From: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca (Cdn-Firearms Digest) To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Subject: Cdn-Firearms Digest V5 #785 Reply-To: cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Sender: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Errors-To: owner-can-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Precedence: normal Cdn-Firearms Digest Monday, February 17 2003 Volume 05 : Number 785 In this issue: ARTICLE: US judge's order sets Canadian driver's trial ARTICLE: Trouble at the border COLUMN: If you don't vote like a gun owner, YOU SUCK! Email John Manley No more money to Registration! Justice Cauchon "What A Mess We Have Made" Re: the perspective of the foxhole ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 10:52:06 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: ARTICLE: US judge's order sets Canadian driver's trial http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/037/metro/US_judge_s_order_sets_Canadian_driver_s_trial+.shtml >From The Boston Globe US judge's order sets Canadian driver's trial By Associated Press, 2/6/2003 [B] ANGOR -- A federal judge has denied a motion to dismiss charges against a Canadian man charged with illegally entering the United States to buy gas in the northern Maine outpost of Estcourt. The ruling by US District Chief Judge George Singal means Michel Jalbert, 32, will go to trial for illegal entry, being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm, and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. Singal's order was filed Tuesday. The trial is scheduled to begin March 11. Jalbert's arrest Oct. 11, 2002, in the driveway of Ouelett's Gaz Bar, just inside the Maine border, touched off a storm of international controversy that even drew Secretary of State Colin Powell into the fray. But the furor has done little to aid Jalbert, who spent 35 days in a Maine jail before his release in November. Jalbert's attorney sought to have the charges dismissed, saying the US Customs Service excused gas station customers from having to report to the customs office about a half-mile away. Scores of residents from Pohenegamook, the neighboring Quebec town, visit the station each day because the gas is cheaper than on the Canadian side of the border. Jon Haddow, the Bangor lawyer who represents Jalbert, accused the government of ''outrageous conduct'' by granting permission to go to the gas station and then arresting Jalbert for doing just that. Singal ruled that he lacked a factual record to address the ''outrageous conduct'' claim, but left open Haddow's right to refile the motion at trial. Jalbert faces a firearms charge because he was carrying a shotgun in his vehicle at the time of his arrest. He said he had the shotgun because he had hoped to hunt some partridge that day. The third charge stems from Jalbert's 1990 conviction in Canada for breaking and entering and possession of stolen goods. This story ran on page B2 of the Boston Globe on 2/6/2003. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 10:52:35 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: ARTICLE: Trouble at the border http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/02162003/maine/13264.htm >From Portsmouth Herald Trouble at the border By Clarke Canfield Associated Press ESTCOURT, Maine - Yes, this is the United States, but mostly it’s Canadians around here. They speak French, spend Canadian dollars, watch French-Canadian TV and use phones with the 418 Quebec area code. The American hamlet of Estcourt, pop. 4, is more like a neighborhood where the Quebec town of Pohenegamook, pop. 3,097, touches Maine’s North Woods. Canadians pass into Estcourt to get to logging jobs in the woods, to pick fiddleheads or blueberries in season, to visit friends. Doing so, they cross the all-but-invisible border dividing the United States from Canada. For as long as anyone can remember, nobody gave much thought to the border - but they’re giving it a lot of thought now. And many are worried that life here may never be the same. Crossing the border now can turn your life upside-down, as it did Michel Jalbert’s. The border runs parallel to Frontier Street, the only real road hereabouts, and cuts through people’s bedrooms and kitchens and backyard gardens. It crosses the dirt driveway leading to Ouellet’s Gaz Bar, a two-pump station where Canadians go for cheap fuel - and where, last Oct. 11, two U.S. Border Patrol agents had set up surveillance. That afternoon, Michel Jalbert was heading home after a hard day’s work clearing brush in the Canadian woods. He steered his green 1984 Jeep Cherokee under a railroad pass to Frontier Street, hung a right and then a left to the Gaz Bar. He ignored a sign to check in at the U.S. Customs office, which was closed at the time. A stream of vehicles with Canadian plates lined up for gas that is 20 to 30 cents a gallon cheaper than across the border. Jalbert pumped his, paid with $15 in Canadian money and told the attendant, "Merci." Then he headed back out the station’s driveway. Ten feet of dirt separated Jalbert from Canada when he was stopped. Border Patrol agents Christopher Cantrell and Pedro Hernandez had been watching from behind the gas station. To reach Ouellet’s, they had driven over private dirt logging roads through the North Woods of Maine. They stopped Jalbert apparently at random, then spotted the gun between the seats. It was partridge hunting season in Canada, and Jalbert had a .20-gauge shotgun in hopes of bagging a bird. He didn’t get one. He said he was just a hunter. His pregnant wife and 5-year-old daughter were waiting at home, half a mile away in Pohenegamook. But to the agents, he was an illegal alien in possession of a firearm. He was handcuffed and taken into custody. The agents’ vehicle turned away from the border and followed logging roads again on the four-hour trip to Houlton, Maine, where the suspect was delivered to jail and spent 35 days. Jalbert is awaiting trial March 11 on charges that carry a maximum sentence of 20½ years in prison and $500,000 in fines. "What’s happening?" he wondered that October day. Many others have asked that question since. Protecting the border, period The case comes at a time when security is being beefed up along the porous 5,525-mile U.S.-Canada border and a crackdown is on against all lawbreakers - not just terrorists. Nobody is exempt from U.S. border laws, officials say. But others suggest that imprisoning a local for doing what has always been done - - on a road that leads nowhere except to a gas station - is a symptom of a system gone awry. And some point out a recent report by the General Accounting Office, Congress’ investigative arm, that found such laxness at some border points that U.S. agents didn’t even ask for IDs. Jalbert’s attorney accuses the government of outrageous conduct against his client. "This gas station is part of the Canadian community and surrounded by woods as far as the eye can see," said Jon Haddow, a lawyer in Bangor. "Dragging him through the federal judicial process, for something that has gone on for years, to me seems extreme." The Border Patrol declines to discuss Jalbert’s case specifically. But officials say their job is to protect the border - period. "Arresting people who enter the United States without proper paperwork, that’s what we do," said Monte Bennett, assistant chief patrol agent in the agency’s office in Houlton. Prosecutors say Jalbert, 33, not only was in the country illegally, he had a gun and a criminal record. (He was convicted in 1990 of breaking and entering and possession of stolen property, but served no jail time.) He was charged with two felonies: being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm and a felon in possession of a firearm. They say he ignored two previous warnings about failing to check in at U.S. Customs in Estcourt. Sentencing guidelines recommend a penalty much lighter than the maximum of 20 years if he’s convicted. But as trial approaches, the prospect of jail looms. "It could be six or seven months in prison," Jalbert said in French. "Just to gas up." Dozens of articles in newspapers in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Quebec have lambasted the prosecution. During a visit to Canada, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called Jalbert’s arrest "an unfortunate incident," but not part of any kind of pattern. People in Estcourt and Pohenegamook are not reassured. "They’re ... surprised and afraid," said Guy Leblanc, a Pohenegamook town councilor who works at the Canadian Customs office on Frontier Street. "Because they’ve always gone to the Gaz Bar for gas, or to pick blueberries, or to go fishing in the river. But now they’re afraid of getting arrested." It’s not 1842 anymore All of this takes some getting used to - because there is perhaps no place in the country quite like Estcourt, the northernmost point in the United States east of the Great Lakes. The border here was established by the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty, but it was neglected, even ignored, over the years. When it was retraced early last century, surveyors discovered several homes were built on the dividing line. The U.S. halves of those homes, plus four that are entirely in Maine, make up Estcourt. The border runs through Edmond and Germaine Levesque’s kitchen, allowing them to eat in different countries but at the same table. Overnight guests sleep with their head in Canada and their toes in the United States. The border is painted in black up the side of their house in jest. They, and others like them, pay taxes to both Maine and Quebec. Estcourt has no post office, no town offices, no church, no restaurant. It does have a one-man U.S. Customs office - open from 5 or 6 a.m. to 1 or 2 p.m., Monday through Friday - where people are required to report when entering Maine. In addition to Ouellet’s, Estcourt has the Magasin General Americain, a tiny shop that sells tobacco, souvenirs and candy bars. At both Ouellet’s and the Americain store, business is off by 50 percent or more. "They’re scared to come because they’re afraid the same thing will happen to them that happened to Jalbert," Rita Sirois, who runs the store with her husband, said in French. Canadian snowplow drivers are reluctant to plow to Phil Dumond’s driveway, which is about 200 feet inside of Maine. And Dumond, a retired Maine game warden, said friends won’t come to his house to play cards at night, when the Customs office is closed. Yvette Gagne, whose house sits about five feet inside of Maine, said even her brother won’t visit since Jalbert’s arrest. Gagne has lived in Estcourt for nearly 50 years. Three times as many people now check in at the U.S. Customs station as did before Jalbert’s arrest, a customs agent said. But the office is still open only until 2 p.m. at the latest, while the gas station doesn’t close until 5 p.m. A Customs Service letter, dated June 18, 1990, seemed to address the dilemma. "For the present we are satisfied to let things remain as they are, i.e. no reporting if the customers are coming to buy gas and return to Canada," it said. "The letter said it was OK to get gas," Jalbert reasoned. "We weren’t doing anything wrong." His lawyer argued the letter amounted to "official permission." But Sept. 11, 2001, changed many old assumptions. U.S. Customs spokesman James Michie said the letter no longer applies. New regulations were put in place after the terrorist attacks. "The gas station owner has been advised if any of his patrons want to know what they should do, just as the signs say they need to report to our U.S. Customs station," Michie said. Security or scare tactics? The U.S. Congress has made border security a high priority and encouraged agencies to come down hard on violators. The Border Patrol has transferred 245 agents from the Mexican to the Canadian border since the terrorist attacks, and anticipates adding another 285 agents before fall. It now has 550 agents on the northern border, a 64 percent increase from its pre-Sept. 11 strength. Seated in his small rented bungalow in Pohenegamook, Jalbert said he thinks the Border Patrol used him as an example. The message: Casual border crossings will no longer be tolerated. Other locals say the agents were newly transferred from the southern border and showed no respect for the traditions of the area. The Border Patrol won’t answer those accusations. For now, Jalbert just wants to get the case behind him. It has cost him $2,000 in lost wages, phone bills that could top $2,000 and lawyer fees approaching $10,000. That’s a lot of money for somebody who makes $400 a week, who has an empty bank account and whose wife is expecting a baby in late February. Jalbert’s father, who drives a truck and owns a motel in Pohenegamook, put up his $5,000 bail. Jalbert takes heart from dozens of letters of support he has gotten from Canada and even the United States. One letter was from Ross Paradis, a state representative from northern Maine, who said the Border Patrol lacked common sense in arresting the Canadian woodsman. "You don’t antagonize friends," Paradis said. "The United States has enough enemies without making new ones." Jalbert has also received more than $500 in contributions. But there’s one thing he knows he won’t spend that money on: cheap American gas. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 11:03:19 -0600 (CST) From: Bruce Mills Subject: COLUMN: If you don't vote like a gun owner, YOU SUCK! http://dillonprecision.com/vote.cfm?dyn=1& If you don't vote like a gun owner, YOU SUCK! This article originally appeared in the August 2000 issue of “The Blue Press”, the catalog of Dillon Precision Products, Inc. (www.dillonprecision.com) Editor's Note: While we're certain that the sentiments expressed in this editorial don't apply to regular Blue Press readers, we're pretty confident that most of you know gun owners to whom these sentiments DO apply -- if so, please pass this article on. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author, although ours are similar. By Peter Caroline According to most estimates, there are between 75 and 80 million adult gun owners in the United States. That's more people than voted in the last presidential election. So why is it, when there are so many gun owners, that we are not the DOMINANT voting bloc in this country? Because most of that 75-80 million are stupid, lazy, hypocritical barfbags. Well, I'd like to say something to that group. Sure, you drive around in a pickup truck with a gunrack and some hairy-chested bumper stickers, and you talk big at the gun shop or the Legion Hall. But will you shell out 35 bucks and join the NRA? Oh, you don't agree with the NRA's stance on this or that, or the NRA is too soft on something or too unyielding on something else? Or maybe long ago the NRA didn't send you your free cap or bullet key ring on time. Well, you know what? That's a dumb cop-out and you're an asshole. Whether you like it or not, the NRA is the only...I repeat ONLY, effective representation you have in the cesspool of Washington politics. Even the NRA's worst enemies -- YOUR worst enemies if you have the capacity to think about it -- agree that it's one of the most powerful lobbying forces on Capitol Hill. That means no one else fights your battles for you better, and if you don't understand that simple fact, you're too dumb to exist! OK, you don't give a damn about the NRA but you still want to keep your guns. So why, in the name of all that is holy, do you vote for "gun-ban" candidates? Oh, you don't? So who does? Maybe it's all those other people who were voting while you were sucking a brewski and watching the game on TV. Or maybe you're a good union guy, and the union votes Democrat. Some years ago, Mario Cuomo, a dedicated anti-gunner who happened to be governor of New York, described gun owners in a most uncomplimentary fashion. But the most damning thing he said about gun owners is that they don't vote, and therefore should not be considered as a factor in any election. How about that? Mario Cuomo is a liberal Democrat and, as such, is wrong about most everything, but he's absolutely right about you. And I can prove it. If you non-voting gun owners in New York State did get off your asses and vote like gun owners, obscenities like Mario Cuomo couldn't even be elected as dog catcher. The same goes for Charles Schumer; he wasn't bad enough as a congressman from Brooklyn; you dumb schmucks had to let him become a senator! What's next...Hillary? Then there's my old home state of Massachusetts. Over one million Massachusetts gun owners must be really proud to claim Teddy Kennedy as their senator. And John Kerry, the Kennedy clone, is no better. The entire Massachusetts congressional delegation, both gay and straight, is anti-gun. And you Bay State gun owners are the dildoes that put them in office! Because you sat on your fat asses, you've got Chapter 180 -- aptly named because it turns your gun rights around 180 degrees -- and you've got an attorney general who wants to be governor and thinks every handgun is a faulty consumer product. Once again, Massachusetts gun owners, where were you on Election Day? Look at every state with asinine, repressive gun laws and a preponderance of anti-gun politicians -- California, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland...to cite several horrible examples -- and you will find enough gun owners to form an unbeatable voting bloc, IF they would get their thumbs out of their butts and vote, for a change. Jeez, what a concept! We all know the excuses: I'm too busy, my vote doesn't count, they're all crooks and it doesn't make any difference, I gave $5 to Quail Unlimited so I don't need to vote, yadda, yadda, yadda. Well, here's the bottom line...your vote does not count if you don't use it. If you don't vote, then effectively you are on the same side as Rosie (I'm-not-a-hypocrite) O'Donnell, Sarah Brady, Bill and Hillary, Al Gore, Teddy Kennedy, Charles Schumer and every other low-life bottom feeder who knows what's best for you. If you don't vote like a gun owner, you are a butt-boy for the anti-gunners, and you bend over forward to please them. Think about it. 75-80 million gun owners in this country; only 3.6 million NRA members, and who knows how many active pro-gun-voting gun owners. You can argue all you want about your inalienable rights. Rights are like body parts; they only work if you exercise them. And yours are looking pretty flaccid right now. If you don't vote in the next election, your enemies will elect a president who will be able to name three or four new Supreme Court justices. Which means that by the 2004 election, you will have no guns. And shortly after that, you will have no vote and no rights. And you know what? If you let that happen, it will be exactly what you deserve! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 11:40:40 -0600 (CST) From: Bob Richards Subject: Email John Manley No more money to Registration! Manley.J@parl.gc.ca ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 11:51:48 -0600 (CST) From: Don Webb Subject: Justice Cauchon Cauchon says the registry is all about public safety. Who's safety is he talking about? He thinks its worth a couple of billion dollars to re-register handguns again, and register glue guns, soldering guns, chaulking guns, staple guns, and uncle Harry's gopher gun. What good is the billion dollar error ridden boondoogle when judges and parole boards allow criminal gang members using unregistered firearms back on the street in a few months to shoot at each other again? The gangs are the problem not the law-abiding firearm owner. After a billion dollars thrown down the black hole I'm afraid to walk or drive in public because of stray gang bullets. Mr. Cauchon, gang members don't register anything even if its free! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 12:07:11 -0600 (CST) From: "Todd Birch" Subject: "What A Mess We Have Made" All I can say to that is - "Amen". The proponents of political correctness are the enemies of free speech, = political freedom, religious freedom - freedom of any sort that doesn't = toe the party line. One of my personal ambitions is to live long enough to see PC in the = dumpster of history where it belongs along with other failed social = experiments like Marxist-Leninist Communism, Hitlerian National = Socialism, enforced bilingualism, multiculturalism, pluralism and a host = of other social re-engineering "isms". This may be old news to some. Its a story about Paul Martin's CSL = shipping coal to Suharto. You don't suppose that could have had = something to do with the pepper spraying of the APEC protestors in = Vancouver, do you? Check it out: = http://www.canada.com/national/story.asp?id=3DC9848E27-A55E-48D5-BE97-92A= 2511242DC Big Business=3DBig Brother=3DOne World Government? Todd Birch Merritt, BC ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 12:10:48 -0600 (CST) From: Rick Lowe Subject: Re: the perspective of the foxhole "jim davies" wrote: > Tactically speaking, as you are, there is no argument with your logic. Well I wasn't speaking tactically - or strategically - and there was no logic or lack thereof involved in what were simple statements of fact. What I was doing was pointing out that history shows us when the US complains about the French not "showing up" for a war the US is involved in or intends to start, they are in an extremely hypocritical position. > Perhaps that is why not too many platoon leaders are selected as heads of > state. The more probable reason is that as platoon leaders they either get killed off in the wars of their political masters or survive to conduct their entire careers exhibiting real leadership - while the upcoming political masters spend those same years working on dodging scandal and accumulating the necessary political weight to become heads of state (where they exhibit command, not leadership). I'm trying to think of a current world leader right now who is exhibiting real leadership. No names come to mind. Maybe we should be looking more to selecting people who understand the difference between command and leadership. A real leader can always command when necessary - but a commander does not always (and more often than not doesn't) have the ability to be a leader. > If we assume that any war the Europeans start has to be attended by and > supported immediately and without reservations by everyone else, including > the Yanks you are correct. If we base right-or-wrong only on who was there > and who did what at any given fight, then you are also correct. I made no such value judgements - I merely pointed out world history over the last 100 years as to who has been late to show up for war when you compare the US to France. Given that the US is criticizing France for not getting onboard with the war they are planning against Iraq, simply take your statement above and substitute a few words, and the idiocy of Rumsfeld's position regarding France is evident: "If we assume that any war the Yanks start has to be attended by and supported immediately and without reservations by everyone else, including the French you are correct. If we base right-or-wrong only on who was there and who did what at any given fight, then you are also correct." > It is a matter of history that the self-professed leaders of the pre-WW2 > world were Britain and France. Well, it is another discussion entirely, but I can't agree with you on that one. The US came out of WWI financially sound while WW1 had bankrupted both Britain and France - the financial center of the world had switched from London to New York. While Britain struggled to maintain its' crumbling empire, the US was taking huge economic leaps and asserting itself globally after having abandoned its' isolationism. France simply muddled around trying to recover from the war while also trying to retain its' colonial holdings. I don't have a real opinion about who "self-professed" much one way or another after WWI - but the US certainly wasn't hiding their light under a bushel basket at that time and they were backing it up with action. > It is also a matter of history that WW2 as we know it was created and > enabled by the fatally flawed policy of appeasement followed by Britain and > France. Yet another separate discussion, but I would argue that the breeding ground for WW2 was the Treaty of Versailles which practically guaranteed a desperate Germany looking for any savior from the oppressive scenario they were left in. An opportunist named Hitler came along with the right message... I don't think the US raised much objections to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles at the time it was signed... And as for the appeasement that went on for so long while Germany gained military strength... again, I'm not aware of the US speaking out against that appeasement and demanding that something be done about Germany before the world once again was consumed by a European war. I think that the heads of state of the Commonwealth, France, and the US all showed remarkable lack of vision and leadership in these events. So again, perhaps we should be selecting platoon leaders. Or corporals... > Yet, if your reasoning means that all other countries must be ready, aye > ready, to march upon the crashing of these world leader's policies, then > your arguments are historically sound. Again, I proposed no arguments or value judgements - I simply pointed out the contemptible hypocrisy of Rumsfeld's complaints about the French getting on board. As a value judgement, to paraphrase your comment above, should France and all other countries be "ready, aye ready, to march upon the crashing of these world leaders' policies" - the world leader these days being the US? In my view, the answer is certainly not. If you are going to be a country that does whatever it is told by the US (or any other country), why not simply pension your own government off and take your marching orders from some other country's government? > It is a hallmark of the British left that the US was evil in not supporting > England in her wars. Of course, it is a hallmark of the British left that the > Yanks are always evil and wrong. Rubbish. The Commonwealth countries were not particularly happy with the US being shopkeepers to both sides during WWI - and deservedly so. On the other hand, none have hesitated to give the US recognition for the support they rendered once they got pissed at the idea that Germany was trying to incite Mexico to attack the US and finally jumped into the war with both feet. The Allies once again in WWII were not particularly happy with the US dragging their feet and watching the cash register while events that would obviously shape the world were unfolding. Who could be happy when either scenario - Hitler owning Europe and Northern Africa, or Russia holding most of the same with the eventual defeat of Hitler - would have posed disaster for the world, including the US. Yet again, after the US finally got off the pot and joined the crowd, the British have been almost pathetic in their gratitude to the US, as have the remainder of the Commonwealth countries to a lesser extent. In some instances, it is a case of the British leaving their brains at the door where the US is involved. > This is true whether they are being blamed for letting the world unfold > without any interference as they did up to 1941 or whether, after being > forced into the position of western world leadership by the incompetence of > Britain and France they are blamed for doing anything, such as standing up > to Saddam Hussein. "Forced into the position of western world leadership"... Central America, Vietnam, Iran... that's leadership? As for "standing up to Saddam Hussein"... where was the US "standing up" during the genocide in Yugoslavia and Rwanda? Britain and France were both in Yugo - and fighting - where was the US? During the Rwanda slaughter, the US (with the Brits faithfully helping) was primarily busting its' ass to prevent the word "genocide" being used in the UN in reference to the situation there - because that would have compelled the Americans to become militarily involved. Surely the country in "the position of western world leadership" should have had some involvement in those countries while the killing was raging. Oh wait... there were no economic benefits and no potential threat to the US in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. That's selective leadership of the western world for you... The problem that faces the governments of countries like France is that they are not convinced that Saddam Hussein needs "standing up to" by means of killing a few hundred thousand incompetent Iraqi soldiers and bombing that country back to the stone age with the attendant killing of untold civilians. While I can't speak for France, they as a country still have more than a few citizens who remember what it is like to be used as the world's battleground and what it is like for civilians to endure military bombardment. Except for Pearl Harbour, the US has no idea what it is like to have your country and your civilians subjected to that. 9/11 wasn't even a taste of that kind of death and destruction, so what the Americans feel about that is only a fraction of what other countries feel about a war being fought across an entire country, complete with bombardments of civilian areas that would make 9/11 look like a firecracker in a garbage can. The US is curiously blind in that respect, just as they as a country are puzzled at why Iran hates them so much after they engineered the overthrow of a parliamentary democracy there and installed a tyrant complete with secret police. And frankly, speaking of the French, just like the US in Rwanda and Yugo, they may also be taking the position that there's nothing economic in it for them, nor any threat to them. The US does not have a monopoly on that kind of thinking. When I recall the first war with Iran and Powell's claims at that time about satellite imagery showing massed Iraqi forces sitting on Saudi Arabia's border - but private satellite imagery showing absolutely nothing in this area, I have a lot of trouble accepting anything the US says at face value without something a little more concrete to go on. I imagine the French feel the same way - and using propaganda to achieve the desired attitude would not be anything foreign to them either. Come to think of it, I feel precisely the same way about the Canadian government and what it tells me is right and wrong, and what we must do and not do to "protect ourselves". Few governments are evil in and of themselves. By the same token, few governments are honest and open with their populations - doing so makes the task of governing all that more difficult. Governments make good decisions and bad decisions, and often they make those decisions based on an agenda their citizens know nothing about. That agenda often has the purpose of benefitting a relative few within the country or simply is of no benefit to the citizenery at all. The US is not evil - but then again it is not necessarily right either. And its' agenda, whatever it may be, is not necessarily an agenda that benefits the countries it asks to join it or the world at large. > So, your opinion is a good one from the perspective of the foxhole. It lacks > a little depth, however. Well my original "opinion" wasn't an opinion at all; just a statement of historical fact. However, I am also capable of opinion that goes beyond flag waving and blind support for the US or any country - including my own. [Moderator's Note: I think that this discussion is starting to get a little too long winded and a little too off topic for the CFD. I recommend taking it private or to Chat. BNM] ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V5 #785 ********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca Moderator's e-mail address: mailto:akimoya@sprint.ca List owner: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca FAQ list: http://www.magma.ca/~asd/cfd-faq1.html and http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Faq/cfd-faq1.html Web Site: http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/homepage.html FTP Site: ftp://teapot.usask.ca/pub/cdn-firearms/ CFDigest Archives: http://www.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca/~ab133/ or put the next command in an e-mail message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca get cdn-firearms-digest v04.n192 end (192 is the digest issue number and 04 is the volume) To unsubscribe from _all_ the lists, put the next five lines in a message and mailto:majordomo@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca unsubscribe cdn-firearms-digest unsubscribe cdn-firearms-alert unsubscribe cdn-firearms-chat unsubscribe cdn-firearms end (To subscribe, use "subscribe" instead of "unsubscribe".) 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