I'm off to North America, bai

[LicoriceAllsorts]

On that note, how er, worldly are the Canadians? I mean they have no borders except with the US, and only a small percentage of its landmass is actually populated, which kinda implies it's not as culturally diverse internally as the US is.

Which OTOH may cause them to become nicer people or a better people (depending on your definition of better, off course). Maybe a bit like the Scandinavians, who also live in not-densely populated countries and rather separated from the rest.

IMO, they are probably a bit more worldly than the USA - but I think people from North America can be divided into those who have been able to travel away from the continent (a small group) and those who haven't (a much larger group).

Canadians are not nicer or less nice than anyone else. This legendary super-niceness is their national myth in the same way that "America is the Greatest" is the USA's national myth. I mean, I think the Dutch are really nice but apparently the Swiss think they're stingy (like a Scot )

I am not a particularly patriotic Canadian, so I don't know if that makes me a more or less trustworthy source of information.

 

[Lex]

The patriotism is something I've noticed in both Canada and the USA, every second or third house has a flag. It's something that's incredibly rare in the UK.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Fucking enormous flags. Flying over enormous supermarkets. Size matters.

 

[Octo]

I've never understood what compels people to put up flags of a country they're already in (aside from sporting events I guess) I mean, unless you've got early onset Alzheimers or something and you need to be reminded where you live. But whenever I see a St George flag or a Union Jack - and I can think of at least 2 houses I see on my everyday travels - I think 'probably a big fat racist lives there'

 

[Cat Rage Room]

I've never understood what compels people to put up flags of a country they're already in (aside from sporting events I guess) I mean, unless you've got early onset Alzheimers or something and you need to be reminded where you live. But whenever I see a St George flag or a Union Jack - and I can think of at least 2 houses I see on my everyday travels - I think 'probably a big fat racist lives there'

It's because the USA (and I suppose Cananda too) has never suffered any real setbacks or negative outcomes to overt patriotism, in fact, a lot of Americans will tell you that's a big motivating factor in the success and hegemony of the USA.

However Europe has had several centuries of constant conflict culminated by two VERY BAD World Wars as a direct result of nationalism. I can totally see why you're wary of the concept.

It's one of those interesting cultural apples and oranges thing.

 

[Flare]

I mean, unless you've got early onset Alzheimers or something and you need to be reminded where you live.

Made me giggle

From my viewpoint it's just another way of showing patriotism, which basically means those with American flags love their country. Doesn't mean if you don't have one that you don't love it, of course. If I had my own house I'd probably display a flag somewhere. I honestly happen to like the look of the flag too.

 

[Tennyo]

To be honest, I've never really thought much of displaying the flag. It's just what you do. We always had one when I was growing up, along with a POW-MIA flag (my dad was a veteran so he always put it up).

As a kid I never questioned it. It was just what people did.

 

[ForceStealer]

We only ever flew one at my house growing up on Memorial Day and 4th of July.

 

[AvecAloes]

I don't think we've ever flown a flag at my family's place growing up. Guess we just hate America

 

[Cat Rage Room]

My family has never flown a flag either, but that's more or less because African Americans historically aren't 'patriotic', or at least the same way white people are.

Oh, also...

I mean you have Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, but you're all made to believe Mexico is a poverty whorehouse and Canada is just a slightly American Britain.

As someone who was stationed a few miles away from Mexico...it's pretty bad. All of those horrible cartel stories aren't hyperbole. Sure you can vacation down there and visit relatives and such and have nothing happen to you, but the sheer profit motivated impunity of the cartel based violence and corruption that permeates every level of Mexican society and government isn't fiction. There's violence in the US, but it's concentrated in certain areas, not tolerated by the populace, and nowhere near as bad as Mexico.

All of those stories you hear about young women being dragged away on dance floors to be a cartel leaders sex slave, people being murdered in broad daylight and the murderer getting away with it, people being kidnapped and chopped up and their body parts literally being made into salad to serve to others, and entire villages being razed off the map by Zetas are real stories.

There's a reason there's an immigrant crisis of people leaving there to come here. Mexico isn't as bad as whatever overactive imagination an ignorant person can concoct, but as a whole it's pretty bad.

 

[Cthulhu]

And Trump thinks building a wall would fix the problem, .

How's the cooperation between the US and Mexico anyway? Wouldn't it be cheaper to invade Mexico for a while, root out the drug trade, build up a less criminal economy, that kinda thing?

 

[Cat Rage Room]

How's the cooperation between the US and Mexico anyway?

It's pretty good; the US and Mexican governments are good allies on good terms. This leads into the second part of your question...

Wouldn't it be cheaper to invade Mexico for a while, root out the drug trade, build up a less criminal economy, that kinda thing?

Absolutely not.

Not only does the Mexican constitution expressly forbid foreign military intervention on their soil (even if via bilateral agreement), even if America were to say 'fuck that', it would be very bad politically to invade our southern friendly, non NATO, non NAFTA signatory neighbor to try to intervene militarily in something as fluid as the drug trade. It would be a horrible, terrible idea with literally no upsides.

Keep in mind that the cartels, specifically the Zetas are sitting on about 100 billion dollars of revenue, and they're extremely organized, with many of them being ex-special forces (the Los Zetas have a chain of command that includes generals). The cartels aren't a bunch of shady thugs huddling around fires at night, they operate all the way into the echelons of the Mexican Army. Only the Mexican Navy is considered more or less not corrupt.

Could the U.S. military beat the drug cartels in a fight? Absolutely, but the cartels already fight asymmetrically, kidnapping families, putting people's heads on stakes, burning people alive, etc etc, and while American tourists are kidnapped and such, the cartels have no ideological interest in 'death to Americans' or anything, they just want to make money.

Now if that sentiment were changed via foreign invasion? The Mexican cartels are ludicrously brutal and have absolutely no hesitation to save their own profits/skins at the cost of anyone or anything. Yeah. You get the idea. Military wise, the cartels would stand absolutely no chance against a military crackdown, but the cartels don't fight like that against a superior enemy, and they wouldn't. They would fight in other ways, and those ways are generally pretty fucking terrible and things that all parties involved would like to be contained in the worst parts of Mexico.

The drug trade isn't something to 'root out' via force. The only real way to put a dent to it is the same way we got rid of the Mafia after Prohibition, end the war on drugs and crack down on corruption, the first one is on the U.S., and the second thing is endemic to Mexico, so that's on them.

 

[Lex]

I'm home! Flight home got delayed because Toronto Pearson's luggage band things were broken (absolute chaos in the whole airport, everyone's luggage was just left in the middle of the floor).

I got home this morning, went to bed, woke up at 23:30, going back to bed now lol (it's 1am here).

 

[Tetsujin]

Welcome back

 

[Lex]

THIS IS IMPORTANT

I just remembered this and I don't understand it. Why is there no lemonade? Like you can go to Wal Mart and they don't sell bottles of lemonade. I asked for a Southern Comfort and lemonade at a bar and the person looked at me like I was an alien. This is what it looks like:

Have I not spent my life watching north american children in fictional media create it and sell it on random wooden benches to strangers? And yet it's not available anywhere

 

[AvecAloes]

....is it just lemon flavored soda water? Because that's what it looks like in that picture. We definitely have lemonade that you can buy in walmarts and the like, but it's more a juice than a water/soda drink. It's intensely sweet/tart, loaded with sugar and if it's store-bought, coloring as well to make it actually look yellow like a lemon.

 

[Joe]

They have ginger ale. It's the same thing they're just weird. For srs.

 

[Flare]

Yeah, Canada's real weird. We have lemonade down here in our stores

No but seriously, here's the stuff my family usually gets in stores:

It's actually pretty good, I don't think it's super sweet and it's not fake coloring or anything in the bottle.

 

[ForceStealer]

Yeah I remember being in the UK before I was of drinking age and when I was trying to order something in pubs they ended up recommending lemonade to me which was really confusing to me. But it was exactly that, just lemony soda. As Avec says, lemonade over here is more of a juice.

 

[Flare]

Wait so.... in the UK you guys don't have the juice lemonade and only a lemon flavored soda thing?

 

[Octo]

we have lemonade (lemony soda) and cloudy lemonade which is fizzy too but yellow in colour.

You can get *real* lemonade (lemon juice and shitloads of sugar) in some places, like Pizza Express does some stuff and it's to die for.

I tried to make my own lemonade once but it was crap

 

[Lex]

Lemonade here is in a bottle, it's clear, tastes lemon-ey and is fizzy. Lemonade. That stuff you guys call lemonade looks absolutely delicious, but I don't think I could handle the taste of lemon without fizz. It's just not right 0_0. And yeah there's also cloudy lemonade. (You can get cloudy pink lemonade, which is fucking delicious. All of these are fizzy.

They have ginger ale. It's the same thing they're just weird. For srs.

But we have ginger ale. And it tastes nothing like lemonade. Ginger ale is brown and burney >.<

why north america why

 

[ForceStealer]

ginger ale is pretty different, I don't think that's meant to be a substitute. Lemon-flavored soda/seltzer just isn't a staple.

I happen to have some in my kitchen right now, as a point of note, but it's not quite as lemony, it's definitely soda/seltzer with essence of lemon.

 

[Lex]

I feel like this might help the confusion a little. In the UK we don't use the word "soda" to describe fizzy drinks of any kind. I know anywhere in North America there's like off-brand "soda" and it's all just "flavour-soda", so like you get Orange Soda (I bought a bottle of this for sheer Keenan and Kel nostalgia purposes). We have soda water, which is that water that burns you like fuck and they use it in Supernatural to kill demons.

Here anything that says "-ade" at the end of it is fizzy. So orange soda here is "orangeade". Lemonade, Limeade, etc etc. But I'm really weirded out that our lemonade has no real equivalent over there. Lemonade is mainly used as mixer for spirits, like say vodka or southern comfort. It's really tasty with drinks. Now I know why that bartender was so confused! XD

 

[RedFFWolf]

Oh my goodness, cloudy lemonade is so good. I have nothing to add here but the heart's yearnings. Off to Lidl we all go for a bottle - everyone have a glass on me :monstertoast:

EDIT: To add to Lex's post, there is also the case of calling fizzy drinks/sodas "minerals" - or is that possibly just an Irish thing?