annexing Canada or Greenland is 100% in favour of that being an act of evil.

People should have a voice in self-determination or annexation. Forced annexation is wrong, as is keeping a people that want to be independent in their region/homeland. Now the part that is apparently difficult to understand: forced annexation can be all of these at once: morally and legally wrong, AND not worth killing/being killed over, AND result in better outcomes for some of the newly annexed people.

"It's bad, but we should not resist, and let me tell you why it would actually good" - Once again, you are back to telling us that this anschluss is actually desirable to you.

The Trump Kleptocracy.

Doesn't matter. They're just an egregious example of what I expect and observe from many politicians. Sham foundations, insider trading, nepotism. Lots of examples.

People said he was an egregious irrepeatable aberration after Trump 1.0, but it happened again. You must be one who permits being repeatedly taken for a fool.

School shootings.

Bad. So are people running amok with blades, or running people down with vehicles. The US undeniable has this particular problem in spades. Doesn't weight how I feel about the big picture.

A few dead kids is an acceptable price to pay for your warm feelings.

Price gouging of Health Care & Health Insurance (Canada's system may not be great, but the US has the least accessible system of anything in NATO).

Depends on coverage. I have coverage 100% of the time, but no expectation of being able to access any particular service without unreasonable delay. People in the US who have coverage better than Medicaid generally seem to report being able to get what they want in timelines much shorter than I think I ever could expect. I'm educated and informed enough to know the usual game played with "life expectancy" and other statistical comparisons depends mostly on life factors beyond health insurance and health care.

I have wealth enough to look out for myself. Let the poor eat cake.

Politics that is more corrupt & more open to being bought.

Adscam.

So you are going to winge about something from 20 years ago while ignoring what is happening in the US today? And you are fine with criminal pardon brokers as legitimate businesses?

The rising class of oligarchs.

Power Corp.

Again, dipping into the old news while ignoring Oligarchs buying elections, and currying favour through bribes and vacuous praise? You are okay surrendering your actual influence to Musks & Bezoses who will buy it direct from whoever sits on the throne?

gerrymandering.

Acceptable cost for being able to vote separately for House, Senate, and President.

I've never seen anyone argue that rigged elections are an acceptable price for voting ... you are also assuming that annexed citizens would be extended the opportunity to vote for a president (and with any meaningful number of electoral college votes). Why do believe someone who would forcibly annex territory would subsequently extend benevolent voting rights to the conquered peoples?

binary political choice.

More than satisfactory, particularly with a near 50/50 balance.

People are not binary. The world is not binary. Forcing everything into binary packaging gives people less choice to pick someone who represents what they want, and less flexibility to hold incumbents accountable when they support a lot of crappy things. 50/50 balance doesn't mean anything of value. It just means the voters are even a less significant factor than the paying oligarchs.

emaciated public education.

Absolutely a problem, but confined mostly to deplorable inner city neighbourhoods, fortunately almost all under the control of the binary party choice most openly dedicated to alleviating such problems.

"I don't think this will affect me. The poors can suffer it."

The relative autonomy that comes from being 10 provinces and three territories vice being one big US state or territory.

I doubt Canada would end up as one state or territory.

Yes, the kleptocrat who keeps referencing "51st State" will (after forcibly annexing the nation) suddenly become benevolent. For a brief moment, gerrymandering will not be the cost of participating in pretend elections, and Canada will become ten states (with commensurate senate representation) and three territories with 55 electoral college votes spread throughout. This will not happen.

I'm not wasting time with your farcical list of why annexation would be good. It is full of crap and things Canadians could implement better ourselves, or for which most are not even asking for.

In any case, if you can't condone the suggested forced annexation of Canada (which Trump has suggested) without making a sales pitch for why it would be an overall good thing, then maybe you should not have been so dismissive of someone's earlier suggestion that you just move to the US and not fettishize their systems being imposed on us.

 

[Brad Sallows]

You mention health insurance, gun control, environmental policies, racial and identity politics as principles only fools would die for?

What about the principles of sovereignty, rule of law, elected representation, territorial integrity, and self-determination?

The US also has all of those.

What principles justify one democratic country invading or annexing another democratic country against that country's wishes?

Almost none. I don't care to think about it long enough to try to identify even one.

I suppose I must keep re-inserting context here, because so many people are determined to attack a straw man.

The scenario is that the US invades Canada. Some people "hope" that some people (others? themselves?) will take up some kind of resistance. My (repeated) position is that it isn't worth the cost, and I wouldn't do it. So far the counter-arguments/attacks are appeals to misty patriotism and lists of bad things about the US. The former are vacuous. The latter omit the lists of good things about the US. Upthread a bit I mentioned the possibility of severely disaffected Canadians fighting for the other side. Another category of people uninterested in killing and dying that comes to mind is recent immigrants. In the past 5 years, say, how many has Canada admitted? How many would shrug and make the best of being forced to live as Americans?

The morality of invasion isn't the question. Sure, for Canadians to rise up against any invader is morally righteous. To steelman it, they can claim they're fighting for a principle - sovereignty - rather than a mere country. The morality doesn't alter the utilitarian calculations. The scenario is exchanging one western liberal government for another, not being taken as slaves by Rome.

More specifically, if the US does invade Canada or Greenland, or annex either country against their respective wishes, would you hold the US government in the same esteem?

No, I'd lower it. After the past few decades, it's not particularly high, though. If you're going to keep on being triggered by my opinions, you should understand that the latest Trump outrage does not elevate my passions any more than any prior equivalent outrage by any other president.

You wrote that "By [your] principles, in the sum of everything there is not enough difference worth killing or being killed for in an exchange of US government for Canadian government. The US government isn't some kind of authoritarian hellscape."

On the basis of principles, how can a United States that invades or forcibly annexes weaker allied democracies be regarded as anything but a threat worth resisting?

I have many principles, so regrettably and inevitably sometimes one or more are in direct conflict. I, however, am not conflicted because I have the apparently rare ability to measure degrees of good and bad as broadly as I choose. Life isn't a courtroom.

Look, those of you in certain employment probably have no choice about fighting any potential invader. Most Canadians, though, do. If you want backup, you better figure out the ones most likely to answer and work the back channels to make sure the country is treating them well enough for them to do so. That might mean having to cut off a few interest groups, cold, and jettison a few policies/programs, maybe even reaching into constitutional amendment.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Those who have nothing worth dying for, have nothing worth living for.

Family and friends. Probably not politicians, activists, and ascendant political factions who are approximately hostile to my interests and ideals.

 

[Genetk44]

The precision and especially technology used in the recent Maduro snatch should make any Canadian, including our military, really think and rethink the idea of resisting. When you realize the Americans seem to have the ability to shut-down, from long-distance and relatively easily, our communications, our power grids and digital systems we are pretty helpless….and we just don’t have the manpower or weaponry to fight them off.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Canada & Denmark are functioning democracies. This is not freeing peoples from oppressive or dysfunctional governments. The context of US annexing Canada or Greenland is 100% in favour of that being an act of evil.

Not in dispute. Again, forced annexation by the US is wrong. Will I kill or die to respect that principle? No. Will I kill or die to protect this country as currently constituted if the alternative is the US? No.

"It's bad, but we should not resist, and let me tell you why it would actually good" - Once again, you are back to telling us that this anschluss is actually desirable to you.

Parts of it would be. You think it should bother me to admit that? Canadians emigrate to the US every year. Why would you expect anyone who does that, or wouldn't be bothered by it if it "happened" to them, to fight to keep the US out? They might deplore it, but - and again, this is another thing that seems to be hard for some here to grasp - they wouldn't necessarily deplore it to the point of being willing to kill/die.

People said he was an egregious irrepeatable aberration after Trump 1.0, but it happened again. You must be one who permits being repeatedly taken for a fool.

I thought none of Trump, Clinton, Biden, Harris was acceptable. He is just one of four in the same category. Others' subjective measurements are irrelevant to me.

A few dead kids is an acceptable price to pay for your warm feelings.

Yes. Nothing I can do can evade the fact that no matter under what government I live, there are going to be some dead kids because of one policy or another.

If Canada became a full part of the US and we started having school shootings, it would just confirm to me that our society is as sick in that respect as theirs, but we managed to keep a bit of a lid on it with unacceptably draconian illiberal firearm ownership policies. (And again, as I always enjoy pointing out, since the context of my observations is pretty much entirely inside the scope of "rise in resistance to US invasion", aforementioned policies pretty much negate the worry that I might not rise up in resistance. Can't figure out why so many here are incensed that I wouldn't spontaneously defend a country that makes it all but impossible to spontaneously defend it.) And if we don't start having school shootings, it means we gain everything on the good list and one less thing on the bad list.

I have wealth enough to look out for myself. Let the poor eat cake.

Not at all. I've argued repeatedly here that Canada ought to be completely axing some of its recent middle class giveaways and undoing some of its long-term social welfare policies that flow to well-off persons in order to focus more on the bottom 5% or 10%. Not many people here have chimed in with "sure, let's undo a few recent tax cuts and child care and dental care and child support and god knows what else that has been added in the last 10 years".

So you are going to winge about something from 20 years ago while ignoring what is happening in the US today?

While I'm looking back over 300+ years of what I think are worthwhile ideas about the relationship between people and governments, I'm not going to balk at 20 years.

And you are fine with criminal pardon brokers as legitimate businesses?

No, but 8 years of that is much, much, much, much less undesirable than one Iraq war. No-one gets to choose and dictate single standards of measurement.

Again, dipping into the old news while ignoring Oligarchs buying elections, and currying favour through bribes and vacuous praise? You are okay surrendering your actual influence to Musks & Bezoses who will buy it direct from whoever sits on the throne?

You keep trying to make this "black and white, this issue only". Save that for a teenage social studies class.

I've never seen anyone argue that rigged elections are an acceptable price for voting ... you are also assuming that annexed citizens would be extended the opportunity to vote for a president (and with any meaningful number of electoral college votes). Why do believe someone who would forcibly annex territory would subsequently extend benevolent voting rights to the conquered peoples?

Now you're bringing tinfoil hat theories into the discussion. Don't bother.

People are not binary. The world is not binary. Forcing everything into binary packaging gives people less choice to pick someone who represents what they want, and less flexibility to hold incumbents accountable when they support a lot of crappy things. 50/50 balance doesn't mean anything of value. It just means the voters are even a less significant factor than the paying oligarchs.

Pity, isn't it. Here I am in Canada, where we have so much more choice that it is a wonder I can feel disaffected about anything at all. 3 is the magic number.

"I don't think this will affect me. The poors can suffer it."

Again, if Canada gets seriously down to a horse-trading session to shift the way benefits are transferred in Canada, I'll still be willing to give benefits away long after pretty much everyone else is bleeding and screaming for the pain to stop. But if you didn't understand my indirect reference, here are the bones of it: kids are disadvantaged by poor family situations even before school age ("school is too late"); many of the schools in US inner cities are abysmal; most of those cities are controlled and have been for a half-century or more by Democrats. Pointing to that particular weakness does not enhance arguments that Trump (or any Republican) is the worst alternative.

Yes, the kleptocrat who keeps referencing "51st State" will (after forcibly annexing the nation) suddenly become benevolent. For a brief moment, gerrymandering will not be the cost of participating in pretend elections, and Canada will become ten states (with commensurate senate representation) and three territories with 55 electoral college votes spread throughout. This will not happen.

The kleptocrat doesn't decide. Congress does.

I'm not wasting time with your farcical list of why annexation would be good. It is full of crap and things Canadians could implement better ourselves, or for which most are not even asking for.

We haven't done a better job because we can't. We're stuck with whatever the politicians of the day crafted to suit their short-term needs. We'd need a proper revolution to wipe the board clean and start with an empty page.

I don't care what most are asking for. If most are satisfied, ask them to rise up to fight an American invasion. I suppose they still are allowed to wield pitchforks.

In any case, if you can't condone the suggested forced annexation of Canada (which Trump has suggested) without making a sales pitch for why it would be an overall good thing, then maybe you should not have been so dismissive of someone's earlier suggestion that you just move to the US and not fettishize their systems being imposed on us.

When that suggestion was made, I pointed out the poster was jumping onto a wagon I wasn't pulling. I was responding to the suggestion that people should rise up to resist an American invasion. I'm as entitled to want to change Canada as the people who changed it from what it was 10, 30, 50 years or more ago.

 

[Mick]

The US also has all of those.

An invasion of an allied democracy respects none of those.

Almost none. I don't care to think about it long enough to try to identify even one.

Oh, okay.

I suppose I must keep re-inserting context here, because so many people are determined to attack a straw man.

The scenario is that the US invades Canada. Some people "hope" that some people (others? themselves?) will take up some kind of resistance. My (repeated) position is that it isn't worth the cost, and I wouldn't do it. So far the counter-arguments/attacks are appeals to misty patriotism and lists of bad things about the US. The former are vacuous. The latter omit the lists of good things about the US.

The point is, if the US is invading allied democracies, the context has changed: the US would no longer stand for any of the above-mentioned principles, and likely wouldn't be the same country you seem to admire anymore.

Upthread a bit I mentioned the possibility of severely disaffected Canadians fighting for the other side. Another category of people uninterested in killing and dying that comes to mind is recent immigrants. In the past 5 years, say, how many has Canada admitted? How many would shrug and make the best of being forced to live as Americans?

Your guess is as good as mine.

The morality of invasion isn't the question. Sure, for Canadians to rise up against any invader is morally righteous. To steelman it, they can claim they're fighting for a principle - sovereignty - rather than a mere country. The morality doesn't alter the utilitarian calculations. The scenario is exchanging one western liberal government for another, not being taken as slaves by Rome.

Who needs principles when you have utilitarian calculations?

Name another western liberal government that has invaded or annexed, and successfully integrated another?

No, I'd lower it. After the past few decades, it's not particularly high, though. If you're going to keep on being triggered by my opinions, you should understand that the latest Trump outrage does not elevate my passions any more than any prior equivalent outrage by any other president.

Triggered? I think this is my first reply to you in about 5 years.

I have many principles, so regrettably and inevitably sometimes one or more are in direct conflict. I, however, am not conflicted because I have the apparently rare ability to measure degrees of good and bad as broadly as I choose. Life isn't a courtroom.

Look, those of you in certain employment probably have no choice about fighting any potential invader. Most Canadians, though, do. If you want backup, you better figure out the ones most likely to answer and work the back channels to make sure the country is treating them well enough for them to do so. That might mean having to cut off a few interest groups, cold, and jettison a few policies/programs, maybe even reaching into constitutional amendment.

I think you're massively wrong with this assessment of most Canadians.

 

[Brad Sallows]

An invasion of an allied democracy respects none of those.

Of course it doesn't. But after the invasion, unless the US is determined to merely occupy the country or install a puppet government, everyone gets all those things again. As fanciful as the invasion scenario is, a hypothetical in which the US people tolerate the invasion of Canada without admitting a population of 40M as states and territories is otherworldly.

The point is, if the US is invading allied democracies, the context has changed: the US would no longer stand for any of the above-mentioned principles, and likely wouldn't be the same country you seem to admire anymore.

I'm just a guy who mostly wants to live my life in peace, and I have a strong bias in favour of the individual over the collective. I don't give a shit about people attached to abstract notions of Canadian nationhood, or any nationhood. Canada is a great nation. So is the US. So is the UK, Australia, France, Germany, etc. I could live happily in any of them, but preferably one which is majority English-speaking. I doubt the powerful nations of the world are going to amalgamate much any time soon, but it's the Euros who have adopted "ever closer union" as an aim, and while forcible annexation has a bad taste that negotiated merger does not, it goes away and the end result for all the "just a guy" people is approximately the same. There is not enough difference to matter.

Who needs principles when you have utilitarian calculations?

Principles are good to live by, often shitty to die for. Worse is dying for something less than a principle, or a principle which is really just something contrived to protect a political governing class or our own oligarchic status quo.

I think you're massively wrong with this assessment of most Canadians.

I think it's still massively mostly young white guys who will show up to fight when it matters, or even show up to wear the uniform when it doesn't, and that the powers that be know this although they don't openly talk about it much because it's not an acceptable topic for polite company, and that right now there are a lot of things about Canada (and the US) that massively disaffect young white guys. If Canada's favourable-unfavourable measure doesn't massively out-perform the US's, don't expect them to massively turn out. They aren't going to put their lives on the line for the politicians in Ottawa or the academics in the universities who have practically made a sport out of mocking and sidelining young white guys.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Not a lot of people here so far making an open claim that they'd take up arms to resist a US invasion, and that they have the means to do it.

 

[McG]

Not in dispute. Again, forced annexation by the US is wrong. Will I kill or die to respect that principle? No. Will I kill or die to protect this country as currently constituted if the alternative is the US? No.

If it is wrong, why can you not touch on the subject of annexation without trying to sell all its "merits"?

Pity, isn't it. Here I am in Canada, where we have so much more choice that it is a wonder I can feel disaffected about anything at all. 3 is the magic number.

We are much less binary than the US, and seats are won by thrid & forth party candidates as well as independants. That is much better than the US, but I recall you were a strong proponent in preserving systems that gravitate to binary in every discussion on electoral reform.

You keep trying to make this "black and white, this issue only". Save that for a teenage social studies class.

??? US billionaires wield more influence than any hundred American voters. You dismiss that with reference to a Canadian company doing some shady tax evasion years ago. You have been selling the idea that being annexed by the US would bring us into some democratic utopia when in reality the nation is teetering into dystopia. And the best you have to support that position is to stumble back into ad hominem.

Now you're bringing tinfoil hat theories into the discussion. Don't bother.

What do you think is the tinfoil hat theory? That gerrymandered elections are rigged elections, or that an imperialist US would not give full franchise to citizens of conquered lands? If you don't believe both those things to be true, you might be in the tinfoil hat.

No, but 8 years of that is much, much, much, much less undesirable than one Iraq war. No-one gets to choose and dictate single standards of measurement.

You are assuming that what has been normalized under Trump will magically disappear after Trump, and you are assuming that Trump will not start a war ... he is not yet through his first full year, and already he is sabre rattling. That does not bode well for him not starting something comparable to Iraq.

Not at all. I've argued repeatedly here that Canada ought to be completely axing some of its recent middle class giveaways and undoing some of its long-term social welfare policies that flow to well-off persons in order to focus more on the bottom 5% or 10%. Not many people here have chimed in with "sure, let's undo a few recent tax cuts and child care and dental care and child support and god knows what else that has been added in the last 10 years".

Then why would you cite something that significantly disadvantages low income earners as a benefit of annexation by the US?

I thought none of Trump, Clinton, Biden, Harris was acceptable. He is just one of four in the same category. Others' subjective measurements are irrelevant to me.

Then why do you think something better is coming next when there are no trends to support that?

The kleptocrat doesn't decide. Congress does.

Which military action has Congress decided since Trump came into office? They did not get consulted in the removal of Maduro. They didn't even decide to exercise their authority over taxation when Trump imposed tariffs all over the world. Congress has shown itself to either be neutered or ambivalent. We can hope that will change, but even then I don't expect representatives in either house to benevolently hand-out equitable representation that will diminish the influence of current seats and current states. I also don't trust Congress to be a stable bastion of better judgement in the future, becaues the system that fills it has been demonstrably shown as broken.

We haven't done a better job because we can't. We're stuck with whatever the politicians of the day crafted to suit their short-term needs. We'd need a proper revolution to wipe the board clean and start with an empty page.

No. Canada does not need a revolution, and Canada does not need to be annexed by the US.

I was responding to the suggestion that people should rise up to resist an American invasion. I'm as entitled to want to change Canada as the people who changed it from what it was 10, 30, 50 years or more ago.

You quoted a statement that Canadians should have a right to choose before being annexed, and called that idea "abstract fluff." You then went on to promote why you would be happy to be lebensraum'ed by the US.

our right to make those decisions for ourselves.

Abstract fluff. You'll have to do better than hand-waving at cloud-shaped diagrams.

I vote in federal elections for a member of one legislative body. If I were American, I'd get to also vote for a senator and an executive team. Provincially I vote for one MLA. If I were American, I'd get to also vote for a state senator and a governor, and probably some other stuff like a LG and AG.

I'd have rights to expression and arms beyond the reach of tinkering technocrats and aggrieved activists.

I'd have greater accessibility to timely health care in a manner of my choosing.

Do go on about "decisions we make for ourselves", rather than those "made for us by our betters or by people with axes to grind who have the ears of our betters".

 

[HavokFour]

Not a lot of people here so far making an open claim that they'd take up arms to resist a US invasion, and that they have the means to do it.

 

[Brad Sallows]

If it is wrong, why can you not touch on the subject of annexation without trying to sell all its "merits"?

Because I'm not arguing the morality of annexation. I'm arguing against the presumption that anyone not already in the armed forces ought to resist annexation, and that it depends on what is at stake. What is at stake requires an assessment of the differences, good and bad.

We are much less binary than the US, and seats are won by thrid & forth party candidates as well as independants. That is much better than the US, but I recall you were a strong proponent in preserving systems that gravitate to binary in every discussion on electoral reform.

I'm a strong proponent in preserving systems that allow large minorities to occasionally govern as majorities. That is a distinction that matters. I'd rather Canada be a country in which a conservative party with 35-40% support in a good election can win a majority, than one in which a NDP/LPC 60-65% majority/coalition carries every election.

??? US billionaires wield more influence than any hundred American voters. You dismiss that with reference to a Canadian company doing some shady tax evasion years ago.

Regrettably, I've read the articles about studies that have looked at the power of money in American politics and found out that it just isn't that influential. Some, yes. Decisively, no.

You have been selling the idea that being annexed by the US would bring us into some democratic utopia when in reality the nation is teetering into dystopia. And your the best you have to support that is to stumble back into ad hominem.

I doubt I have claimed that it would be even so much as Pareto optimal. I reject all premises that the US is descending into some kind of dystopia. There will be midterm elections as usual. People will protest, mostly against the administration, and they will not be rounded up and imprisoned. The media will say pretty much what they please, and while they may be caught up short if they broach the threshold of libel/slander, accountability after the fact is not censorship.

You are assuming that what has been normalized under Trump will magically disappear after Trump, and you are assuming that Trump will not start a war ... he is not yet through his first full year, and already he is sabre rattling. That does not bode well for him not starting something comparable to Iraq.

If he pulls that sabre for something as egregious as invasion of an inoffensive nation, I expect my faith that the US is not descending into dystopia to be rewarded. He will be pulled up short. His orders will not be carried out. There will probably be articles of impeachment; they will surely pass the House even if Republicans narrowly control it; they are likely to pass a vote to convict in Senate.

Then why would you cite something that significantly disadvantages low income earners as a benefit of annexation by the US?

Because I don't expect or require everything to benefit low income earners.

Then why do you think something better is coming next when there are no trends to support that?

What is it you have in mind that I think?

Which military action has Congress decided since Trump came into office?

None that I know of. Much of the presidential flexing for the past couple of decades has been covered by the AUMF.

You quoted a statement that Canadians should have a right to choose before being annexed, and called that idea "abstract fluff." You then went on to promote why you would be happy to be lebensraum'ed by the US.

What I called abstract fluff was the suggestion that anyone should necessarily be willing to kill or die to preserve some of the particularly Canadian dysfunctions ("...ending all the particularly Canadian political and legal squabbles about the structure of the country and how money is transferred and which groups are favoured and what rights people have and how much they are subject to capricious limits") - the right to "make those decisions for ourselves". I'd rather not kill or be killed to continue beating our heads against those particular walls.

 

[Haggis]

You assume that we would have the same rights as Americans - massive assumption. I’m not that naive.

Not naive at all. Trump has never intimated that us, as citizens of the 51st state, would not share the same rights and privileges as residents of the other 50 states. Even Puerto Ricans have that.

Attacking US facilités impacts who the most on Canadian soil? The most effective form of insurgence warfare is striking the enemy at home, where they feel the safest.

My post had two possible insurgency paths. And the state of Canada would be "home".

 

[McG]

What I called abstract fluff was the suggestion that anyone should necessarily be willing to kill or die to preserve some of the particularly Canadian dysfunctions ("...ending all the particularly Canadian political and legal squabbles about the structure of the country and how money is transferred and which groups are favoured and what rights people have and how much they are subject to capricious limits") - the right to "make those decisions for ourselves". I'd rather not kill or be killed to continue beating our heads against those particular walls.

Neither the post you quoted nor your post discussed fighting for Canada. You quoted a complete post saying that Canadians should have a right to choose before being annexed, and you called that idea "abstract fluff." You then went on to promote why you would be content to be lebensraum'ed by the US.

You are defending & minimizing US threats of aggression in both this thread and the thread on the Greenland annexation. You are making arguments supporting the imagined benefits of such annexation. It is absolutely disgusting for someone to be advocating that we should roll-over and take it like Austria on a forum populated by people who have committed to defending this country.

 

[Mick]

Of course it doesn't. But after the invasion, unless the US is determined to merely occupy the country or install a puppet government, everyone gets all those things again. As fanciful as the invasion scenario is, a hypothetical in which the US people tolerate the invasion of Canada without admitting a population of 40M as states and territories is otherworldly.

Until very recently, the notion of a US invasion of another democracy was "otherworldly", and is probably why so many here are disturbed by recent US rhetoric (whether you personally believe it's merely routine or not).

I'm just a guy who mostly wants to live my life in peace, and I have a strong bias in favour of the individual over the collective. I don't give a shit about people attached to abstract notions of Canadian nationhood, or any nationhood. Canada is a great nation. So is the US. So is the UK, Australia, France, Germany, etc. I could live happily in any of them, but preferably one which is majority English-speaking. I doubt the powerful nations of the world are going to amalgamate much any time soon, but it's the Euros who have adopted "ever closer union" as an aim, and while forcible annexation has a bad taste that negotiated merger does not, it goes away and the end result for all the "just a guy" people is approximately the same. There is not enough difference to matter.

Sounds like you're fine with the postnational state concept, preferably if English is spoken.

I'll respectfully disagree with your claim that the bad taste of forcible annexation eventually goes away. Again- I'll ask you to name another western liberal government that has invaded or annexed, and successfully integrated another?

I think it's still massively mostly young white guys who will show up to fight when it matters, or even show up to wear the uniform when it doesn't, and that the powers that be know this although they don't openly talk about it much because it's not an acceptable topic for polite company, and that right now there are a lot of things about Canada (and the US) that massively disaffect young white guys. If Canada's favourable-unfavourable measure doesn't massively out-perform the US's, don't expect them to massively turn out. They aren't going to put their lives on the line for the politicians in Ottawa or the academics in the universities who have practically made a sport out of mocking and sidelining young white guys.

I think you underestimate the pride that most Canadians feel, regardless of their opinions about the government of the day.

Apologies if my use of "massively" triggered you.

 

[QV]

Brad’s posts are insightful, logical and thought provoking. It would be interesting to read counter posts that aren't overly emotional and laced with inflammatory accusations.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Neither the post you quoted nor your post discussed fighting for Canada. You quoted a complete post saying that Canadians should have a right to choose before being annexed, and you called that idea "abstract fluff." You then went on to promote why you would be content to be lebensraum'ed by the US.

You are defending & minimizing US threats of aggression in both this thread and the thread on the Greenland annexation. You are making arguments supporting the imagined benefits of such annexation. It is absolutely disgusting for someone to be advocating that we should roll-over and take it like Austria on a forum populated by people who have committed to defending this country.

Everything I have been writing about is situated in the frame of citizens taking up arms to defend Canada against US invasion. A couple of other contributors have tried to situate me in the position of debating the merits and legitimacy of annexation, among other things. Those are not my points. I reiterate a plain statement about legitimacy: it's not. If I wrote something that seems contradictory; fine, bring it up, I'll see what if any mistake or misleading or confusing thing I wrote. I've been equally straightforward about the merits: depending on who's involved, there are advantages and disadvantages.

Again, what is "abstract fluff" is not the right to decide, but that the idea of the right is necessarily worth killing or dying for when complete loss of the right is not actually at stake. Either the Canadian or US government provides a framework for making decisions, and I don't yield to the subjective believe that the Canadian one is better. There are some long-standing Canadian dysfunctions I'd be happy to be rid of, and I enumerated some. The US has some different ones.

My arguments are not to justify annexation. I'd rather annexation not happen. I am not obligated to remain silent while people propose incomplete lists of only bad things that would happen from becoming part of the US. There would be some good things. The point is not to sell the US - the point is to question whether the differences are worth killing and dying over. I maintain they are not; life would go on for most people and no-one is obligated to preserve the privileges of the classes of people who might lose some of their privilege.

The threats of US aggression against Canada and Denmark are of such low likelihood as to deserve nothing more than minimization. This is a subjective judgement. There is no index by which we can identify a concrete probability. I don't know what purpose Trump's bluster serves, if any, but I doubt an invasion of Greenland is in serious contemplation (except perhaps planners going through the motions because they have to) or that if so ordered, it will happen without substantive and effective US domestic opposition. I get that lots of people here have committed to defending the country. I was once part of that set. I've been crystal clear that there are circumstances under which I would do so again. I haven't claimed that Canada should "roll over and take it" in all respects. But all Canadians not legally bound to defend the country have a choice whether to rise in resistance. It is not disgusting to advocate that ordinary citizens not fight if the stakes are not high enough, or to assert and provide examples that the stakes are not high enough.

 

[McG]

This is Army.ca. An Army defends its nation. If you want to minimize/rationalize/moralize (and when you insist on describing all the "good aspects" of being forcibly annexed, you are minimizing, rationalizing and moralizing the annexation) or otherwise argue that Canada should not resist a forced annexation by the US, then you should probably go preach that somewhere else. We don't need surrender cheerleaders.