Dear editor,
Recently, on Yahoo there was an item stating that a Winnipeg physician had just been praised by President Obama.
That was it – a physician of Canadian origin, but living in the USA and working there, had just returned from Liberia where he did work for Ebola patients, ostensibly very good work.
You know, I’m getting a little fed up with accounts of how we can feel better about being Canadians because a foreign head of state opines that we are worthy.
Are we that insecure that we need the affirmation, or if we get it, that we need to congratulate ourselves for it?
This is pretty damned pathetic. Whatever happened to the intrinsic worth of a good education, a good upbringing, good deeds, hard work, a good work ethic, and just being decent people?
No, we gush and pat ourselves on the back every time Americans say we’re good people. Then, next breath, we look down our long noses at them and tell each other they are all screwed-up as a society.
So, the praise from that screwed-up society is really welcome, but they’re all a bunch of gun-toting rednecks. Well, then, who cares what the Americans say about us?
Or, is it that the current president, someone whom a sizeable part of the populations on either side of the border admire and fawn over, has expressed the praise? Would the praise have been as welcome coming from the Speaker of the House, Mr. Boehner, a Republican? I think that it would. And that makes the praise what counts, the affirmation of our worth, and not necessarily the credentials or working philosophy of the person uttering it.
But we do love that smug conversation between us afterwards, don’t we, fellow sycophantic hypocrites. We love to bite the hand that feeds these tiny morsels of affirmation to our needy souls.
Crandell Overton
Comox Valley