[identity profile] paka.livejournal.com 2005-09-04 03:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Heh. Seems to me there are two ways of dealing with a legacy of suffering; either you go 1) man, that sucked, I don't want anyone else to have to put up with that again, or you go 2) ehhhh, I was able to get past that, why can't everyone else? A lot of people here are of the latter opinion. There are a lot more people arguing for the latter when they're people who haven't actually had to work quite as hard as they think.

I guess this ties right back in, to inertia in social views both here and in Canada. Canadians are used to the idea that you pay the government buckets of income and in return the government does stuff for you. Americans are used to the idea that the government doesn't seem to do that much for you (whether it does or doesn't) and consequently tend to be easy pickings for any politician claiming to reduce taxes.

As for immigrant mentality, now that I think about it; the idea that you're gonna force these people who aren't Jewish/Italian/Chinese to accept you into their United States is kind of an older melting pot idea, and now that you pointed it out, I can see how it's pretty arrogant. Maybe the way more recent immigrants work is a different deal entirely.

[identity profile] velvetpage.livejournal.com 2005-09-04 04:05 pm (UTC)(link)
More recent immigrants are starting to ask that society change to accommodate them, while the older generations of immigrants usually made an attempt to blend culturally with their new country. I find the first more presumptuous and arrogant than the second.