"Let the (middle-)Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark"

Back when I was a mere lad growing up in Montreal, I recall chuckling over an Alberta bumper sticker: "Let the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark."

Albertans sit on a hefty share of Canada's oil reserves, and liked to joke about cutting off the tap if Quebec and Ontario pissed them off too much.

It seems that almost all of Canada now shares that attitude with respect to the (middle-)Eastern Bastards and the flow of democracy. According to a new poll, "More than three-quarters of Canadians said they didn't think the United States should try to promote the creation of democratic governments in other countries". (Hat tip James Taaronto*)

This should surprise no one. Canada didn't slouch into democracy until nearly a century after the United States, and didn't draft a constitution of its very own until 1982. I guess they're still kinda hurt that the U.S. didn't help speed their progress toward Democracy, and so figure that nobody else should get a hand either.

Canada has many redeeming qualities, a fact that the Canadian people appear desperate to obscure through their adoption of merciless and self-destructive foreign policy attitudes. Perhaps its all a ploy to keep real-estate values down by making the country seem unapetizing to Americans.

* who spells his name "with two A's"