Buh Bye
By Mitch Berg
On reading David Drucker’s op-ed in the Strib (via the LATimes), it’s tempting to simply mutter “good riddance” as Drucker – whose column is so sodden with lefty caricature that it reads like parody – and his wife decide to move to Canada:
I’m sure a lot of other dyed-in-the-organic-wool liberals muttered something similar that dark morning in 2004, but unlike most of them, we meant it. Plan A: John Kerry wins, we build that dream ski house in Vermont. Plan B: Move to Vancouver.
So, Plan B it was. We’d had enough of Bush, the direction the United States was going, and this was the last straw. Never mind that we lived in Cambridge, Mass., arguably the most liberal city in the bluest of the blue states. We were packing our bulk granola into our diesel Beetle and heading out.
But then, after reading the cloyingly vacuous Drucker’s analysis of Canadian and US politics, you reconsider…
…and mutter “good riddance, yuppie a****le”. I don’t care what your politics are – but we’re a better country to be at least be rid of one pair of worthless quitters.
December 5th, 2006 at 11:03 am
Hey, doesn’t Drucker call himself an “information architect”?
December 5th, 2006 at 11:24 am
after the 2004 election I printed some business cards with the following text:
“Your Directions to Canada
Start: Downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America
1: Go NORTHEAST on I-35W to I-35 N ……(24.4 miles)
2: Go NORTH on I-35 N to MN-33 ……(110.6 miles)
3: Go NORTH on MN-33 to US-53 ……( 17.6 miles)
4: Go NORTHWEST on US-53 to INTERNATIONAL BRIDGE……(137.8 miles)
5: Go NORTHWEST on INTERNATIONAL BRIDGE (Portions toll).……(1.31 miles)
6: End at Fort Frances, Ontario, Canada
Total Est. Time: 7 hours, 28 minutes
Total Est. Distance: 291.78 miles”
I would hand one of these card to whatever “progressive” was laying on about how evil Bush was. When they figured out that I wasn’t joking they were invariably “hurt” – can you imagine that?
December 5th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Kel, only one word comes to mind…
ROTFL!!!
December 5th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
And right after they got there, the Canuks elected the Conservative candidate prime mininster. Life is good.
December 6th, 2006 at 11:56 am
See, I considered the bailing for Canada thing (even to the point of working in Vancouver for a while – wow, what a great place to live), but it all came down to this.
I was born in this country. My family bled and died for this country. I am an American. I may be very angry at some of the things this country does and has done in the past, but when it comes down to it, I love the Constitution, I love the land, and in general, I love the people.
I do believe that the biggest threats to our country come from within. Terrorists may bomb us, they may kill us, they may make us bleed and die but they will never be able to destroy what America is. They can make us hurt but they can not defeat us. Only we can do that. We can do that by turning away from the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. There are various things we might do that cause us to turn away from these fundamental principles. We can do it by overextending ourselves so much (in a variety of ways) that we put ourselves in a situation where we have to compromise these principles to continue. We can do it by valuing comfort and safety so much that we’re willing to violate these principles to keep our material pleasures. We can do it by not teaching our children the basics of what these principles mean or what the values of them are.
So I look at all of this. On the one hand, I see that America is the most significant power in the world. Its actions reverberate around the globe. On the other hand, I see that Americas greatest threats come from losing site of what we are, should be, and can be.
The only place for anyone who cares about America or who cares about America’s impact on the rest of the world to be is here. In America. As an American.
To have that and give it up is the easy way out. The coward’s path. I understand that some people may have to take that path, but for me, it would be a betrayal of my ancestors, my future, and my world. I may not have the moral fiber or the steely spine of some of my ancestors, but when it comes down to it, I don’t think I can be quite that selfish.
I hope that someday in the future, America feels secure to me. I’d like to spend some time living in foreign lands and traveling the world at a leisurely pace. But at this point in history, I’ll have to content myself with short visits because my duty to my family and my country is here in the United States of America.
There is a lot of work to be done here and a lot of it will be done with the opposition of other patriots who disagree with me on what needs to be done or if anything needs to be done at all. I don’t really know what it is I need to do to make these things happen, but I know that if I leave and quit and don’t try I’ll surely fail.