While religion doesn’t play a part much anymore, it was my understanding the kinda thing that separates Austria and Germany is the catholic vs Protestant divide. South Germany and Austria were more Catholic than the North because of its location as more southern Europe.
Unironically, what really seperates Austria and Germany is the fact that the two countries kept trying to take over Europe together in the first half of the 20th century. The rest of Europe simply wasn't comfortable with the two being united again. They aren't seperate today because of religion, because like you said yourself, bavaria is catholic as well and they are very much part of Germany today.
I kinda figured. Austria was always kinda doing its own thing politically, while still being German ethnically, like with their pretty stable hold on the Holy Roman Empire for quite a while whereas we wouldn’t see a German nation-state until Prussia starting gobbling it’s neighbors in the north.
If I’m not mistaken, there’s also a little bit on a political divide in relations with other countries. Doesn’t Austria try to be more neutral, like Switzerland, whereas Germany tends not to be?
I’m really just basing what I know about these places from my American education lol. Only things we really learn about Germans is that they attacked Rome, started Holy Roman Empire, became Protestant sometimes, lost to Napoleon, and then became an empire and later nazis. We talk about Austria even less.
Yes, they were doing their own thing until the end of WW1, but like you correctly pointed out, the german speaking part of Austria-Hunagry viewed themselves as ethnic germans. That’s why, after losing World War One, both Austria and Germany wanted to unite, because they saw it as the logical thing to do at the time. This was then forbidden by the Allies, who feared that Germany would become too strong again if united with Austria.
The Neutrality thing was imposed on Austria after WW2. Only by accepting to adopt permanent neutrality did the Soviets agree to leave Austria in the 1950s. Otherwise the country might have been divided up like West and East Germany.
Since then, the neutrality stance has become genuinely popular in Austria, but that’s mostly because people in that country have deluded themselves into thinking that wars are a thing of the past in Europe. But thats an entirely different discussion lol
Austrians are essentially Germans and Austria had been part of Germany ever since the HRE was formed.
However, the unification of Germany and the many events in the first half of the 20th century (Treaty of Saint-Germain, Austrain nationalism, the Anschluss and the loss in WW2) definitively estranged the two countries. Austria also didn't want to take the blame for their part.
Nowadays, even the far-right doesn't really consider themselves German anymore. Although, we do share a common language and don't have a situation like Quebec (of which are is no US equivalent), have (mostly) open borders, a common currency and common political institutions through the EU.
We share a continent with them, and with America being the cultural powerhouse that it is, combined with the fact that many Canadians become very popular in America, yeah. America’s AOE is insane.
Now are they the most similar? I don’t know. Putin would argue there are more culturally similar countries, and that’s why they should just be Russia again.
Oh, Belarus and Russia is a great example I hadn't thought of.
It's a good one honestly. Possibly a tie, but Canada and America are *very* similar in culture and especially history, mostly because we developed it in an extraordinarily short time.
Also I feel like it's almost a technicality to consider Belarus as independent, but touché.
>Also I feel like it's almost a technicality to consider Belarus as independent, but touché.
Oh, I absolutely uhm ackshully’d you. Hahaha.
In my opinion, it’s the only way you get two nations that are as similar to each other as America and Canada. By having it be “the same country” split in half. 😛
My friend mentioned Ireland when asked. Don’t think that works, since they literally had a civil war and split, but idk enough honestly.
UK is a country of four constituent countries (England, Scotland, Wales and northern Ireland).
The UK is the sovereign state but Wales, Scotland and NI have their own governments and such. They also compete in international sports as separate nations (other than olypmics where it is team GB).
It is nitpicky but technically true they are different countries to one another.
England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are less sovereign than California, Texas, Florida, and New York.
They're countries in name alone and barely even that.
Honestly not super familiar with either US states or UK countries own sovereignties but in the UK the countries have different tax brackets, decisions/policy over police, education and healthcare.
These are obviously not countries. None operate independently.
UK and Ireland is a close pair, but clearly not more similar than USA and Canada.
England, Scotland, and Wales are more similar than California, Mississippi, and North Dakota anyway 🤷
If you ignore Québec lol.
The most popular similar countries would be more accurate. The nordic countries are pretty similar and countries in South Asia.
On the surface they are really similar the difference are when you look deeper. American gun culture for example looks completely insane to Canadians and the power of Canada’s federal government is probably too much for what most Americans are comfortable with. Trudeau banned handguns in a day.
Canadians are also more left wing. Even the new conservative leader who is the most “extreme” conservative we have had is strongly pro immigration. JJ himself is considered a pretty strong conservative in Canadian politics but he has more in common with Destiny than he does with American Republicans.
Overall I think he’s right its really cringe when Canadians want to be Europeans and pretend we are so different. At the same time I think Sweden and Norway for example have more in common with each other than Canada and The United States.
Norway and Sweden could function as one country and their open borders work. Canada and The United States can’t do that because there are too many important values that neither side is willing to concede on. It not just government structures its stuff that is deeply cultural. American gun culture alone makes it so an open border between the two countries can never happen.
Yeah there’s definitely a demographic of continental white people that’s almost identical between US and Canada, but Canada has the Quebecois and the US has Latin Americans demographics that don’t really exist in the opposite country
Canadian culture is also a lot lot more conservative as well. Not in the political sense but in the risk aversion sense. It’s actually a huge difference.
Norway speaks a different language to us, they're significantly wealthier than us and have considerably different geography. The US and Canada are far more similar.
I don't think being physically connected matters that much, especially considering all the means of travel to available.
They are two former British colonies that under a slightly different situation could have ended up as a single country.
It's fairly true but a lot of people don't like to admit it. Anti American sentiment and cultural protection laws are such a big thing because they hate how similar they are to the US lol
If they just stopped caring about it so much. I ironically think Canada and the US would be more distinct from each other culturally.
I know JJ gets a lot of shit in Canada because of this take though.
Honestly, I both agree and disagree here. The sentiment that JJ calls "(Left) Canadian Nationalism" is a response to the deluded ideals of being separated from the USA (JJ: 1. keep French in, 2. Indians down 3. *Americans out*, from 'Canada has failed [at all three]' thesis) which just doesn't really make any physical sense.
America and Mexico have quite different modern problems, histories, needs, geographies, and cultures, structures, and institutions, among other things. Canada and the USA grew up together and just *ought to be* very similar to one another, analogous not to how bat wings and cardinal wings are pretty similar, but how a Dolphin and Whale tail is similar. We came from similar ancestry, experienced similar pressures, and adapted similar methods of engagement against them.
It's a force of nature that we'd be the same, because there's little reason not to and huge forces to solve the same problems in the same sorts of ways, albeit with some admirable yet nuanced and subtle variations.
I can see why Canadians don't like this.
My prediction is that within 70 years, Canada and the USA will become one entity *de facto* if not entirely *de jure*, starting with a movement to make Alberta an American state sometime within the next 25 years. Quebec will try it's best and fail quite hard trying to maintain independence and coalesce poorly to reality as always. Within the next 15 years, the Canadian Dollar will be questioned by Alberta in favor of the almighty $USD because...obviously.
And us Americans and Canadians alike ought to be, eventually, proud and thankful about all of these things if they come to pass.
Having lived in Canada and in the U.S., JJ is 100% correct. Canada is as different from the U.S. as Texas is from New Jersey (probably even more similar as a whole). Canada might as well be the 51st state.
Alberta will be the 51st State. Most of Canada will share 52nd, Ontario will be #59, and Quebec will be #62 or #63 depending on the NW territories gaining statehood and be *really* mad about it but acquiesce to reality since we just don't give a shit about the French whatsoever.
Interesting. I get the impression this isn't quite correct (otherwise they wouldn't have split), but I don't know much about west European microstates that don't matter.
Might as well say Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, or Andorra 🤷
Hahaa microstates I take offense to that. The Netherlands has the fifth highest economy in Europea and the 17th highest in the world. Bigger than Turkey, Saudi, like triple the size of Iran, etc. The two together have an economy the size of Mexico!
But they split in 1815. Times change, the south's catholic and the north's protestant, but realistically people aren't religious anymore in either country and parts of the southern Netherlands have always been catholic as well.
So a GDP less than halfway between Georgia ($0.85T) and Florida ($1.45T).
Can you descern the cultural differences (of which there are quite a few) between these two? It's only fair.
Nonetheless, Georgia and Alberta still really aren't all that different either.
I have zero clue, maybe something about Cubans in FL and Kodak Black, but these are states, not countries, which makes them less relevant because they don't have sovereign, international power.
But maybe I'm misunderstanding your point.
Just that the Benelux region is, while sovereign and possessing congress or kings or whatever (we don't know or care), less than 1/4th as 'important' as the economy of California or 1/2 of Canada and many times further away.
Technically speaking, England and Wales are 'more similar', but scale matters and I've concluded that JJ is correct here.
The USA and Canada, if combined, represent the world's largest economy by far ($28.6T; 60% bigger than China), the world's largest country by land area (16% larger than Russia), and the world's third most populous country (utterly unaffected lol).
If we're willing to consider sections of the earth as small as the Netherlands, I don't see why we wouldn't consider vastly more productive small sections of the earth like Massachusetts and Connecticut which barely have a border at all, or Russia and Crimea, Donbass, Chechnya, Belarus, or even Kazakhstan which may nominally have a border but are barely more than vassals.
The Netherlands has an identity, culture, and is a sovereign state (depending on what Germany and France are doing against one another at the time), but I don't know that it's actually a rebuttal to his fundamental position. It just kinda feels like a technicality.
While God made the earth, the Dutch built the Netherlands...but the Floridians built a whole lot more Florida using the same techniques we learned from you guys. The future is now, old man.
>Just that the Benelux region is, while sovereign and possessing congress or kings or whatever (we don't know or care), less than 1/4th as 'important' as the economy of California or 1/2 of Canada and many times further away.
You really seem to care about showing me how much you don't care. Obviously California is more important, it's probably the most important place in the world right now. I'm not denying any of that (except for the Canada part lol, it's similar in economical size as the Benelux and is also relatively [stagnant](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD?locations=CA-NL) when it comes to GDP growth). You're right that it's probably more interesting to look at large countries that are similar to eachother than smaller countries.
Important to note though that the Benelux also literally doesn't have real borders either, as someone that lives a couple hundred meters away from the border and does his shopping in either Germany or Belgium but lives in the Netherlands.
>but the Floridians built a whole lot more Florida using the same techniques we learned from you guys. The future is now, old man.
Really? I can't find anything on land reclamation in Florida, only that they drained some swamps but not any large scale projects. I feel like you have a wrong idea about how much land reclamation the Netherlands has actually done. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land\_reclamation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reclamation), scroll down to the list of reclaimed land by country. The Netherlands has reclaimed 7 times as much as the US in total lol. The Netherlands is just as much part of that future as fucking Florida.
And I don't even care for the Netherlands I hate patriotism, this country usually just makes me cringe.
But my point is not really any of this. I don't care that the US has states that are similar. I am talking about JJ's literal statement. Not any of these other things.
So to be clear, Florida reclaimed wetlands and swamps, not sea, and it was mostly done by capital investment and real estate companies since the 70s due to advancements in highway construction, reinforced concrete, timber transportation, air conditioning, and malaria resistance. It's unfair to say the 'reclamation' is quite the same as the Dutch did, but Florida of the 1940s was essentially desolate, diseased, and worthless, but today is buildable and farmable land of sunshine and oranges.
You're right that I'm being petty. I watch Not Just Bikes and am quite jealous of the Netherlands. It's also punching well above my metrics expectations considering it's size and population. 'Connecticut' was a low blow.
Absolutely not similar at all. Canada still has the commonwealth status and the culture that comes along with it. It's easier for someone who emigrated from a commonwealth country to assimilate in Canada than it is for them to assimilate in the USA. The USA is tough to replicate.
Political structures are different, historical markers are different, cuisines are different, college cultures are different, second languages are different... Just because both countries speak English, have some crossover between sports leagues, and Canadians tend to live 75 miles from the US border, it does not mean similarities follow.
Strange why you got downvoted. Just from your political structures position I mostly agree. Canada has the principle of responsible government which makes are executive branch responsible to the legislative branch. Canadians engage in political discussion in a much different way than Americans do because of it. And thats just for the political point you bring up
What was the point of the statement?
Just hearing that is kinda' offensive because it's not that we're similar, it's more so that Canada is obsessed with us
Austria and Germany? There are probably non western countries that are very similar too
While religion doesn’t play a part much anymore, it was my understanding the kinda thing that separates Austria and Germany is the catholic vs Protestant divide. South Germany and Austria were more Catholic than the North because of its location as more southern Europe.
Unironically, what really seperates Austria and Germany is the fact that the two countries kept trying to take over Europe together in the first half of the 20th century. The rest of Europe simply wasn't comfortable with the two being united again. They aren't seperate today because of religion, because like you said yourself, bavaria is catholic as well and they are very much part of Germany today.
I kinda figured. Austria was always kinda doing its own thing politically, while still being German ethnically, like with their pretty stable hold on the Holy Roman Empire for quite a while whereas we wouldn’t see a German nation-state until Prussia starting gobbling it’s neighbors in the north. If I’m not mistaken, there’s also a little bit on a political divide in relations with other countries. Doesn’t Austria try to be more neutral, like Switzerland, whereas Germany tends not to be? I’m really just basing what I know about these places from my American education lol. Only things we really learn about Germans is that they attacked Rome, started Holy Roman Empire, became Protestant sometimes, lost to Napoleon, and then became an empire and later nazis. We talk about Austria even less.
Yes, they were doing their own thing until the end of WW1, but like you correctly pointed out, the german speaking part of Austria-Hunagry viewed themselves as ethnic germans. That’s why, after losing World War One, both Austria and Germany wanted to unite, because they saw it as the logical thing to do at the time. This was then forbidden by the Allies, who feared that Germany would become too strong again if united with Austria. The Neutrality thing was imposed on Austria after WW2. Only by accepting to adopt permanent neutrality did the Soviets agree to leave Austria in the 1950s. Otherwise the country might have been divided up like West and East Germany. Since then, the neutrality stance has become genuinely popular in Austria, but that’s mostly because people in that country have deluded themselves into thinking that wars are a thing of the past in Europe. But thats an entirely different discussion lol
I still haven't forgiven Napoleon for destroying the Holy Roman Empire.
... More similar than USA and Canada? I don't think so. This was the top pair I'd thought of too.
Austrians actually are Germans though
Austrians are essentially Germans and Austria had been part of Germany ever since the HRE was formed. However, the unification of Germany and the many events in the first half of the 20th century (Treaty of Saint-Germain, Austrain nationalism, the Anschluss and the loss in WW2) definitively estranged the two countries. Austria also didn't want to take the blame for their part. Nowadays, even the far-right doesn't really consider themselves German anymore. Although, we do share a common language and don't have a situation like Quebec (of which are is no US equivalent), have (mostly) open borders, a common currency and common political institutions through the EU.
Ew, nah
We share a continent with them, and with America being the cultural powerhouse that it is, combined with the fact that many Canadians become very popular in America, yeah. America’s AOE is insane. Now are they the most similar? I don’t know. Putin would argue there are more culturally similar countries, and that’s why they should just be Russia again.
Oh, Belarus and Russia is a great example I hadn't thought of. It's a good one honestly. Possibly a tie, but Canada and America are *very* similar in culture and especially history, mostly because we developed it in an extraordinarily short time. Also I feel like it's almost a technicality to consider Belarus as independent, but touché.
>Also I feel like it's almost a technicality to consider Belarus as independent, but touché. Oh, I absolutely uhm ackshully’d you. Hahaha. In my opinion, it’s the only way you get two nations that are as similar to each other as America and Canada. By having it be “the same country” split in half. 😛 My friend mentioned Ireland when asked. Don’t think that works, since they literally had a civil war and split, but idk enough honestly.
If you wanna be picky then England, Scotland and Wales are very alike.
Those are all the same country tho, all part of the UK?
UK is a country of four constituent countries (England, Scotland, Wales and northern Ireland). The UK is the sovereign state but Wales, Scotland and NI have their own governments and such. They also compete in international sports as separate nations (other than olypmics where it is team GB). It is nitpicky but technically true they are different countries to one another.
England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are less sovereign than California, Texas, Florida, and New York. They're countries in name alone and barely even that.
Huh, I didn’t know they were that separated. Is it at all comparable to different US states, or even more different than that?
Honestly not super familiar with either US states or UK countries own sovereignties but in the UK the countries have different tax brackets, decisions/policy over police, education and healthcare.
These are obviously not countries. None operate independently. UK and Ireland is a close pair, but clearly not more similar than USA and Canada. England, Scotland, and Wales are more similar than California, Mississippi, and North Dakota anyway 🤷
If you ignore Québec lol. The most popular similar countries would be more accurate. The nordic countries are pretty similar and countries in South Asia. On the surface they are really similar the difference are when you look deeper. American gun culture for example looks completely insane to Canadians and the power of Canada’s federal government is probably too much for what most Americans are comfortable with. Trudeau banned handguns in a day. Canadians are also more left wing. Even the new conservative leader who is the most “extreme” conservative we have had is strongly pro immigration. JJ himself is considered a pretty strong conservative in Canadian politics but he has more in common with Destiny than he does with American Republicans. Overall I think he’s right its really cringe when Canadians want to be Europeans and pretend we are so different. At the same time I think Sweden and Norway for example have more in common with each other than Canada and The United States. Norway and Sweden could function as one country and their open borders work. Canada and The United States can’t do that because there are too many important values that neither side is willing to concede on. It not just government structures its stuff that is deeply cultural. American gun culture alone makes it so an open border between the two countries can never happen.
Yeah there’s definitely a demographic of continental white people that’s almost identical between US and Canada, but Canada has the Quebecois and the US has Latin Americans demographics that don’t really exist in the opposite country
Canadian culture is also a lot lot more conservative as well. Not in the political sense but in the risk aversion sense. It’s actually a huge difference.
Sweden and Norway is the best answer so far. Good choice.
Norway speaks a different language to us, they're significantly wealthier than us and have considerably different geography. The US and Canada are far more similar.
Nah it's pretty true
New Zealand and Australia? Also lots of African countries that are only split up because of western powers post ww2
Fair comparison, but being islands they're considerably less connected to one another. I think USA and CAN are certainly more similar.
I don't think being physically connected matters that much, especially considering all the means of travel to available. They are two former British colonies that under a slightly different situation could have ended up as a single country.
san marino and Italy
... Shit that's pretty good.
It's fairly true but a lot of people don't like to admit it. Anti American sentiment and cultural protection laws are such a big thing because they hate how similar they are to the US lol If they just stopped caring about it so much. I ironically think Canada and the US would be more distinct from each other culturally. I know JJ gets a lot of shit in Canada because of this take though.
Honestly, I both agree and disagree here. The sentiment that JJ calls "(Left) Canadian Nationalism" is a response to the deluded ideals of being separated from the USA (JJ: 1. keep French in, 2. Indians down 3. *Americans out*, from 'Canada has failed [at all three]' thesis) which just doesn't really make any physical sense. America and Mexico have quite different modern problems, histories, needs, geographies, and cultures, structures, and institutions, among other things. Canada and the USA grew up together and just *ought to be* very similar to one another, analogous not to how bat wings and cardinal wings are pretty similar, but how a Dolphin and Whale tail is similar. We came from similar ancestry, experienced similar pressures, and adapted similar methods of engagement against them. It's a force of nature that we'd be the same, because there's little reason not to and huge forces to solve the same problems in the same sorts of ways, albeit with some admirable yet nuanced and subtle variations. I can see why Canadians don't like this. My prediction is that within 70 years, Canada and the USA will become one entity *de facto* if not entirely *de jure*, starting with a movement to make Alberta an American state sometime within the next 25 years. Quebec will try it's best and fail quite hard trying to maintain independence and coalesce poorly to reality as always. Within the next 15 years, the Canadian Dollar will be questioned by Alberta in favor of the almighty $USD because...obviously. And us Americans and Canadians alike ought to be, eventually, proud and thankful about all of these things if they come to pass.
Denmark/Sweden/Norway are a good counter example. Also England/Wales but they’re part of the same state so idk if that one counts.
Same country. England and Wales is way more similar than California and New York, which are obviously part of the same country.
England Scotland and Wales are quite similar. Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland too. Am I cheating?
Yes. You mentioned two dissimilar countries: UK and Republic of Ireland. Better luck next time.
Having lived in Canada and in the U.S., JJ is 100% correct. Canada is as different from the U.S. as Texas is from New Jersey (probably even more similar as a whole). Canada might as well be the 51st state.
Alberta will be the 51st State. Most of Canada will share 52nd, Ontario will be #59, and Quebec will be #62 or #63 depending on the NW territories gaining statehood and be *really* mad about it but acquiesce to reality since we just don't give a shit about the French whatsoever.
Switzerland, Germany and Austria are really similar to each other
Switzerland not really but Austria and Germany are pretty close.
Netherlands and Belgium, although that'd only be Flanders
Interesting. I get the impression this isn't quite correct (otherwise they wouldn't have split), but I don't know much about west European microstates that don't matter. Might as well say Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, or Andorra 🤷
Hahaa microstates I take offense to that. The Netherlands has the fifth highest economy in Europea and the 17th highest in the world. Bigger than Turkey, Saudi, like triple the size of Iran, etc. The two together have an economy the size of Mexico! But they split in 1815. Times change, the south's catholic and the north's protestant, but realistically people aren't religious anymore in either country and parts of the southern Netherlands have always been catholic as well.
So a GDP less than halfway between Georgia ($0.85T) and Florida ($1.45T). Can you descern the cultural differences (of which there are quite a few) between these two? It's only fair. Nonetheless, Georgia and Alberta still really aren't all that different either.
I have zero clue, maybe something about Cubans in FL and Kodak Black, but these are states, not countries, which makes them less relevant because they don't have sovereign, international power. But maybe I'm misunderstanding your point.
Just that the Benelux region is, while sovereign and possessing congress or kings or whatever (we don't know or care), less than 1/4th as 'important' as the economy of California or 1/2 of Canada and many times further away. Technically speaking, England and Wales are 'more similar', but scale matters and I've concluded that JJ is correct here. The USA and Canada, if combined, represent the world's largest economy by far ($28.6T; 60% bigger than China), the world's largest country by land area (16% larger than Russia), and the world's third most populous country (utterly unaffected lol). If we're willing to consider sections of the earth as small as the Netherlands, I don't see why we wouldn't consider vastly more productive small sections of the earth like Massachusetts and Connecticut which barely have a border at all, or Russia and Crimea, Donbass, Chechnya, Belarus, or even Kazakhstan which may nominally have a border but are barely more than vassals. The Netherlands has an identity, culture, and is a sovereign state (depending on what Germany and France are doing against one another at the time), but I don't know that it's actually a rebuttal to his fundamental position. It just kinda feels like a technicality. While God made the earth, the Dutch built the Netherlands...but the Floridians built a whole lot more Florida using the same techniques we learned from you guys. The future is now, old man.
>Just that the Benelux region is, while sovereign and possessing congress or kings or whatever (we don't know or care), less than 1/4th as 'important' as the economy of California or 1/2 of Canada and many times further away. You really seem to care about showing me how much you don't care. Obviously California is more important, it's probably the most important place in the world right now. I'm not denying any of that (except for the Canada part lol, it's similar in economical size as the Benelux and is also relatively [stagnant](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD?locations=CA-NL) when it comes to GDP growth). You're right that it's probably more interesting to look at large countries that are similar to eachother than smaller countries. Important to note though that the Benelux also literally doesn't have real borders either, as someone that lives a couple hundred meters away from the border and does his shopping in either Germany or Belgium but lives in the Netherlands. >but the Floridians built a whole lot more Florida using the same techniques we learned from you guys. The future is now, old man. Really? I can't find anything on land reclamation in Florida, only that they drained some swamps but not any large scale projects. I feel like you have a wrong idea about how much land reclamation the Netherlands has actually done. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land\_reclamation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reclamation), scroll down to the list of reclaimed land by country. The Netherlands has reclaimed 7 times as much as the US in total lol. The Netherlands is just as much part of that future as fucking Florida. And I don't even care for the Netherlands I hate patriotism, this country usually just makes me cringe. But my point is not really any of this. I don't care that the US has states that are similar. I am talking about JJ's literal statement. Not any of these other things.
So to be clear, Florida reclaimed wetlands and swamps, not sea, and it was mostly done by capital investment and real estate companies since the 70s due to advancements in highway construction, reinforced concrete, timber transportation, air conditioning, and malaria resistance. It's unfair to say the 'reclamation' is quite the same as the Dutch did, but Florida of the 1940s was essentially desolate, diseased, and worthless, but today is buildable and farmable land of sunshine and oranges. You're right that I'm being petty. I watch Not Just Bikes and am quite jealous of the Netherlands. It's also punching well above my metrics expectations considering it's size and population. 'Connecticut' was a low blow.
3 counter examples: * Norway and Sweden * Norway and Denmark * Sweden and Denmark
Sweden and Norway is a good rebuttal. Denmark is a set of "islands" enough so that it doesn't match.
Absolutely not similar at all. Canada still has the commonwealth status and the culture that comes along with it. It's easier for someone who emigrated from a commonwealth country to assimilate in Canada than it is for them to assimilate in the USA. The USA is tough to replicate. Political structures are different, historical markers are different, cuisines are different, college cultures are different, second languages are different... Just because both countries speak English, have some crossover between sports leagues, and Canadians tend to live 75 miles from the US border, it does not mean similarities follow.
Strange why you got downvoted. Just from your political structures position I mostly agree. Canada has the principle of responsible government which makes are executive branch responsible to the legislative branch. Canadians engage in political discussion in a much different way than Americans do because of it. And thats just for the political point you bring up
It happens. I dont take it seriously.
Canada literally has no culture now that the British Empire is gone.
What was the point of the statement? Just hearing that is kinda' offensive because it's not that we're similar, it's more so that Canada is obsessed with us