In the first documentary I saw from Michael Moore, he made a point of trying to determine the cause of all the violence America experiences and he used Canada as a direct contrast. What's funny is that gun-toting conservatives panned his movie (probably few saw it) and yet his conclusion wasn't that we were violent because we had so many guns but that we were inherently scared to death of one another.

Something in our culture creates this paranoia in our citizens that a place like Canada doesn't produce. Moore illustrated that by walking down a street in Canada and opening people's front doors. Here they were all locked.

He produced figures that showed that there were just as many guns in Canada and just as much of a fascination with violent computer games like the guys in Colorado had been into and yet the murder rate was astronomically low compared to ours.

What we see is simply this bizarre aspect to our culture that tends to make us feel as if every step we take is fraught with danger from other human beings. Maybe it comes from our early adoption of Manifest Destiny. The old Golden Rule tells one that you get treated as you treat others. Karma's got it out for us if that's the case.

Art