I am not sure the American media is giving Canada a fair shake in their reporting. I just want to acknowledge that average Canadians are HORRIFIED at the riots and are extremely embarrassed that this has happened.
I kept saying last night: "These aren't the Canadians we know. This isn't how they behave." And it turns out, it wasn't. It was a group of anarchists that look for any opportunity to make a mess. Canada seems especially prone to these jerks as they expect people to behave like human beings and are genuinely shocked when they don't. If you could hear their news reports, you would hear a group of people who are heartbroken, embarrassed, and upset. They keep asking how it happened, how they can prevent it, and what they can do to help fix the damage.
And unlike the US, they are concerned that the right to gather for large events like that could be taken away. In their country, that is a distinct possibility as a solution.
Let it be said that my friends are rabid Canucks fans. However, it would not occur to them for one second to behave the way these animals did last night. What happened last night is not a reflection of Canada and it offends me just as much as if it happened on US soil.
CNN posted this article today that explains the anarchist part better than I can:
Here are the Canadians that I know & love. These are the people that I define as Canadians: the volunteers that came into Vancouver from all over the Province to help clean up and repair the mess. They are the people I know.
So send a thought out to the British Columbia Province today. They need it.
2 comments:
Totally. If people behaved that way in my town, I would be appalled---I wouldn't be saying, "Yes, this accurately represents us as a town." Because I don't think that kind of behavior represents ANY community accurately, and I think it's spread evenly throughout all communities.
It's like a lose lose situation. You can not have a police presence so as to protect our right to freely assemble, but then you can end up with riots. Or, you can have no riots but have cops everywhere preemptively dispursing crowds which would probably be even worse. It's the thing about living in free societies right? The idiots/troublemakers have those same rights. I can't imagine they'd take away our right to freely assemble in Canada. There was HUGE backlash and I believe, lawsuits against the RCMP after the G7 in Toronto last year because of all the preemptive stuff cops were doing. Either way, it's hard to see a city get destroyed like that! And as usual Swistle hits the nail on the head by commenting that that behavior is spread evenly throughout communities. Idiocy is a human characteristic, not so much one attributed to a specific group. Sorry for the novel - hope your weekend is treating you well!
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