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Countries That Shouldn’t Exist
Nationalism is in the air these days. (That and the surely virus-infected spittle of the unmasked woman clearly standing over the yellow line behind me at the supermarket yesterday, but I’m not one to worry.) I’m not here to contribute to the extensive debate on whether that’s a good or bad thing. I only mean to suggest that it may have given some the erroneous impression that not only may borders be a good thing per se, but that the current ones are necessarily as well-drawn as they could be; in other words that we somehow landed on a good batch of countries, when some clearly aren’t worth the effort of keeping around anymore. I offer this not as an exhaustive list but only a few preliminary nominations.
5.) Greece: This country is a lie. I have no problem with the Greeks except that they’re not Greeks. Mainland Greece was largely depopulated in the early Middle Ages, its unbroken connection to the classical civilization like so many national myths an invention of 19th century romantic folderol, and repopulated by Greek-speaking Romans from Anatolia and the capital. The modern Greeks are not Hellenes as they call themselves but Romanoi. And none of this phony getting along with the Turks either. No one’s buying it. Rename the country the Eastern Roman Empire and get busy retaking Constantinople. Rest not until mass is heard once again under the domes of the Hagia Sophia.
4.) Ireland: I’m sorry Michael Brendan Dougherty but this is a preposterous country. Celtic language and culture, which I believe amounted to a few rocks piled atop a clump of moss, were eradicated and replaced by a variant of English culture. Cry into our Guinnesses about it we may, but it’s true and it means that modern Ireland is little more than an angsty British teenager run away from home. Even Irish Catholicism which once offered a moral rationale for independence has given way to vapid secularism, something that should make the emerald isle more than at home in today’s UK, which it should grow up and rejoin.
3.) Thailand: This country was the only kingdom in Asia not to fall under the sway of European imperial powers. Today it is a tourist destination for those who wish to engage in deviant sexual practices not tolerated by modern western society. Surprisingly that turns out to be a positive, non-fractional number of deviant sexual practices. Also, the Thai King just went into isolation with his harem, because he has a harem and can do that. That colonial bucket list and its last unchecked box are surely waiting under a dusty pith helmet somewhere.
2.) Cuba: It’s been recognized since the early republic that Cuba is a natural American possession. More than that, it should be a subject of national shame that we’ve allowed a totalitarian Communist state to exist off the coast of Florida for so long after the Cold War. Say what you will about NATO and the EU but the most successful post-communist societies are found in the Baltic states who quickly integrated into a larger geopolitical entity. The truth is that the wounds left by decades of forced collectivism don’t heal by themselves. Those who’ve gone it alone have largely either backslid or foundered on the rocks of pent-up ethnic tensions. When the Castros fall, leave things to us; we’ll know who to hang.
1.) Canada: This perfidious maple empire has really no reason to exist other than priggish anti-Americanism. There is no Canadian idea or Canadian national mission. With the rigorous application of rulers to knuckles those “ay”s and “aboot”s could be excised from the dialect as well, leaving a reasonable approximation of American English. The Quebecois should go their own way while the English speaking provinces break up, leaving them free to apply for statehood in the order that they get over themselves. Good riddance to bad poutine.
Published in General
It keeps him off the streets.
Eh. Prostitution may not be the worst job in the world. Even if you have to have sex with a someone you aren’t super into. You are still having sex. Gotta beat ditch-digging in my reckoning.
Not exactly my point, and I’m not sure ditch digging is usually the alternative for most of these women, but whatever floats your boat as it were.
I’d rather be a ditch digger.
I’ll take that position. I already have a list of countries, people, and music genres. And I work cheap.
Well, yeah… U R Gay is definitely a microaggression as it implies insult with something that should not be insulting.
If he filled his ditches with water, then he would be able to float his boat, assuming his ditches are big, which would require a lot of…
you know what, I’m going to stop there before I start rhyming things I shouldn’t.
The trend is the other way around internal migration is already making the country more Democrat.
There’s no iron law that it has to work in favor of the left. There’s a reason Ted Cruz was born in Canada. We could hope that the great north’s natural resources would be conducive to texification.
But poutine is delicious.
You might want to get together with Vladimir Vladimirovich and compare notes. He thinks Ukraine isn’t a real country. And he is not just talking about it.
Was this post a day late?
Just a dollar short.
For some reason the first word that came to mind when I read this post was: Drink!
Ukraine is. . .weird. It’s amazing it still exists.
It doesn’t matter if the Greeks are Greeks. They think they are.
Canada is a bigger problem. There is no national ethos whatsoever besides being generally apologetic.
I thought we were buying Greenland.
We were in the market, but they weren’t selling. The fools.
And then we take Canada, and get five extra armies a turn.
Uh, shouldn’t he be doing that in Thailand?
Uruguay was created as an administrative buffer zone between hostile Spanish and Portuguese territories. 500 years later, Argentina & Brazil seem to be reasonably good neighbors. Perhaps they could just arrange joint custody of the place.
I completely agree with this. It’s so unfortunate that we don’t have a more normal country right there. Decades of human and financial capital rot, right under our nose. You can think of very few countries that are worse, and this one is right under our nose. Think of all of the Democrat congressman that have gone there and pronounced “What’s the big deal?”
What could we have done about it? The regime prior to Castro was pretty bad. What can we do now?
I have a question. Where would you want to live in the Caribbean besides the Cayman Islands? I don’t know that much about it. Most of those places seem pretty corrupt or poor.
So you have found common ground with Justine Trudeau.Congrats, its a short field.
Canada does have a ethos, besides anti-Americanism (or rather, as well as) without Canada where would the loyalists have gone? Mexico? Please.
Canada does have an ethos, of truth, justice, fairness as well as hard work, ingenuity and self-reliance. These are the ethics of hard working construction workers, farmers, ranchers, oilmen, miners and even lumberjacks… These are the ethics of people Justine Trudeau doesn’t like very much – and so these ethics must be wrong.
Canada built a rail road in the 1880’s but it turned out that a rail road built Canada. Small towns across the country popped up around the rails today even major cities like Calgary, have rail roads running right through the middle of town. One of my first places I lived in Calgary, was a CN crew house built in the 1880s – a very small 2 bedroom house, with low ceilings. The back kitchen door’s top sill was slightly above eye level.
I dunno, I did a fair amount of ditch digging as a teen, you still kinda feel screwed.
Canada didn’t have a wall to keep foreigners out, so a great-grandfather of mine crossed the border to work on that railroad in the 1880s, before he returned home to Minnesota and got married. Maybe he was doing some of the jobs that the Canadians wouldn’t do. The story he came back with involved Canadian health care. He got a splinter in his arm, which got infected. He had to walk to the hospital/clinic car, miles back from the worksite on the leading edge of construction. The doctor wanted to amputate, but he wouldn’t allow it, saying, “If the arm goes, I go.” He also reported waking up in the hospital car and observing the doctor pilfering watches and other contents of sick or injured patients who were asleep.
Nobody in the family has ever thought to see if there are payroll records in the archives that list employees, so that we could check out some of this story. Probably there aren’t such lists for common laborers.
His youngest brother later went to Canada, too. Actually, his oldest son (my grandfather) did too, briefly attempting a homestead on the Saskatchewan prairie along with his uncle. But they didn’t stick it out. The youngest brother/uncle later went back to the region and was killed in the big hotel explosion at Macoun in 1914, where he was the bartender. A few years ago I offered a photo of the young brother to a guy who has a web site devoted to the explosion, but last I looked he still hadn’t got around to adding it to his online collection.
If Canada doesn’t close the border to imperialist Yankees, I’d like to ride my bicycle to Macoun to see the area. Maybe this would be the year to do it, as the prairie country has built-in social distancing.
Canada’s healthcare system didnt get started until the 1930’s – prior to that, Canada’s system was the same as US. (ie Cash & Carry)
Payroll records where really much slimmer prior to the 1960s – there where no payroll taxes, and most people where paid out in cash – most people in the working class didnt even have bank accounts. Social Insurance Numbers (our version of a social security number) didnt even exist until 1964.
Without payroll taxes and welfare benefits people are much freer – its got to the point, that its difficult to work in between provinces let alone across national boundaries.
I used the subtitles on that first video and I still didn’t know what he was talking about! I mean, aboot.
After I watched it, I noticed that there was a video in the suggested videos of the Essential Craftsman talking about the best work boots. Related?
James K. Polk didn’t go far enough. After we stopped kicking the crap out of Santa Anna in Mexico City, we should have marched all the way down to the tip of South America and annexed it all. We wouldn’t have had to create the country of Panama to build the Panama canal. It would also be easier to control the border with the narrower choke point.
No, thats about you. The only Craftsman product I know, used to be a Sears thing. If a Canadian where talking work boots, the only store mentioned would be “Mark’s Work Warehouse” all others are irrelevant.