News last week had it that someone was going around putting notes on cars with US licence plates saying “Go Away.” Inside, the note explained why US citizens are unwelcome here.

Naturally, Tourism Vancouver officials were apoplectic, as were the Americans whose cars were targeted, at least those local media caught up with. But the contents of the note revealed no hate or racism as was inferred by media reports, which referred to the notes as “hate mail.” Instead, the notes explained that the US government has been attacking and invading countries around the world, threatening other countries, and essentially behaving as the rogue nation its officials claim its victims to be.

The notes on US-licenced cars is a reasonable citizen-based reply to the electors of that country responsible for the regime that has been causing the world such terror and grief, especially as our own national leaders are so silent to the crimes. Compared to what is perpetrated abroad in the name of these very same visiting Americans, a firm but still polite “Go Away” note is nothing. If anything, it’s a favour to them if it causes some Americans to open their eyes to the world’s opinion of their leaders. If only Iraqis, Afghans, Somalians, and Koreans could leave a note.

Citizens of democracies should be made responsible for the actions of the government they elect. While Tourism Vancouver and the news media decried the act, I would think such behaviour should attract more visitors, not less. News of the notes left on US cars, if we’re lucky, might travel around the world. Nothing could advertise us in a better light.

What the notes tell the world is that, here in Vancouver, though we are far distant from any trouble and forever untouched by war directly, we are still sharply aware of what is going on in other places, and we care. This is an aware city full of citizens who keep an eye out for all rogue state behaviour, those notes tell the world. This is a place with its eyes open and its gloves off. It’s the kind of place I’d take notice of and visit; it was that kind of place 25 years ago when I first noticed it and decided I had to come here to live.

It is also certainly not a terrible idea to join with the other 5.9 billion people in the world who condemn what the leaders of the US are doing to their country and the rest of the world. Bear in mind it isn’t just all the wars and destruction. The US stands nearly alone in flatly refusing to sign the Kyoto climate control treaty. It is alone in refusing to sign the International Criminal Court treaty. Members of the administration are alone among the world’s national leaders in overtly calling for the dissolution of the United Nations.

The whole world notices these things too, and so it can’t hurt Vancouver’s image to say to the world that, though we might be next door and utterly dependent economically on the US, we don’t let economic concerns dictate a moral silence over us in the face of such insults and provocations to the rest of the world. Tourism Vancouver and the Board of Trade might not care to say it, but I’m glad it’s been said by whoever has been leaving those notes on US cars: We are decent people here. Our opinions of your leaders cannot be bought off.

The notes may have upset a few Americans. Then again, they might have filled their hearts with joy. Americans I know would have worded the notes far more harshly. A lot of Americans have permanently moved to Vancouver because they are more fervently opposed to what America stands for than even our own most vehement home-grown anti-Americans. They come here because of the civic spirit they find here on their visits, a civic spirit seen in things like those notes left on cars, far more than what is found in Gastown trinket shops favoured by Tourism Vancouver.

Latest polls show that considerably more than half of Americans think the present administration in the White House should go away too. There is nothing wrong with letting Americans know how we would like them to vote in mid-term Congressional elections this November: be responsible for who you elect, and elect only those you can be comfortable having represent you to the rest of the world.