From: allenmk@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (The Not So Tall Adventurer)
Subject: Re: US as No. 1 (3 data books)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 16:22:40 GMT

godfrey@vxdesy.desy.de writes:

>I don't know - you make a serious observation on thisnewsgroup and without fail
>some Canadian idiot comes back with a stupid answer!  Does anyone have a
>serious answer, or shall I assume that when all else fails in trying to
>defend your horrible little country the best you can do is revert to childish
>insults?


Don't you see, Lawrence?  People are trying to talk with you in the one
language you seem to understand.  

I'm from the U.S., but I now have a number of good friends in Canada, people I
spent the summer with in the former Soviet Union (please, don't start telling
us all the things you hate about the CIS--we don't need to hear it here).  In
fact, the group's director and his family started out with American citizenship
and they moved to Canada and have now taken Canadian citizenship because they
prefer living and working there.  Not all people who have tried living both
places have come to the same conclusion you have.  

You have chosen to live in England, it seems.  England has problems just like
any other country--how would you like it if we started using those problems
(such as the ongoing scandal in the royal family), or made up problems based on
narrow experiences, to say that England is a rotten place and all the English
are terrible people?  I won't do that.  I know that in every country there are
good and bad people, regardless of race or religion.   I know that there are
problems, and there are people who fight those problems, as well as people who
make them worse.  I CANNOT make a generalization about any country simply
because I didn't like my own experience there.  You've been to Canada and had a
bad experience.  Maybe next time you go there (not that I believe you will,
based on your current attitude), if you don't go with the idea that everything
will be horrible but actually go with the hopes of enjoying yourself and
finding the good there, you would have a better experience.  The same with
Germany.  I lived in Germany for a year six years ago, as an exchange student.
Until I spent last summer in Minsk, that year was the bext experience of my
life, and I returned only yesterday from visiting my German family (who, by the
way, are far from being the racists you would call them because of their German
heritage--they have done a great deal to help immigrants to Germany.  Just
recently, a Chinese family lived in their home for several months until they
were able to find an apartment that was better than the quarters they could
have gotten in the "Asylantenheim"--the refugee home.  Outside of opening their
doors to this family, they have done a lot more for refugees).  I really
enjoyed visiting them.  Now, I can't wait for an opportunity to go to Canada 
and visit my friends--whom I personally consider like brothers and sisters--
there.  

Melinda Allen
-- 
Melinda K. Allen                  The LORD is close to the brokenhearted 
allenmk@ucsu.colorado.edu       and saves those who are crushed in spirit.   
allenmk@tramp.colorado.edu			               Psalm 34:18 

Newsgroups: soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.british,soc.culture.canada