The U.S and the U.K are the leaders in bringing our "freedom" back to the old age.

Oops, no, then you could actually walk anywhere you wanted, only burdened by water , ice and fire, and food was actually free these days.

Privacy? There is none. I live in NYC, and I don't ride bus too often, but over the holiday I did. When I got on to a bus, I noticed there is 20 cameras install on the bus. Do we really need this? This country is getting sick. Democracy, yea, my a$$.

I think government sponsored terror is used as an excuse for more surveillance that is made for us human beings to believe that our light doesn't shine.

Terrorstorm
http://video.google.com/...ocid=786048453686176230

While I can't debate the loss of privacy, it is also ironic that the next time something untoward happens, all of the poor Liberals who decry the loss of privacy are the first ones to demand that the gubermint do more to protect the poor little victims.

Witness Gwen Ifills on the PBS NewsHour w/Jim Lehrer and her heartfelt plea as to what the Federal Gubermint should have done to prevent the Columbine shooting where responsibility was abdicated by every person aware of and who did nothing regarding the long term bullying of a couple of nerds.

Yup, its the gubermint's responsibility! And who's job is it to remember to wipe or to not drink gasoline?

Discussing this topic is akin to debating the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz! The Gubermint is our mom - Protect us! But we want privacy!

What else could you expect from a bill called The Patriot Act. My question to the group is how they know what our laws are since the Patriot Act is a black box and if revealed, our government surely would not be able to deal with the global war on terrorism as effectively. Since you know, its going so well right now.

Yea, the global jihad is getting smaller as the US has been befriending more and more islamic countries. I mean, look at Pakistan! We have to stay with Musharaf because the alternative is a jihad sympathizer and our girl was just assasinated....by terrorists.

(Though I wouldn't have expected our government to say anything other than terrorists since it helps advance their agenda)

What global war on terrorism? Oh, you mean the result of over 60 years of your own misguided foreign policy and gunboat diplomacy and interfering in other countries' business coming home to roost? Heaven forbid that someone get fed up with the meddling and while the act (911) was certainly heinous, was it really worse than propping up innumerable governments (and their own horrible excesses) to serve your own special interests?

The Shah, Pinochet, Noriega, Marcus... quite a list of "allies" you had there. Even the boy you guys knocked out of Iraq recently was one of yours once.

And ALL of them backfired.

Every one.

And now you're victimizing your own people. "Patriot Act" indeed. It spits on the concept of patriotism. "Persons of Interest". SAVAK would be proud.

Who the heck IS running your country anyway? Do you folks even know any more? I'm sure there have to be people there who care, but let's face it lads: you're in a pretty bad way and the threat isn't from outside. It's all internal.

Your Founding Fathers would turn in their graves over the so-called Patriot Act.

Wake Up.

Hear hear!

It's all about the benjamins.

save yourselves its too late for us here.

I actually think/hope the initial post was sarcasm... Well if the economy doesn't pick up soon the US is quickly losing significance (relatively speaking - compared to ancient empires lasting 1000s of years) so just hang in there a bit longer... ;-)

There was a LOT of sarcasm in it but an element of painful truth as well (as most sarcasm is prone to concealing).

Sadly.

You're not using common sense-- what was the alternative to your "The Shah, Pinochet, Noriega, Marcus et all"? Those are countries that seldom or never have or will elect a non-draconian and/or corrupt leader, no matter what the ideology... the whole world has to grit its teeth and deal with the least of the worst... while not to mention trying to contain the maelstroms caused all over the world.

If you were living under an Iron Boot, you'd be crying why we didn't save you(pacifists & liberals usually can't defend themselves).

re The Patriot Act: you're only stating the obvious / most of us don't need to wake up about it-- the pendulum will swing back with subsequent administrations... happens in most countries... won't be the last time either.

And why exactly is it any of your affair? Do you any of your citizens live there? If they do, do the prudent thing and recall them.

The US is NOT the world's self-appointed Little Dutch Boy - stop believing your own myths. It has FAR too many problems at home (inequality, ghettoes, no health care system, racial intolerance - made worse by the much hyped and mythical, yes mythical, "War On Terror", economic mismanagement, and the list goes on) to worry about. Try fixing those instead of running around trying to deceive and distract your public by claiming to save a fanciful democratic ideal which by and large has never existed and definitely does not exist after you leave a given country.

Would you like a recent real world example of the way things really are? You couldn't even take care of your own when Katrina struck. A small fleet of ships flying a red and white flag with a Maple Leaf SAILED and got there before your own did and made a real world difference (not some idealotgical concept) where you couldn't - or wouldn't.

Don't get me wrong - we were and always will be there whenever someone needs us - but the point is that we should not have had to be there. An additional point is that if you want to help someone, it generally doesn't involve breaking down their door.

Tend to your own house before you go barging into someone else's.

And if you are so aware of the inexcusable excesses of the Patriot Act and having in your relatively recent history the grotesqueness of the McCarthy Era, why did you allow it to recur?

Are you perhaps avowed students of Santayana?

You haven't woken up!

Why would we care indeed.
You know, the best response might be to simply say that if the @ssholes you cite were content to simply victimize their own people, we shouldn't care.

The irony is that Saddam Hussein really wasn't that bad if you consider he was only killing his own citizens and was serving as a foot to keep the wacko s***es and Iran in their place. Left to his own devices, we should have just contained him. Besides, if we wanted the oil, it was well within our power to simply demand it.

But let's not forget that for all of your complaints that we do too much, who are all the whiny countries who are not crying like little birds for us to give them more more more??? Name the exceptions to this. The EU b!tches but relies on the US for their defense as if they are unable or too irresponsible to trust their own resources. And the rest of the world is dependent upon our aid as well.

Yup, if others are content to leave us alone, I will agree and say to hell with interfering in others domestic issues - and that includes your refusing the incredible amount of aid they receive as well!

So walk your talk!
You don't want us there. Great. It wouldn't bother me to keep our money and apply it to solve our own substantial needs. Not one bit!

So walk your talk, shut up and don't call us to save your @ss with every flood or mudslide or drought or famine or genocide or stubbed toe you sustain. Grow up and assume responsibility for solving your own problems without everyone either running to emigrate to the US or another western country or whining that we don't give you enough aid!

Yup "Tend to your own house before barging into someone else's" indeed. Its time we tell you whiny birds to solve your own problems and to stop calling us for aid. Why should my taxes go to solve your problems. On the other hand knowing that they aggravate you so much is just a little consolation upon hearing they are given to you so unnecessarily.

(The best thing we might do for our welfare might be to simply refuse entry to all of the political refugees who run from the mess in their own Utopias and tell them to go back and stand up and make their OWN countries better!) But then why do I think we would hear the same @ssholes complain that we are uncaring and insensitive to the trials and tribulations of others???

Oh, and you might want to read up on the McCarthy Era - Especially the Annals of Communism Series of Klehr and Haynes resulting from the direct access to the Soviet Archives. And then look up the Venona and Amerasia cases recently declassified. The truth is that the Communist infiltration was MUCH worse than ever reported, despite MCCarthy himself being a zealous Bozo. So his excesses aside, the underlying premise was more serious than ever reported.

Oh...

We did walk the talk.

In New Orleans.

And on 911 when we gave your out of fuel planes a place to land.

And when we took your indisposed citizens into our homes and gave them food and shelter and a place to catch up as their world went mad.

'nuff said.

ROFLMAO!

Yup, the US depended on other countries to resolve the Hurricane Katrina disaster!

And we needed foreign assistance to survive 9/11???

What WOULD we have done without you????

Let's see, just start by telling the US that YOU can support the UN.

Yup, you saved our @ss. ROFLMAO.

And now tell us about your own little conundrum in the June of 2006 and the little party that was planned in Ottowa...
And why do I get the feeling that you are an immigrant to Canada?

You did this time kiddo, while FEMA sat with its thumb up its a@@ and its mind in neutral.

If you actually paid more attention to events happening o0utside your own street, let alone your own city or state, you might actually learn something.

Why do you think Kanye West came out with his famous line?

Its not the Federal governments job to take precedence over an individual's, city's or state's fundamental responsibility to care for their own welfare.

FEMA comes in afterwards!

But then one from a place where so many still expect the government to be their mom wouldn't understand.

And what do I care about some line from someone who does rap 'cause they can't play music addressing a bunch of culturally deprived yahoos who can't pull up their pants and instead think its cool to emulate a prison practice of advertising that you are loose and open to gay sex?

But it tells me where you get your info!

And since you know all, get someone to read you this tidbit that you conveniently ignore (and the source is opposed US policy!):

http://www.antiwar.com/mercer/?articleid=4344

"How generous are Americans compared to everyone else? Canada's Fraser Institute measured the "generosity gap" that separates Americans and Canadians, in both "the extent and the depth of charitable giving." It found that "the average donation in the U.S. is THREE AND ONE HALF times more than in Canada." As a percentage of their aggregate income, Americans give more to charity than citizens of any other country.

Foreign governments have been showcasing the "charitable" nature of their wealth transfers to the tsunami-stricken regions. Yet as hard as they try, they don't come close to private American charitable donations in any given year. Add up the amounts governments have appropriated from their citizens to help victims of the tidal wave. The total (including pledges from the World Bank and the Asian Bank of Development) comes to $3.7 billion. This is a mere 1.5 percent of what Americans gave privately in 2003.

According to the American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC), "American individuals, estates, foundations, and corporations" gave $241 billion to charity in 2003 – privately and voluntarily, a sum that excludes the cost of volunteer work."

Yup, them Canucks sure are helpful.

Canada is no better they have their own issues with internal debacles. You do give up some freedom for security but who is to judge when is enough?

We do? What would those be? We're not perfect but we sure don't have the BIG issues that the US has (lack of privacy, lack of freedom, paranoia, ignorance of anything approaching a global awareness that leads to disdain by other countries, a populace led by the nose by unscrupulous paid-for politicians, "special interest lobbies" and entertainment / energy companies)...

Yup - we're good.

"You do?"

Hahahaha!

Yup, with the language police in Quebec - you know, the province that demands that everyone else learn French? And the same one where the Mayor of Montreal was forced to step down after making the statement that they couldn't guarantee the safety of the non-frog populace?And the same Province who even if they do vote to succeed is faced with the fact that they are not economically able to support themself! As well as lines of people eschewing your socialist medical plan and opting to come over to the US for timely care.

Yup, you have just a few problems...not to mention being targeted for terrorist actions!

Oh, but even the great white north had troops in Iraq. Oopps.

Why is there any surprise that a country with its own Thought Police openly masquerading as Homeland Security has a low privacy rating?

I'm sorry but "Land Of The Free" stopped having meaning for that country a LONG time ago.

And yes, I live in Canada - likely the only free state left in BOTH continents of the Americas.

Enjoy it while you can if Harper ever gets a majority government we are all screwed since he's a Bush wannabe.

I would rather see Layton in charge over Harper and the thought of having a hippie in charge should be enough to send shivers down anyones spine.

Not gonna happen.

Read your Canadian history.

We traditionally elect Conservative governments to send a message to the Liberals to shape up. When they get their act together, we turf the placeholders.

This trend has continued for longer than I have been alive and I'm 47.

Harper's government is most charitably described as Lame Duck. He's hamstrung and will remain that way.

I was going to say, they can't be worse than Airstrip One itself.

I am surprised that Finland falls so low in the analysis. I guess I'll be moving to Canada instead then?