Well, now we know where you should run when the country turns over on you, Shi'a.
God save the Queen indeed !! Meanwhile our own constitutional protections are eroded by the president at every bill-signing ceremony. Last month's copious defense spending bill contained a provision empowering the president to declare martial law and override local law enforcement ... sneaked into the bill in the stealth of night. Of course, the president has the majority of appointees on the SCOTUS, so I would not be looking for a Canada-style decision from our own courts in the defense of civil liberties. We're screwed!!
Nice to see we still have a little rule-of-law going on. Now if only we weren't the Sudetenland* to America's Germany, I'd be feeling sunnily optimistic.
(* Fuck off, Godwin.)
3.
(Yup, I've encountered that belligerent wingnut defense many times. Good for you, DS!)
Let's hope Ogged has kept his nose clean.
Yay, Canada! If I could figure out how to get a job in Vancouver, I'd be sorely tempted.
Damn wholesome Canadians. But I'm in the clear.
Hey, you gotta keep out the riff-raff somehow. It would serve us right if Canada built a 3000-mile-long wall on the border.
Apostropher: Yes, but it would open up a lucrative poutine smuggling business for us!
9: We don't have the budget. We could probably build a 3,000 mile-long speed bump, though.
5: No, you're not.
I think things are turning, and while we're not out of the woods yet, I think the worst is past this time.
The biggest question I have is whether we'll have a real accounting this time, no more pardons "for the good of the country." If we don't face up to what's happened, then it'll only be a matter of time before it happens again.
Another nice ruling (though arguably of less significance): In Trenton the other day, the NJ state supreme court ruled that it is the responsibility of school districts to prevent bullying of gay students.
re: 'real accounting'
Yeah, there's a remote possibility that our bastard leaders may face justice, but not yours.
15: Hell, it would be progress if American leaders faced consequences in American courts, let alone international ones. (OTOH, have American courts ever prosecuted a President or former President? I don't think Canada's ever tried a Prime Minister.)
5 and 7
Still have my "Carte de Sejour" (aka Green Card in France) so it is always an option. Ahh, Paris in springtime trumps nubile juveniles at the community pool.
Oh, Canada... true patriot love in all thy sons command.
I posed this question in another forum roughly 18 months ago:
I have 15 and 9 year old sons and a 13 year old daughter. I am an American citizen, landed resident in Canada, married to a Canadian. The kids have the opportunity to become dual citizens. Should we make that choice for them, or is the potential downside to US citizenship (i.e. a draft) greater than the practical upside of access to the US for employment and education?
The consensus then was to go for US citizenship. What say you, the estimable Unfoggetariat, at this juncture of our shared history?
I thought you could have dual US-Canadian citizenship.
You can have dual citizenship, but neither country formally recognizes it. That is, if you have dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship, the United States will treat you as if you have American citizenship only, and Canada will treat you as if you have only Canadian citizenship. In most practical circumstances, this means that when traveling, you'd enter the U.S. as an American, and Canada as a Canadian, and in legal matters, the U.S. wouldn't recognize Canada's authority to intercede on your behalf.
Your kids, as American citizens, would be subject to a draft if there is one. On the other hand, if they work in the U.S., they'd be entitled to their social security even if they move abroad, and entitled to a $1 million exemption thingy on the estate tax. Makes some inheritance rules easier, too.
AND THE BIG ONE: they will never have to deal with USCIS or the Department of State if they move to the U.S., want to work in the U.S., go to college in the U.S., marry an American, whatever.
I'd register their births with the consulate. I think it needs to be done before they turn 18 or else they have to naturalize like everyone else, but I'm not sure about that.
Dual citizenship doesn't have the lustre it once did, but I'd say it's still worth it. (I guess this has to be one of those "I have a friend who..." stories from me -- I knowa couple of people with dual and they're certainly hopeful enough about its future usefulness not to have renounced it.)
If the draft is an issue, I suspect whatever party is in power in the US at any given time will bend over backwards to avoid it out of awareness of its political costs. Whether or not they wind up being forced into it kind of depends on how the next few years go, foreign policy-wise... and who can really say? American politics still has some non-horrible surprises left in it yet, I think.
Yeah, dual is what we were thinking of - no reason to give up their perfectly good Canadian cloth citizenships.
I guess a big part of this question is predicting the course of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan et al. How likely are things to get much worse, making conscription more than a tin-foil hat sort of concern?
Within the next 11 to 17 years? Hard to say. But if I've read the mountain of paperwork properly, permanent residents in the U.S. must register for the draft, too, so if the kids are likely to live in the U.S. long term, it's going to affect them either way. So they'd incur all the costs, draft-wise, but none of the benefits of citizenship.
My brother has dual citizenship and he's happy with that. He's become a Canadian chauvinist, though. He keeps his American citizenship so he can vote in American elections.
A draft would be shortly followed by a violent revolution. I can't see any obvious downsides of dual citizenship during a violent revolution.
A friend of mine who has joint US/British citizenship says he gets a really hard time from US immigration/customs whenever he returns to the US from the UK. Apparently the dual-passport thing is suspicious.
God save the Queen.
She ain't no human being.
(Sorry--the song has been running through my head every time I skim past the post.)
What are you doing associating with terrorists, McGrattan?
I was just a few days away from a Where's M/lls? post.
The draft is coming - the merkin people are becoming more scared and desperate, and will support it after a few more acts of asymmetrical warfare. There might be riots but there will be no revolution.
The NWT seems a better bet than Pennsyltucky right now for the life I hope to be able to give them. I guess I want them to be, in the phrase Peter Gzowski chose as the winning answer to a contest where entrants were asked to complete the sentence,
"As Canadian as ___________."
What do y'all think the answer was?
There might be riots
"riots" s/b "boycotts of Target"
ogged wins!!!!
You weren't a Morningside devotee, were you? I picture you too young for that.
Man, I miss Gzowski.
33 should be
"a large double double"
No, that's just one of my favorite Canada stories. I can't believe I haven't told it here before (I kinda think I have, but it doesn't turn up in a search).
35: I lived there for three years and still didn't know what a "regular" was when I went to get coffee for the movers. Poor kid ended up with black coffee instead of cream and sugar. (I mean, really: "regular" coffee has adulterants in it? Ridiculous.)
I think the statement "the American people are being more scared and desperate" is 100 percent wrong. The American people are sick of the war. Right now the war only impinges on their consciousness occasionally, since it involves them so indirectly. Add a draft, and BOOM!
My kids are dual nationals. I don't worry about the American draft: we'll nuke before we'll draft.
My son is liable for service in the Bundeswehr, though. We'll learn all the particulars in 5 years or so.
I've wondered whether dual, which I/they could claim, would give my kids more options for college/financial aid.
You can't be a member of most Canadian bars without either citizenship or being a landed immigrant. At least, that was the law last time I looked.
I can imagine universities in Canada favoring Canadians for aid purposes.
Thanks, 27 -- I was going to post "Whatever Queen, God saves" in comments here a few days ago, but then Googled and found that I've been mishearing the lyric all these years -- it is "We love our Queen, God saves" -- and by then felt too self-conscious to brind it up. The Fascist regime, that made you a moron, potential H-Bomb!
I mean, really: "regular" coffee has adulterants in it? Ridiculous.
B, I'm pretty certain you're in a really tiny minority in your linguistics there. Regular coffee has caffeine. Black coffee doesn't have cream or sugar.