Ex-patriotism

Today is a strange day, because of a combination of events.

In case you've been living under a rock, there has been some pretty big news coming out of the States. Most of my Twitter and Facebook friends have had things to say about this; there were things I agreed with and things I did not, but I will keep such opinions to myself as everyone else has already said everything I may or may not have wanted to say.

Mostly this has made me think of where we were as a country and where I was personally ten years ago. On one hand, we've begun to wrestle in the public arena about things like whether or not you should be able to get married to anyone you want, which I never ever thought would even happen in my lifetime. On the other hand, there's a lot about being American that I don't care for anymore--it makes it difficult to feel patriotic and proud of your country when you get accused of being un-American when you dissent. I am morally repulsed by the idea that American lives are somehow more valuable than the lives of people who happen to live somewhere else.

On Friday, my friend Louisa (I HAVE A FRIEND GUYS) and I went to see Gore Vidal speak at McGill. Gore Vidal has always been a blowhard and a bitcher, which I respect, and he seems to be one of the last people I know of who have that odd, laconic, aristocratic American accent that seems to have denoted education and class at one point. If I were to describe to you a news broadcast where William F. Buckley (another person who has this odd accent) and Gore Vidal call each other a "crypto-Nazi" and a "queer" respectively, I doubt you'd think it would sound as unhurried as this does.

Long story short, Gore Vidal's various political opinions appear to have condensed themselves into "I don't care, I'm old." It's kind of discouraging that Gore Vidal, allegedly one of the greatest living thinkers, is fed up with thinking about any kind of solutions to America's problems, and is content to let us all go rot because he is old and has given up messing around with us. Not that I am alone in this. Mr. Vidal also disregarded requests for opinions on the Quiet Revolution and the Canadian election, and refused to conjecture at all about the future of politics, the world, or most anything.

Finally, today is Election Day in Canada (whether or not Gore Vidal cares, it's still happening). We played board games with some of our usual crew last night, and the Canadians were jazzed about going to be able to vote the next day.

One of our crew was a francophone--I told her to enjoy voting and to be sure to vote for me too, and she seemed uncomfortable to tell me that she was going to vote for Giles Duceppe, who is with the Bloc Quebecois, who in turn advocate for Quebec succession. Personally, I don't have a dog in this race, and I know for a fact that the guy and his party have quite liberal politics that I can get down with. I totally took a quiz and it said I should vote Bloc Quebecois! But I am an anglophone so I suppose it made her hesitant. Then she gave me and Ben a hug which was nice because I was raised by engineers and don't know when it is okay to hug people.

So here I am: I can't vote in the Canadian elections and there's all this sociopolitical stuff going on that I still don't get and am going to offend someone about if I haven't already, there's a big patriotic ruckus in the US going on that I feel separated from not only emotionally but geographically, and Gore Vidal, a Great American thinker, now thinks all Americans can burn hell for all he cares because he's moved to Italy and is old.

So I guess this might be part of being an expatriate--disconnected from old home, disconnected from new home. Glaring example of difference between old and new? We're unsure that we can find a bar to watch election results come in with some of our interested Canadian pals.