Thursday, August 27, 2009

Canadian abortion protest smashes stereotype

Blogging from St. Ignace, Michigan.

On may way back into the United States this afternoon, the border agent at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan asked me a half dozen or so questions, which I calmly answered them--actually I was quite charming--and while I explained to him why I was in Canada, I told him I was a blogger.

"Do you blog about politics," he asked.

"I sure do," I replied, "but I also write about travel," which of course is why I went to the other Sault Ste. Marie.

"You're from Illinois, you must be an Obama supporter," he said.

"Absolutely not," I countered. "I hate him, not everyone in Illinois is a Democrat."

He then handed back my passport and my driver's license, and away I went, driving past an SUV that was being searched.

The lesson here is clear: You can't tell a man from his licence plate. Or a woman.

But let's get back to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

I went there to take pictures for Marathon Pundit, and to see if I could find anything interesting.

That I did.

Outside Sault Area Hospital, there was an abortion protest occurring.

Wait, not everyone in Canada is a leftist?

That's right.

Just like everyone in Illinois is not an Obama supporter.

The men pictured were quite interesting. They didn't know what to make of me at first, clearly they're not used to Americans engaging them during a protest.

I told them about my blog, how I wrote about Alan Keyes' encounters at Notre Dame in May, and that I was a conservative.

One of the men (I didn't ask them their names--and even if they gave them to me, I wouldn't have included them) told me, "You see, over here, taxes pay for abortions, whether we like it or not." He added, "It's not that way for you--yet."

That is true. Although the myriad of government-run health care bills proposed by the Democrats don't address taypayer-funded abortions, amendments offered by House Republicans were shot down by the Dems at the committee level.

You figure it out.

The same gentlemen continued, "I feel sorry for you with Obama running things, he's got some crazy people there, like that communist."

"That would be Van Jones," I responded.

Jones is at best a former communist, who is still a radical, and he is Obama's Green Jobs czar.

"That's right," he told me. "I found out about him watching Glenn Beck on Fox News."

Hey, Glenn, you have at least one fan in Ontario.

We engaged in a bit of small talk, then he returned to the subject of Obama. "He has that Chicago way of doing things. If Al Capone was still around, he'd be green with envy."

I already mentioned the folly of making impressions based on geographical stereotypes.

But here's a lesson for you, whether you blog or not: There is always an interesting story out there to be discovered.

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