{"id":171,"date":"2006-09-20T21:04:55","date_gmt":"2006-09-21T01:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freedom24.org\/rationalpost\/2006\/09\/22\/elephants\/"},"modified":"2010-08-31T19:50:18","modified_gmt":"2010-08-31T23:50:18","slug":"elephants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freedom24.org\/rationalpost\/elephants\/","title":{"rendered":"elephants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.usatoday.com\/photos\/uncategorized\/2008\/06\/17\/rosen06ftw.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-1288\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/freedom24.org\/rationalpost\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/09\/elephants.jpg\" alt=\"elephants\" width=\"288\" height=\"524\" \/><\/a>A Nationalist Manifesto<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are too\u00c2\u00a0many elephants in the room. During our teens it was <a title=\"Canada's first political scandal\" href=\"http:\/\/archives.cbc.ca\/IDC-1-73-1700-11686\/politics_economy\/political_scandals\/\" target=\"_blank\">understandable,<\/a> but this country is almost 140 years old. It&#8217;s time to stop ignoring the obvious. The 21st century might be filled\u00c2\u00a0with <a title=\"2020\" href=\"http:\/\/www.twenty-twenty.ca\/auteurs.phtml\" target=\"_blank\">promise<\/a>, but not if we don&#8217;t change course.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->As it stands, we are far too dependant on <a title=\"Dutch Disease\" href=\"http:\/\/www.parl.gc.ca\/information\/library\/PRBpubs\/prb0586-e.htm#introduction\" target=\"_blank\">natural resources<\/a>, and they&#8217;re far too <a title=\"At\" href=\"http:\/\/resourceinsights.blogspot.com\/2006\/08\/coming-war-with-canada.html\" target=\"_blank\">dependant on us<\/a>. Our Prime Minister, under a majority mandate, is  essentially a dictator. Our immigrants are both our biggest <a title=\"Sao Paulo of the North\" href=\"http:\/\/twenty-twenty.ca\/essays.phtml?author=Daniel+Stoffman\" target=\"_blank\">asset<\/a> and our biggest <a title=\"Identity Crisis\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allangregg.com\/?p=43\" target=\"_blank\">liability<\/a>. China is <a title=\"made in china\" href=\"https:\/\/freedom24.org\/rationalpost\/2005\/10\/13\/made-in-china\/\" target=\"_blank\">real<\/a>. So is <a title=\"Beyond Afghanistan\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/MichaelWatkins\/2004\/04\/28#a155\" target=\"_blank\">Afghanistan<\/a>. We spend nearly $150 billion a year on a crippled healthcare system and throwing <a title=\"Romanow report\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hc-sc.gc.ca\/hcs-sss\/delivery-prestation\/fptcollab\/2004-fmm-rpm\/bg-fi_rec_e.html\" target=\"_blank\">more money<\/a> at the problem <a title=\"Beyond Romanow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.conferenceboard.ca\/press\/2003\/romanow.asp\" target=\"_blank\">will not<\/a> make it work. Our best and brightest are quick to <a title=\"Brain Drain\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cric.ca\/en_html\/guide\/brain\/brain.html\" target=\"_blank\">jump ship<\/a>. Canada&#8217;s GDP is 4% of the total global economy, and we&#8217;re only a <a title=\"External Voices\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rcinet.ca\/rci\/en\/chroniques\/8413.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">footnote<\/a> in the annals of our time.<\/p>\n<p>People who haven&#8217;t traveled beyond the Christianized West, Mexico and the Caribbean complain way too much. People who have should complain a lot <em>more<\/em>. Multiculturalism isn&#8217;t an identity. Bombardier isn&#8217;t a success story. Fort McMurry isn&#8217;t our salvation. We&#8217;re almost out of <a title=\"power play\" href=\"https:\/\/freedom24.org\/rationalpost\/2006\/09\/14\/power-play\/\" target=\"_blank\">power<\/a>,  European hockey is better to watch,\u00c2\u00a0and Celine Dion is better off south of the border. The mafia runs our nightclubs. The government runs our liquor. The <a title=\"Hell's Angels\" href=\"http:\/\/thetyee.ca\/News\/2004\/04\/27\/Hells_Angels_Not_Confronted_Says_Author\/\" target=\"_blank\">Angels<\/a> run our drugs. The banks run <a title=\"Personal Finance\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/background\/personalfinance\/debt.html\" target=\"_blank\">everything else<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>These aren&#8217;t difficult concepts to embrace. They&#8217;re facts, like a friend&#8217;s addiction to gambling that we somehow choose to ignore. They beg some of the bigger questions facing modern sovereign states. When did we lose our way? Why didn&#8217;t we see it coming? Where do we go <a title=\"Canada: A Virtual Country\" href=\"http:\/\/www.lilithgallery.com\/articles\/canada\/2006\/Canada_A_Virtual_Country.html\" target=\"_blank\">from here<\/a>? How will the others respond?<\/p>\n<p>Historically, we&#8217;ve been isolated. We&#8217;ve been peripheral. We&#8217;ve been auxiliary and in many ways <a title=\"Canada, the WTO and International Trade\" href=\"http:\/\/www.envireform.utoronto.ca\/publications\/john-kirton\/april24-2002.doc\" target=\"_blank\">dependant<\/a> on the charity and self-interest of our closest trading partners. Our humility is not always a virtue. Peace is <a title=\"dar-furious\" href=\"https:\/\/freedom24.org\/rationalpost\/2005\/05\/21\/dar-furious\/\" target=\"_blank\">not always<\/a> an option.  The true north isn&#8217;t all that strong, but it certainly is free, and that&#8217;s a great place to start out the new millennium.<\/p>\n<p>Going forward, we need to be more catalytic, more self-interested, more independant, more willing to attack and more willing to defend. We need to grow into our oversized skin. We <em>are <\/em>the elephant in the room. We <em>are <\/em>the next big thing.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s time to stand up and be heard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Nationalist Manifesto There are too\u00c2\u00a0many elephants in the room. During our teens it was understandable, but this country is almost 140 years old. It&#8217;s time to stop ignoring the obvious. The 21st century might be filled\u00c2\u00a0with promise, but not if we don&#8217;t change course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,4],"tags":[179,117,177,178,118,28,161,17,58,109],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-society","category-world-affairs","tag-afghanistan","tag-canada","tag-competition","tag-culture","tag-energy","tag-history","tag-peace","tag-policy","tag-trade","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>elephants - The Rational Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.freedom24.org\/rationalpost\/elephants\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"elephants - The Rational Post\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Nationalist Manifesto There are too\u00c2\u00a0many elephants in the room. 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