>Miles
Fair enough, I probably sounded like I was focusing too narrowly on the concept of brutal as in cops, troops and death squads. Lord knows there is enough structural and economic brutality to go around in Canadian society; it's a miracle to me that our aboriginal population hasn't started shooting people, and in between our paleo-con provincial governments and 20 years of neo-con federal governments, being poor and/or homeless is at least seen as being immoral, and they're working on making them illegal, at least in public.
By and large we didn't inherit the class/militaristic rituals of the US south or the UK (outside of some pockets in Toronto and BC) but if you visit parts of rural Canada I'd wager you'd have a hard time separating the attitudes towards race, gender and social structure from those in the rural U.S. Like I said, we're a little less religious and maybe not quite as well armed (or at least we keep our firearms locked up somewhere), but that nice veneer covers over some yawning chasms and regressive attitudes.
PC
N P Childs
'I'm Mister Bad Example, the stranger in the dirt, I like to have a good time and I don't care who gets hurt'.
-Mr. Bad Example, W Zevon