Do not move to Canada, redux

Last August, incensed as I was about oh, so many things Bush-related, I wrote an article admonishing readers not to run away from the problems, but to stay and change them, thinking (at the time) that we could “vote all the sons of bitches out.”

But, as we all know now, that didn’t happen. And so now, I am being asked whether I still believe that moving to Canada, or anywhere else, is a sound and viable alternative to living through our national nightmare for another four years—but that we owe it to ourselves and the country we love to stick it out or do something about it.

In short, you bet your ass it does.

Do not move to Canada. If you do, to paraphrase a popular quote from some years back, the Theocrats have already won. I have nothing against Canada at all, and I love it when I visit and the people are great, none of which is the point.

It may seem to you, at this early and staggeringly shocking stage that we are the minority, those of us who cannot understand “the other side.” I take some comfort in the fact that they can’t understand us either, at least on the surface, and I have no doubt that Bush will be no more of a “uniter” and practice “compassionate Conservativism” during this phase than he did during the last. Indeed, the man has illustrated that he doesn’t even know what the words tolerance and compassion mean.

And it’s not your fault or my fault that he managed to drum up support among the fearful and gullible and Fundamentalist, nor is it Kerry’s fault, nor the fault of the gays or the abortionists or the Democratic Party. If it is anyone’s fault, it is the fault of the apathetic non-voters who didn’t care enough to go out and spend the time it took to correct a mistake. I should know, I used to be one.

What we must do now is stay right here and not give in to their wishes and not obey their unfair rules and speak up loudly and lingeringly and non-stop when we see that they are doing wrong to this country’s principles and founding ideals. This is not a Christian theocracy, this is a democratic republic. If they can get organized, so can we.

Do not move to Canada. Stay right where you are and get in their faces. Don’t get angry, don’t hope for revenge, but also don’t surrender and don’t back down from your own beliefs and principles.

They won because they’re more passionate, more organized, and more focused. They have a single, simple message that they rally around. They ignored every other problem in this country (most of which were brought about by their own candidate) and thought only of righting the “moral value” code they see as paramount to everything and anything else.

Obviously, Bush managed to also “stay on message” (terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism) enough to convince a broad range of undecided, confused voters that he would protect them better than Kerry, although I doubt any politician would have laid down and given up in the face of 9/11. But whatever, that’s history and cannot be changed.

It is now time to stop sitting there and do something. You honestly want to move to another country and let them do this to the United States of America without a fight?

No, friends and patriots, do not move to Canada. Don’t let them win. Kiss your boyfriends on the mouth. March on Washington when they try to overturn Roe v. Wade. Write your congressman, no matter how conservative and backwards he is, and remind him that you’re his constituent too. Stop being the Silent Majority. There are more of us than there are of them.

Let the world know it.