Do Americans care more than Canadians about their country?

At least, that's what John Ibbitson thinks.

In his latest commentary for the Globe and Mail, Ibbitson argues while much of the American political discourse is based on perpetuating lies, at least they care:

Americans love to argue, and much of what they yell at each other is crazy talk. Nothing in the health-care bill would encourage euthanasia, and Mr. Boehner knows it. But in American politics, it's fair game to just flat out lie. This can lead to scenes like the one in South Carolina, where an angry voter warned Congressman Bob Inglis at a town hall to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” Mr. Inglis, according to The New York Times, tried to explain that Medicare actually is run by the government, but the voter “was having none of it.”

On the left, some Americans loathed George W. Bush so intensely, they believed his administration was behind the Sept. 11 attacks. On the opposite end are the birthers, who maintain Barack Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, making his presidency an illegal travesty. Hawaii officials repeatedly and wearily insist Mr. Obama has a Hawaii birth certificate, but there is no direct line between reason and the birthers. The unholy thing about the birther movement is that it is stoked by both the right and the left. Some conservative commentators have embraced the nonsense, knowing that it appeals to racist voters who simply won't accept an African-American president.

Liberal commentators (and that means you, MSNBC) egg them on, knowing sensible independents will flee from a party in which, according to a recent Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll, only 42 per cent of self-identifying Republicans believed Mr. Obama was born in the U.S. The rest thought he wasn't, or weren't sure.

As I noted in my previous post, it bugs me when journalists feel the need to criticize one side to balance their critique of another. John Ibbitson often tends to default to this faulty practice as he does here, but makes a provocative point nonetheless:

Americans argue so furiously because there is much to argue about: the health-care and immigration systems are utterly dysfunctional, and the administration and Congress are racking up trillion-dollar deficits with no clear understanding of how to bring them down.

They argue because U.S. society is cleaved by region, race and class more deeply than in Canada. But they also argue because they care. They believe their federal government matters and they have strong opinions about how that government should act.

Canada always struggled to define itself as a nation, and in recent years appears to have given up that struggle, retreating into regional isolation. What Canadian federal politician has a clear sense of what this country should look like in the 21st century?

Politics in America is loud, rude, messy and sometimes deeply weird. But at least the U.S. matters to its citizens.

The only problems with John's assertion are that he fails to mention that Republicans are lying to their constituents about policy details, and that the recent health care outrage has been orchestrated by lobbyists and insurance companies with much to lose if a reform package is passed. However, Americans are currently more invested in their political discourse then Canadians. Is it really because we don't care?