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I always have felt safer when in Canada. The nicest people in the World. If I were younger , I would move there , wish I had ,..long ago. The US is such a mess now , that , it looks like nothing will help. We have had a crime family running things for way too long.......
Canadians are very nice people. I agree with you, but I still like Alaska and some areas of the US as much as I ever will. I lived for years in Northern NY, next to Canada, and the people there are just as nice as the Canadians. I worked with some, and several spoke the Canadian/French spoken around Montreal as well as English. Real nice folks I remember to this day.
Canada's equivalent to our Bill of Rights, your Charter of Rights and Freedoms, even states the government may choose to ignore it, to put it simply. Ours doesn't and bit by bit our courts have hacked away at the worst infringements on rights. As more cases come forward more progress is made against the bad parts of the Patriot Act. Our rights listed in our Bill of Rights are absolute rights unlike yours. The government may not simply ignore them by passing a law saying they will. There is a significant difference there from yours. And this isn't even getting into the elitist sort of nature of your government, with land owning requirements and such for certain offices.
The rights in the charter are guarteed and the government cannot simply ignore our rights for kicks. Any infringement must be "demonstrably justified". Infringement is not taken lightly here.
Canada in fact has a significant crime problem. Maybe our murder rate is higher, but you have enough other crimes (rape, etc.) to make up for that. Do a little research.
I have done research and you are partially correct, Canada does have a higher crime rate...property crime that is.
Our murder rate varies by state and locale within states. The U.S. has much more people than Canada and in fact gun laws vary widely. Strangely enough some of the worst areas as far as crime go in the U.S. are the areas with the gun laws. Washington D.C., NJ, MD, etc., have tight gun laws and restrict carrying of weapons and have high crime rates. Vermont and Alaska have the loosest gun laws, any adult may carry a gun openly or concealed without any permit or license. The crime rates in VT (one of the safest states in the U.S.) and AK are no where near the level of areas such as D.C. that have strict gun laws.
I realize that there are different gun laws for each state....which is why there are certain states I would never entertain the possibility of living in. You are correct that the murder rate varies in the U.S. The point that I was making about homcides was that if you compare a Canadian metro like Vancouver with 2 million people to it's U.S counterpart which one do you think has the higher homicide rate? I think if you don't feel that comparing Canada to the U.S is fair due to the population difference, you should keep that sentiment in mind when comparing a sparsley populated state like VT or AK to the D.C area.
Furthermore, pretty much any weapon is legal in AK and VT. Provided federal laws are complied with concerning registration on class 3 weapons (more tightly regulated than "normal" guns such as standard barrel length semi-autos, bolt actions, revolvers, etc., those "normal" guns do not require federal registration and are readily available in free states), I could own a grenade, launcher, almost any artillery I want, etc. And that fact hasn't caused any significant issues concerning crime. Gun control only affects the law abiding. Case in point, the only crime ever committed with a legally owned class 3 weapon (in this case a machine gun) since 1934 was by a police officer years ago. 74 years and only one crime committed with a legally owned example of those supposedly "dangerous" weapons like machine guns, grenades, etc.
No criminal intent on killing someone is going to not do so because the law says he/she can't own or carry a gun. Schools in most of the U.S. are off limits to carrying weapons (not all but most) yet that did not stop the school shootings in those gun free zones. I liken carrying a gun to having a fire extinguisher in my house: I hope to never need it but if I ever do I don't want to be without it. I know people whose lives were saved by them having a gun (they're not in VT or AK but other states BTW) to use on their violent attackers. Sometimes only the sight of a gun is enough to scare off people intent on harm, other times you do need to actually use it. Your fears of people carrying guns are not based in reality. People going off suddenly who are legally carrying a gun is incredibly rare.
Well, I wouldn't say my fears are not based in reality. If I remember correctly, in Intro Criminology, we learned about an experiment in which the subject was more likely to become violent(under stress) if there was a weapon present in the lab. This has been replicated and similiar results have been found. If you think about it, that sees pretty intuitive. People feel more powerful with a weapon and they may react to perceived slights more aggressively than they would without the weapon. Also, it's my understanding that Texas has some fairly pro gun laws....They also have a pretty high violent crime rate....
And that's not even taking into account remote areas where wildlife can be dangerous. I never venture into or camp in the wild without a gun. It's also useful as a signaling tool should I be injured or whatever, and for getting food (meat) should I need to. Guns are tools, they're only used for bad purposes by bad people. Many rural Canadians have guns and hunt.
And we can look also at the high taxes in Canada: the power to tax is the power to destroy, and to enslave. Taxes enslave you, making you work for the government rather than for yourself part of the year. And since I stumbled upon it today and rather enjoyed it despite it not being complete, here is a recording of President Calvin Coolidge speaking about precisely that: YouTube - President Calvin Coolidge
I think this is just opinion. I for one do not see taxes as enslavement. Other than the some slums I passed through in Mexico, many U.S citiies I've been too had some pretty atrocious visble poverty nothing like anything I've seen in Canada. The U.S's education system is in serious decay with many schools lacking textbooks and a huge gap between "have" and "have not" schools. This phenomenon simply does not exist in Canada. I will gladly pay higher taxes so that everyone has access to medicine,education,food etc. If you look at which states have the highest ranked schools it's states like NJ,NY,CT all of which have very high property taxes. It's no coincidence that tax aversse states like NV,AZ rank near the bottom.
I wish he was still president...
There are of course other things I could say but I think that's enough reasons given for why I would never want to live under the Canadian government. Canada is a beautiful country, outside of the cities (understand I despise all cities wherever they may be) but I couldn't tolerate your government. As it is I can barely tolerate the U.S. federal government at times.
Canadians are very nice people. I agree with you, but I still like Alaska and some areas of the US as much as I ever will. I lived for years in Northern NY, next to Canada, and the people there are just as nice as the Canadians. I worked with some, and several spoke the Canadian/French spoken around Montreal as well as English. Real nice folks I remember to this day.
Canada , like the US is a big Country, people and places vary at you travel across this vast Continent . My time in Alaska was a very pleasant experience , I would move there also , ..If , I were younger.
The rights in the charter are guarteed and the government cannot simply ignore our rights for kicks. Any infringement must be "demonstrably justified". Infringement is not taken lightly here.
The problem is it's the government that interprets what is "justified" and government officials (judges in this case) have a tendency to look out for the best interests of the government. Unlike yours, ours does not authorize Congress to ignore it no matter the reason.
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I have done research and you are partially correct, Canada does have a higher crime rate...property crime that is.
You may also want to look into how crimes are classified and reported differently.
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I realize that there are different gun laws for each state....which is why there are certain states I would never entertain the possibility of living in. You are correct that the murder rate varies in the U.S. The point that I was making about homcides was that if you compare a Canadian metro like Vancouver with 2 million people to it's U.S counterpart which one do you think has the higher homicide rate? I think if you don't feel that comparing Canada to the U.S is fair due to the population difference, you should keep that sentiment in mind when comparing a sparsley populated state like VT or AK to the D.C area.
I was talking per capita rates not simply numbers. Per capita rates tend to be lower in states with less restrictive gun laws than those with strict laws in the U.S., which obviously says that the strict gun control in the strict areas isn't stopping crime. The big problem with comparing cities would be that many of the large cities in the U.S. that first come to many's minds, like NYC, Chicago, DC, etc., all have strict gun laws and still have crime problems. I believe the reason cities have higher crime rates is related to population density. People simply aren't meant to live so packed together in cities and it leads to problems you don't have as many of in less densely populated areas. Taking away people's ability to defend themselves is not the answer.
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Well, I wouldn't say my fears are not based in reality. If I remember correctly, in Intro Criminology, we learned about an experiment in which the subject was more likely to become violent(under stress) if there was a weapon present in the lab. This has been replicated and similiar results have been found. If you think about it, that sees pretty intuitive. People feel more powerful with a weapon and they may react to perceived slights more aggressively than they would without the weapon. Also, it's my understanding that Texas has some fairly pro gun laws....They also have a pretty high violent crime rate....
Well I have seen the opposite effect. Armed people tend to get less aggressive because they are more confident they can survive the situation so can be calmer in handling problems. You should read "More Guns, Less Crime" because for every study that gun control supporters have come up with claiming to show guns increase problems, others have found evidence to the contrary. Texas (and several other states in that part of the U.S.) has a serious problem with illegal aliens coming through the southern border. The southern border is also where drugs are routinely smuggled in from Mexico. In fact, corrupt mexican soldiers have crossed the border at times to escort drug smugglers into the U.S. It's a serious problem that Canada doesn't have at the moment to the same degree as the U.S. (but don't worry, the problems are slowly moving North and will become a bigger problem for Canada in the future). Nonetheless, Texas' laws such as the castle doctrine law and concealed carry laws have helped against crime there. Once some violent criminals get killed it tends to frighten many others (obviously there are exceptions but this has an effect on crime).
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Many rural Canadians have guns and hunt.
Sure but carrying guns for defense is another matter. Actually, it's struck me that many rural Canadians are rather pro-gun and dislike Canada's firearms laws, but the urban anti-gun areas force their views on the rest of the country. Sounds like a few U.S. states actually, like IL and NY.
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I think this is just opinion. I for one do not see taxes as enslavement. Other than the some slums I passed through in Mexico, many U.S citiies I've been too had some pretty atrocious visble poverty nothing like anything I've seen in Canada. The U.S's education system is in serious decay with many schools lacking textbooks and a huge gap between "have" and "have not" schools. This phenomenon simply does not exist in Canada. I will gladly pay higher taxes so that everyone has access to medicine,education,food etc. If you look at which states have the highest ranked schools it's states like NJ,NY,CT all of which have very high property taxes. It's no coincidence that tax aversse states like NV,AZ rank near the bottom.
It's fact. As an example, if you pay 40 percent of your income to the government in taxes, that means 40 percent of the work you are doing is for the government, and you have no choice in the matter. It's enslavement. Slavery is working for another and having no choice in the matter, and that's what taxes cause.
Many people choose to live in poverty in the cities. They prefer not working and having the government pay for everything. They are also the ones who still want to live in FEMA trailers after Hurricane Katrina when others have managed to get on with their lives. More socialism is not the answer.
The states you listed all have plenty of terrible schools despite the heavy funding. Good teachers do well with or without heavy funding for education, contrary to what the teacher's unions and socialist politicians might claim. It's a fact that homeschoolers on average do much better in the U.S., using much less money in the process. You can't buy good education with money. Those who use the schools should pay for them. Currently many parents see the school system as a way of having someone else raise their children so they don't have to be bothered. Hence the support for the heavy funding, extra programs, etc., when in fact these parents don't care about their children's education a whole lot. To work as parents and educate their children would get in the way of careers, or sometimes just gambling, drugs, and drinking. Believe it or not I have a college degree (might be surprising given my other posts) and am actually certified at the moment to teach history (a.k.a. social studies but I refuse to call it as such) at the high school level. What I saw in schools disgusted me and is one reason I will only teach as a last resort for income. The wastefulness and lack of accountability for enormous amounts of tax money, the attitudes of parents, of other teachers, of administrators, everything. Lack of money, I can assure you, was not the reason those schools were doing poorly. There needs to be a big attitude change in the entire education system before it does any good, at least where I've been.
Now , thats a testimonial , few places can attest too. There are others , parts of Montana , North Dakota , Idaho, Washington , and the UP of Michigan.
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