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*66% of Canadians say abortions morally acceptable, compared to 36% of Americans.
*67% of Canadians say homosexuality is acceptable, compared to 49% of Americans.
*87% in Canada think sex before marriage is okay, compared with 57% in the United States.
*84% in Canada say divorce is acceptable, but 62% in the U.S. say the same.
*79% of Canadians say having a baby out of wedlock is okay, compared to 45% in the United States.
*53% in Canada support the death penalty, in contrast with 62% of Americans.
Why are Canadians, when they're just north of us, so much more socially liberal than Americans? In the past, Americans and Canadians were pretty much the same on their views on moral issues, but Canada has liberated at a much faster pace than we have.
Yeah we Canuks believe in freedom, we don't like a lot of rules
shoved down our throats regarding morals....perhaps by the end
of Obama's two terms you folks will shake off some of those old
fashioned moral issues as well....
Yeah we Canuks believe in freedom, we don't like a lot of rules
shoved down our throats regarding morals....perhaps by the end
of Obama's two terms you folks will shake off some of those old
fashioned moral issues as well....
Individual freedom is wonderful and some day I pray America will have many of the libertarian ideas Canada now supports.
The liberals in America will not appreciate that because of gun ownership issues.
The neo conservative bible thumpers will not appreciate that because of freedom of expression and the legalization of Marijuana.
Both for example.
We have to break in two sides of the spectrum to bring individual freedoms back to America.
I believe in nearly unlimited freedom of speech and to own and carry firearms. In all cases I bind these freedoms with the responsibility for the consequences of your speech or use of the weapon. If your speech brings on great suffering (the anti gay tirades at soldiers funerals) you are responsible for compensating the injured for their suffering. Similarly if you shoot someone without a very good reason, like defense of yourself or others, you are responsible for the damage in addition to any criminal charges. In addition to enforcing responsibility for the consequences of your actions of free speech or gun carrying I would change our commercial code to require executives with fiscal responsibility to be liable to the extent of their personal fortunes for any corporate debts due to bankruptcy. This change would drive home the fact that an executive's mismanagement can have devastating consequences for others and force the managers to share the pain.
The current Canadian Prime Minister is from their countries conservative wing, I believe, which would probably be a fairly moderate conservative wing south of the border, but the point is, these things tend to be very cyclical in most modern republics, and as a result it is very hard to attain accurate sampling for this type of survey.
In effect, too, polling tends to skew based on the office holder on the time. People are typically much more morally outspoken during conservative presidencies because of the tendency for the leadership to focus on national defense, business, deregulation and so on. Conversely, during liberal presidencies, people tend to focus on things like taxation and health care.
The degree to which people tend to relate their freedom is generally a product of what freedoms they see currently repressed, not typically repressed.
Too, most of these "moral" issues, in my opinion anyway, should just be private issues. I don't care about sex before marriage, homosexuality, abortion or divorce, but mostly because, having passed 6th grade history, I understand the minimal impact with which these things have on the stability of a community. This sort of thinking was played out by 1815. I'm surprised Gallup would participate in such polling.
Who decides what is and isn't a moral issue? The things you mentioned are personal liberty issues (except for the death penalty). Moral issues would include taking care of the least of us and being a peaceful world citizen. We all know who is the moral one out of these two countries in those regards.
As far as why Canada is more moral and openminded-- maybe educational attainment?
I believe in nearly unlimited freedom of speech and to own and carry firearms. In all cases I bind these freedoms with the responsibility for the consequences of your speech or use of the weapon. If your speech brings on great suffering (the anti gay tirades at soldiers funerals) you are responsible for compensating the injured for their suffering. Similarly if you shoot someone without a very good reason, like defense of yourself or others, you are responsible for the damage in addition to any criminal charges. In addition to enforcing responsibility for the consequences of your actions of free speech or gun carrying I would change our commercial code to require executives with fiscal responsibility to be liable to the extent of their personal fortunes for any corporate debts due to bankruptcy. This change would drive home the fact that an executive's mismanagement can have devastating consequences for others and force the managers to share the pain.
I like your idea about making corporate executives personally responsible for the failures of their enterprise. But I would extend that rule to cover politicians at all levels of government. Budgets should be balanced and failure to do so by the politicians responsible for the public fisc ought to have all their personal wealth confiscated and they and their families thrown out on the street.
Who decides what is and isn't a moral issue? The things you mentioned are personal liberty issues (except for the death penalty). Moral issues would include taking care of the least of us and being a peaceful world citizen. We all know who is the moral one out of these two countries in those regards.
As far as why Canada is more moral and openminded-- maybe educational attainment?
I think your congratulations to the Canadians is a bit premature. The Canadians turned to socialism in the 1980's under Pierre Trudeau. It's a bit early in the process to take a victory lap. Appying the same philosophy--"taking care of the least of us"--the Soviets took 70 years to drive their nation into the ditch. Give the Canadians time. And as far as being peaceful world citizens it's easy to yell 'Peace, peace' when you know someone has your back when push comes to shove. The Canadians and the rest of western Europe have for over half a century enjoyed the luxury of having a strong United States keep their peace. Maybe if we had withdrawn to our own borders after WWII and let the Europeans deal with the Soviet aggression they might have a different understanding of "peace."
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