This Is What Insanity Looks Like

I don’t think right. Sometimes I just don’t think.

I mean, if I thought about it, surely I could come up with a good reason to set police cars on fire. A whole bunch of people sure seemed to feel justified doing it yesterday, after all. Chanting “this is what democracy looks like”, they smashed windows, looted stores…and left me actually wishing we lived in tyranny for just one day. Because they’re right: this is what democracy looks like. In a democracy, the police counter such violence with tear gas and rubber bullets.

In a tyranny the response would be considerably harsher.

I’ve racked my limited brains furiously, not just to make up reasons for this course of action, but to link them to…to…to whatever it is people are protesting at the G20. It’s fiendishly difficult, though, not least because I’m not exactly sure what it is they’re protesting at the G20. Is it poverty? Because these folks sure don’t look poor, and causing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in damage doesn’t seem to faze them. Is it globalization? If so, I wish the protestors luck: King Canute had an easier task. Dwindling oil will eventually force relocalization in a big way, but until it does, we’re pretty much stuck with what we’ve got. No matter what gets chanted or broken or burned.

Is it the political leaders themselves? Hey, some of them are indeed worthy targets, but do you really think any of them will see you, let alone care if they do?

Or maybe it’s the ridiculous cost of the summits. I hear you, brethren and sistren, I hear you. I’d be right there with you making sure they’ve got a reason to spend all that money, except—well, except I don’t think right. See, my thought process goes like this: wouldn’t it be funny if they held a riot and nobody showed up? Wouldn’t they look like perfect idiots? Especially if several fine upstanding citizens appeared on national television and said something like we don’t want to give them the satisfaction?

But I’m missing something. I must be. I’d really appreciate some input here. I’d be especially gratified if someone could please explain the burning cruisers and what, exactly, they signify.

Because—forgive me—it looks from here like these “people” (and I use the term loosely) are just looking for attention. As we live in a democracy and not a tyranny, and because this is Canada where all points of view must be considered no matter how insane they might be, they got their attention. Under a tyranny, they’d be bundled off to rot without a camera in sight, and no great loss. Yeah, just for a day. Just for a day.

And may I please be permitted a pre-emptive strike against the news tidbit that’s sure to come out over the next couple of days? You know the one I mean, about the agents provocateurs whose fault all this really is? I predict this nonsense will break first in the Toronto Star, which hates cops almost as much as the pseudo-anarchists do. (I say ‘pseudo-anarchists’ because these folks wouldn’t last a week in real anarchy.)

Okay, let’s assume there were in fact a few officers sprinkled throughout the crowd fomenting the riot. Their presence was rumoured long before any world leader touched down in Toronto, after all. Hey, went the line of reasoning, they’ve gotta spend all this money on something!

Despicable as their tactics may be, I have just one question: why oblige them?

In this country, we have the right to peaceful protest. No doubt many people felt a need to exercise that right this weekend for whatever reason. They had to know what they were getting into: this insanity prevails every time the G8 or G20 get together, which is one good reason they should hold future summits on an aircraft carrier. In the meantime, their legitimate (if misguided and pointless) protest was utterly and predictably drowned out by senseless acts of random violence that had—again, so far as I can tell—nothing to do with protest at all.

But hey, if anyone can justify all this, I'd love to hear it.