A Canadian dies and arrives at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter greets him and says, “Hey, would you like me to show you around before I take you to your eternal mansion?”
The Canadian says, “Well, I’ve lots of time. Why not?”
So St. Peter takes him up a path to the right of the Pearly Gates and after about a kilometre, they come to a long row of gigantic mansions. And he began to call each by name, “This is where the Belgians live, and that is where the Australians live, and that one is for the Russians—and that one’s for the South Africans.” And he continued like this for quite some time, and finally he came to a house with a large red maple leaf displayed prominently in the front. St. Peter said, “Here, finally, is your eternal mansion.”
Then, the Canuck queried St. Peter with a puzzled expression, “So far you’ve shown me a lot of mansions. I am just curious. I lived in Canada and our closest neighbor was the United States. Where do the Americans go? You haven’t shown me their mansion.”
Then, St. Peter grimaced and said, “Do you really want to see their mansion?”
“Oh yes,” replied the Canadian.
So St. Peter led the Canadian back the other direction. They retraced their steps all the way back to the Pearly Gates, and there they took the path to the left of the gates and walked about four kilometres. Then appeared in the distance, a solitary mansion on a hill. At that point, St. Peter stopped, turned to the Canadian, and with a pleading voice requested, “Please, once we’re there, you can say “hello” and everything to the Americans. But for heaven’s sake don’t mention the other mansions. The Americans don’t even know they exist.”
A real sad story that the US of A is going down the dumps in such a way.
With FATCA they have just shot a bullit in their own foot.
Now the americans have got the whole wide world against them. I doubt they will survive much longer.
I thought of this post when I saw the following comment on Facebook, “No one [i.e., among Homelanders] talks about the taxes that Americans overseas pay I their respective countries of residence !!!”
A clumsy plagiaristic re-working of an old comic religious chestnut, whereby protestants are being shown around heaven and asked, “What’s on the other side of that great wall?” “Shush!” came the reply, “the Catholics are over there, and they think they are the only ones up here.”
@terry, Please don’t accuse me of plagarism. It is an adaptation.
I heard it as baptists, btw.
Nice adaptation, Petros! I’d heard this joke before too but it was great reading it from our perspective. A smile for the day! 🙂
@Petros
My smile from the adaptation? Wouldn’t the American mansion be on the path to the right?
I get it. It is a take off on an old joke about us Catholics. However it is not us citizens, we don’t like the law that lets the IRS into your business. We’d all like a better tax law. Most of us want a national sales tax and no taxation unless you are within the U.S. borders. There has been a bill introduced every two years since 1999 that fixes every known tax problem. The FairTax would fix our economic problems and the expat’s tax problems.
It is our law makers who don’t get it. We keep throwing them out wholesale and before the new bunch does anything, the lobbyists gets to them with the promise of re election and they add another few pages to a 78,000 law.
We had tax reform in 1986 but before we could realize any benefit from it the lobbyists descended with checks and boom, we were back where we started. Since 1986 they added 8,000 amendments on taxes alone. One stroke and we would have the FairTax and it’s fixed. Hope and pray congress wakes up and smells the coffee.
What a crock — when most countries run into trouble, just exactly who do they call for bail-out assistance ..hmmmm? America !!!
Alex Tocqueville never used the word American Exceptionalism and only referred to the PEOPLE of America as exceptional but once in his writings. It’s interesting to note that America has been the most benevolent country to the world, that the world has ever witnessed – and this sad commentary jokes that Americans are shunning other countries ? No,… they just whine because we cut back our aid dollars. We barely got a thank you from Iraq and we could have walked away with all the oil as compensation for ridding them of Satan. Now there horror is with ISIL who use the oil to fund their conquest and be-headings.
Just a thought, not a sermon
@bazzy
“America has been the most benevolent country to the world….” “We barely got a thank you from Iraq….”
Excellent use of irony/sarcasm. LOL!!!!
@bazzy, thank you for demonstrating why the joke is funny. I could not have explained it better.
Bazzy, I wouldn’t go to America for Jack Shit even if I was drowning.
There would’ve been no ISIL problem in the first place if the dumbasses in the US had just stayed out of Iraq!
Benevolent? More like obtuse.
@mjh49783
I would also find it hard to ask America for help if I was drowning. Especially since the cement block chained to my ankles at the moment is clearly stamped “Made in USA”.
The main reason America is so “benevolent” is to protect its own security and economic interests, primarily OIL.