Speak for yourself. Hence use of phrases like "I believe" and "I think" and "My experience (for what it's worth)". Was that not disclaimer enough for you? I

Speak for yourself. Hence use of phrases like "I believe" and "I think" and "My experience (for what it's worth)". Was that not disclaimer enough for you? I don't know how much you know about Americans, but as a Canadian I don't really see what you see, and it seems a bit condescending. Certainly not the intent, and I hope it didn't come across that way. I do think it's true that Canadians and Americans, as a whole, have an overlapping but different set of... rather than values, let's call them priorities. If making that claim and observing the differences is "condescending", I don't know what to tell you. Certainly I wasn't attempting to ascribe a judgement to those priorities. I was simply highlighting that I believe they're different, and that the "age of individualism" is not a universal experience. Of course, you're more than welcome to disagree with that, or disagree with the very concept of a national identity or commonly held set of priorities. Personally I think that it's cruel to play saviour for a few hundred thousand people while an entire nation suffers. We should be investing in their ability to sustain their own society Why not both? not placing their failed society's burdens on our own. What was that about being condescending?