Posted on 04/20/2006 4:57:03 AM PDT by Vigilanteman
Your cartoonist Randy Bish is mistaken in his "wrong flag" cartoon (April 11 and TribLIVE.com).
In fact, Mexico is an American country, the flag of Mexico is an American flag, and all Mexicans are Americans. Much of the Mexican population is descended from people who were living here in America thousands of years before our ancestors arrived from Europe. Moreover, the Europeans arrived in Mexico before they arrived in the U.S.A.
Mark Marshall Toronto, Canada, America
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
They just aren't aware of it. For the most part it's not a meaningful issue in the US. In Canada, it's still meaningful because you can't get cheap cigarettes unless you know a "real" Indian, eh!
The writer's main point (shared by many Canadians, including conservative ones) is that the term America technically applies to the entire New World. That's why we have a "North" America and a "South" America. We are "The United States of" America, or USA. You will often hear Canadians (and Brits and Aussies) refer to the USA as "the States" (which is actually even more generic).
Anyway, they think it is a bit ego-centric to go around calling ourselves America as if the rest of "America" wasn't worth consideration. We use it, it stuck (at least here), but they are not obliged to like it. Nor does it mean that the writer wants a reconquista.
Mr Marshall we will gladly send YOU all the mexicans your
country can hold.
Just don't try being like their govt demanding what our govt must do, we don't take kindly to remarks like yours, very inflammatory!
So maybe I will just say it.....SHUT UP! EH?
He's all wrong. Europeans were on the American continent before native Mexican/Indians. They crossed over an ice bridge during the last ice age. (Archeologists have found evidence of different, pre-Clovis spear points related to those found in Europe.)
At any rate, Mexico's Fox is already ordering his army of cheap labor to head north and keep going until they hit an iceberg.
You live in Canada. You are a Canadian.
Folks in Mexico are Mexicans.
I live in the United States of America. I am an American.
Sheesh, is it that hard?
Back in 1970, I read Night of Camp David by Fletcher Kneble.
It was about a congressman who was being pressured by the president to run as his VP for a second term. The president had this grand plan of anexing Canada first, then Mexico, then all of Central America.
The rest of the book was about the congessman dodging the secret service and proving the the president was insane.
It all seemed a bit far fetched at the time...
Here is a link that lists the countries of the Americas:
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/america.htm
Again I am unaware of any other country in the Americas that uses the name America as part of its national identity.
The term isn't just used by us but by people all over the world. Ask someone in China to point to America on a globe and see where he points. Didn't a French paper claim "we are all Americans" after 9-11? Something else to consider, America was the 1st nation around that wasn't owned by Europe in the "Americas" and we called ourselves the United States of America. It seems only reasonable for the world to shorten the name of our country to America. By the way, when people come to America, they are coming to the U.S., otherwise they would be going to Canada or Mexico or Brazil.
This is just the way of turning the Americas into one economic force like Europe. You see we can't call America America because thats the name that needs to be used for the global economic force that will be "America" and the u.s. will be just one small part of that force.
you posted faster than I did, but I like your argument;-)
Still I've never heard a Canadian or Brit refer to our citizens as anything but Americans. I assume "Citizens of the United States" is just too much of a mouthful. Indeed using the term "Brit" to describe citizens of the UK ignores the citizens of the Republic of Ireland.
Such points should be met with eye rolls.
Thanks.
My mother used to tell this joke after my wedding to an Hispanic 23 years ago...
Q: "When does a Mexican become a Spaniard?"
A: "When he marries your daughter."
(By the way, I'm just giving you a bad time) ;-)
Here's an idea. There are 33 million Canadians. Let's assum half of them vote.
Why don't we send 20,000 undocumented Americans to Canada as perminent visitors? We can advertise their wonderful welfare benefits here as an incentive to our citizens less inclined to work and give them instruction on how to get into Canada and apply for benefits. Then in a few years, we put a measure on their ballot to make Canada pay the United States tribute for their defense? After all, a lot of us have French Canadian roots.
But the United States of America is a sovereign Country and as such we are citizens of the United States of America, the mexicans are not.
Of course you're right. Saying we shouldn't call ourselves Americans because other countries are on the American continents makes as much sense as saying Colombia should not call itself Colombia because other parts of America were first discovered by Christopher Columbus. Then El Salvador should not call itself El Salvador because other countries are also Christian. "The States" could also refer to Mexico.
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