I need clarification wrote:

Lizard_King wrote:

There's at least one Canadian who still makes sense, and that's more than many places, including the People's Republic of California, can claim.

You weaken your already ridiculous argument when you refer to the state that tries hardest to preserve the rights of its citizens as if it were a communist country. Just a little tip for you.

Now, we out here in California may not be able to match the pounds-per-capita record set by those of you in flyover country, but we do our best to make you feel even worse about yourselves by exporting images of unimaginably beautiful people in movies and tv nonstop.

Anyway, simply clicking your heels repeating to yourself that the free market system is the best system isn't going to take you back to Kansas any sooner. Besides, how would you know? You speak of the theoretical on one hand, then compare it to the real on the other. For example: the ideal of capitalism is certainly better than socialism as realized by most countries in the past 100 years, but guess what? So is the ideal of socialism. The reality of capitalism as implemented currently in the US is corruption on a scale never even dreamed of by the founding fathers, aided by a combination of a lack of respect for basic human rights by other countries along with a semi-regulated market in this country. When Bechtel and Halliburton are given the contracts to rebuild Iraq after a secret bid process, THAT'S NOT FREE MARKET CAPITALISM. The fact that the CEO's of these companies are all connected in very tenable and undisputed ways to current administration officials (all the way up to the President whose almost-successful campaign to actually be elected to the office he now holds they largely funded) should be just as bothersome to one who claims to be a capitalist (as opposed to yet another Fleischer manque) as to those on the left side of the aisle.

So, please continue referring to Amurrrka as the "best danged country on earth" while refusing to admit even the existence of anything beyond our borders, but please do so in the privacy of your own home and let those of us on the coasts do the thinking from now on.

Love,

Everyone else in the country.