I went down to visit the relatives in Indiana last week. (And to pick up sis)

When I was down there I had the opportunity to talk politics with 'em and a common
thread kept coming up in their questions. Although I will talk politics with anyone
they brought it up to me which made me feel tres bien.

My grandmother and my cousin both asked me how Canadians or others view the United States right now. Those of you who know me can imagine how much I had to say about that. (I am a US citizen currently but am applying for my Canadian citizenship today actually) I tried to explain to them the differences between Canadian and American thought about social policy and responsibility, government, etc. As I have been reading "Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values" by Michael Adams I had facts to back up what I was sharing. They still could not believe that there were differences, that we were not trying to emulate them, that the vast majority of Canadians didn't agree with the war in Iraq etc.
Their minds could not go past "Saddam was bad so he had to be taken out" which is such a narrow minded viewpoint. Why wasn't he bad before? Why was he our ally while still being bad? Why don't we free Sierra Leone? Why don't we go and help out Israel, Ireland, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia in the same way? blah blah blah. Their eyes went blank as their mind tried to process what I said through what they read or heard on CNN.

Not to sound arrogant, whether they were left or right wing would not have mattered as they could not think outside the box they were presented with. My cousins husband
is Republican but still thought about what his party was doing and disagreed with some of it. Though he dislikes Kerry he really dislikes Bush. He is right wing without being suicidal about it.