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I think the strongest differences that appear between American and Canadian conservatism is due to Canadian conservatism coming from the Tory tradition, and specifically the influence of Red Tory thought on Canadian Conservative thinking:
However, in recent years Canadian conservatism has been more and more influenced from ideas south of the border, but this stuff is why at their hearts the two cultures often don't feel the same ways about things when push comes to shove.
American liberals are pro-immigration and for more programs that help illegal immigrants or legalize them, while conservatives seem to be completely anti-immigration and for strong measures to deport illegals. Canadian liberals are more likely to be wary of immigration as a force that will drive down the price of labour, but favour refugee and family re-unification programs, whereas Canadian Conservatives want lots of immigration but a strategy with more temporary foreign workers and less bringing over of their families. Both groups seem to have little sympathy for illegal immigration. Canadian Conservatives are almost universally for universal healthcare, and see putting the burden of healthcare onto businesses as a business unfriendly policy, although they'd be for Canadians having the option of spending on a two tiered system. Canadian conservatives tend to be more monarchist and and liberals more republican, but this is definitely not a hard and fast rule as the subject very rarely comes up. Canadian conservatives, although many are religious and there is an unrealized desire to outlaw abortion, very rarely try and blur the lines between the separation of church and state. Religion, largely, isn't mixed up in the same way with political thought and political religious fundamentalism is at a minimum, although one does sometimes find unspoken undercurrents, like Harper being an evangelical christian (but never mentioning it), and also being crazy loyal to Israel.
Quote:
Originally Posted by netwit
One difference that comes to mind is that both liberals and conservatives in the US seem more fanatical in their views. At least lately.
True. One major difference is that I think ones political stance is a very important and deeply held aspect of personal and collective identity for individuals and their communities. In Canada, this is much less the case, and there is less a feeling of permanence in the political set up because political parties are often dying and new ones being born. Americans are stuck in a rigid way of thinking about it, almost like it's two religions, and you have pressure to adopt completely the dogma of the whole platform and join one. Republicans and democrats identify each other by cultural features and seem to really dislike each other in a way I haven't seen here yet. They're all like "this is who I AM and I won't stop talking about politics all the friggin time". Here, we mostly seem to have bitter divisions due to regionalism. I think the left and right can't get as radicalized in Canada because we actually have a centrist political party they'd lose votes to if they tried. They have to hug the centre, because if the Conservatives got too radical they'd bleed Red Tories to the Liberals, and if the NDP got too leftist again they'd never be able to hold onto their recent successes and chance of forming the government. Sometimes similar dynamics play out in provincial politics, but they end up with effectively two party systems sometimes to. Still, the general effects this sort of thing has on the culture as a whole keeps things from getting too radical one way or the other in the end. Quebec is an interesting exception because the parties are aligned along Separatist vs. Federalist axes and Left-Right ones, with most parties having more internal left-right variation then you'd see in other jurisdictions.
Respondents in the United States are less likely to see 11 of the issues tested as morally acceptable:
- Contraception (79%, compared to 91% in both Canada and Britain).
- Divorce (65% in the U.S., compared with 80% in Canada and 79% in Britain).
- Sexual relations between an unmarried man and woman (59% in the U.S., compared to 83% in Canada and 82% in Britain).
- Having a baby outside of marriage (53% in U.S., compared to 78% in Canada and 74% in Britain).
- Medical research using stem cells obtained from human embryos (52%, compared to 65% in Canada and 56% in Britain).
- Sexual relations between two people of the same sex (40%, compared to 64% in Canada and 58% in Britain).
- Abortion (36%, compared to 60% in Canada and 54% Britain).
- Doctor-assisted suicide (35% in the U.S., compared to 65% in Canada and 61% in Britain).
- Pornography (32%, compared to 42% in Canada and 40% in Britain).
- Prostitution (23%, compared to 41% in Canada and 34% in Britain).
- Suicide (13%, compared to 22% in Canada and 29% in Britain).
The only difference would be that they wouldn't likely associate government programmes with 'socialism.'
Oh, I'm sure you can find those in the Netherlands as well. But I don't think they're nearly as common as they are in the US. At least they don't have a federal party that represents them.
Abortion (36%, compared to 60% in Canada and 54% Britain).
We presented our foremost abortion warrior, Dr. Henry Morgentaler, with the Order of Canada.
Heniek "Henry" Morgentaler,[1][SIZE=3]CM[/SIZE] (born March 19, 1923), is a Canadianphysician and prominent pro-choice advocate who has fought numerous pro-choice battles. His youth was shadowed by World War II and incarceration at Dachau for being Jewish. After the war, Morgentaler immigrated to Canada where he went into medical practice. After learning of the many women desperately wanting to abort their pregnancies, Morgentaler challenged anti-abortion laws first in Quebec and then in other provinces. Morgentaler was successful, arguing that the laws were harmful to women and against women's rights. In 2008 Morgentaler was awarded the Order of Canada.[2]
American liberals are pro-immigration and for more programs that help illegal immigrants or legalize them, while conservatives seem to be completely anti-immigration and for strong measures to deport illegals.
This is not exactly true: American conservatives are in favor of converting undocumented aliens into legalized slave labor for the American agriculture industry.
I think it was well-deserved. He did a lot of jail time for doing the right thing.
"Every mother a willing mother. Every child a wanted child." -HM
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