Wednesday, January 27, 2010

There's A Difference ...

I'm sorry, but shoving a pie in someone's face is political protest, not terrorism.

I personally think that PETA is ridiculous, over the top, and annoying. But they do not constitute a terrorist organization in any meaningful sense of the world. Liberal MP Gerry Byrne needs to get his perspective back.

Our politicians have gotten far too thin-skinned of late. "Pieing" Premier Klein resulted in criminal charges a few years ago, and now we want to label a protest group "terrorist" for organizing a similar attack on a minister of the crown? Give me a break.

Let's quit taking ourselves so seriously, Mr. Byrne. We have enough problems with government politicians attempting to undermine our democracy and the valid political expression of the people - this is hardly the time for us to be getting all uppity about an over the top protest organization that is guilty of poor taste more than anything else.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What if the pie was laced with cyannide? Maybe it's not terrorism, but it's blatent assault and people who do it should be sent to jail. Period.

MgS said...

I'm not sure I agree entirely with you here.

(1) Hypothetical: If the pie was laced with cyanide?

- That would be an aggravating factor in the charges and might move it from simple assault to aggravated assault. However, that is not the case here, and is at best a 'what if' that I don't think bears a lot of weight.

(2) "It's blatent [sic] assault and people who do it should be sent to jail"

Really? I hate to point this out, but assaults rarely result in jail time. They rarely result in anything more than a modest fine, actually. We already have a double standard in law bubbling around in this country because assaulting a politician has tended to result in jail time, where it would result in a simple fine in other circumstances - I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea that our politicians are deserving of a "higher standard" of justice simply because of their occupation.

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