US to ban Canadians from entering border friendship library
Dismay as cross-border library caught in US-Canada feud: ‘We just want to stay open’
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Interesting how the turnip says canada and the US are still friends, but they behave like this at the same time. Talk about gaslighting abusive behaviour.
Being an American right now is so consistently embarrassing.
I worked hard my whole life, went to school, volunteered to help my fellow man, love my wife, support my family, voted against this fascist.
Now I have to listen to every moron that asked in school “teacher when will I ever use fractions in the real world!?” opine about their take on global economic theories.
Canada has been our stalwart ally, good neighbor, and economic partner since that little dust up when you burned the White House down a couple centuries back. And we are blowing it all up for fucking nothing.
We are a stupid nation, don’t bother trying to salvage this relationship. Take the time you have now to shift trade away from this fucking dumpster fire.
There was always rot in America's foundation of which most of the world and I hope Americans were well aware.
Canada's servicemen and women died as your brothers and sisters when the US invoked article 5 of NATO in response to the 9/11 attacks.
This is a betrayal that won't soon be forgotten.
Growing up in America, at least back when I did, you get taught about America as this mythical thing.
And when I was young we were also taught how these were our ideals and how we had failed to live up to them and done horrible things to get them.
I was always pretty happy with my public education, we learned about all the aspects, manifest destiny and the trail of tears and the overall genocide of our native Americans to get the land that god said we could have (he said it in secret to some white people doing the genociding). The blight of slavery, the birth out of compromise, etc.
The message I took away from my education was that America was an idea, one we have failed to live up to but one that we forever strive towards, making slow painful progress towards a more perfect union.
And maybe that was true, maybe that was propaganda. What I know now is that my fellow countrymen largely don’t want to consider the bad parts, wouldn’t it be easier if instead of having to do work to live up to our ideals we actually already had it all figured out. We actually aren’t shit, we are great, but we just let some bad stuff get in the way of our greatness. We don’t need to grow and struggle and grapple with how to solve these problems, we actually are already perfect and the most powerful and the bigliest and all we need to do is get rid of this damn scapegoat that ruined it.
And the scapegoat can be anything you like, trans people, Mexicans, an unfair trade deal with Canada. Don’t worry, no one is going to really think too hard about what these things are or how they ruined our perfect greatness, we can just say “hey it’s bad and if we get rid of it we will be great” and that’s just how it is now.
I always thought America’s true greatness, if it ever had any, came from our willingness to confront our problems and strive towards our ideals. All around me I see cowards now that are afraid of the real world and retreating into a fantasy. I loathe them.
Do not forgot this betrayal. My fellow countrymen, a large amount at least, are unmoored by reality, unbothered by reality, living out an infantile fantasy. People like that will hurt others to keep their make believe world going. You should not trust us, for your own sake you must not.
As an American that still has love in my heart for my Canadian neighbors, protect yourself from us. Protect your nation from becoming what we have become. The forces that broke our people will try to break yours too. Stay strong Canada, elbows up.
My half-brother is American and former Republican voter.
Your take sounds a lot like his; what eventually pivoted him away from the party was an increasing awareness that it's always someone else's fault and an inability to look inwards.
I hope things improve in the future - the American people deserve better, but that starts with becoming aware of what the real problems are.
I upvoted but also had to comment as it so captures how I feel. There are many of us but not many enough apparently.
The news, met with disbelief from patrons and staff, followed a closely watched visit by the US secretary of homeland security, Kristi Noem, in March. Touring the library, Noem said “USA number one!” and then hopped over the black tape separating the two countries and said “51st state” when she landed in Canada. She repeated the joke – echoing Donald Trump’s recent fixation on annexing Canada – three times.
Most people get older but there's never a magic moment they become "adults." Many times people retain good qualities of childhood as they get older - curiosity, desire to play with others, a desire to learn. And many times they retain bad qualities of childhood - selfishness, lack of self-awareness, impulsiveness, impatience, tantrums.
This administration, led by Trump as the exemplar, is just a collection of people who got older but never stopped being children, in the worst ways. They have no self-awareness and just do whatever they feel like. Then they cloak it in the language of "adults," lack the curiosity to investigate if they're right, and throw a tantrum if someone tries to stop them.
If they were actually interested in coaxing Canada to be part of America, they would be all over celebrating this library as a shared space, representing unity and brotherhood where lines of nationality don't matter.
But of course, this administration can't help themselves but go there and say, "we're going to annex you, teehee", which elicits the exact opposite effect.
which elicits the exact opposite effect.
This article is about a month old. Donations are already pouring in to build a new entrance on the Canadian side.
Once completed, America will build a wall through the middle of the library lol.
Move all the books to the Canadian side now.
Might as well - they won't read them anyways.
It's not so much they won't. They can't.
Fast forward 3 months the headline will be.
"MAGA residents angry at Canadians for trying to sabotage local businesses."
This happened in March. This is already old news.
I don't know if that town in particular is super big on Maga. Of all the Americans, these are our closest kin.
That makes sense, it is a really cool story and I love that the donation from the philanthropists to create an international feeling of solidarity between Canadian and U.S. neighbors has been so effective of a symbol AND practical space for things that are denied reality elsewhere for so long to so many people.
I was making a broader joke about the sentiment of people in my country (US) attacking other people and then loudly complaining the victim is a jerk for reacting in an unfriendly way, but you are right, this architecture and organization simply could not exist in an intolerant or overly bigoted place. The very architecture of the library and performance venue subverts and challenges bigotry, isolationism and xenophobia in a way that doesn't allow those kinds of beliefs to casually slip in the back door like they do in other places.
Part of that library is on Canadian soil.
The Canadian part can hold all the “woke” books (actual histories of the Civil War, books on immunology/germ theory, anything by LGBT or PoC authors, anything about WW2 that might hurt a Nazi’s feelings) and hold drag queen storytimes, leaving space in the US part for lavishly bound AI-generated memoirs by right-wing talking heads that nobody actually reads, but that exist solely to launder payment through book sales and self-help books that advise you to drink bleach.
We should break in and wall off our side.
What a bunch of ignorant losers - fuck 'em.
