On the whole, we Canadians are a welcoming lot; but there's such a thing as carrying hospitality too far. And if we were searching for that "line in the sand" that marks the limits of our patience, I suspect we're about to find it!
I don't normally expect to wake to news reports of masked "anarchists" rampaging through downtown Toronto, smashing and burning as they go. And I don't much appreciate it.
Come to that, I don't much appreciate the idea of barricading off a big part of the downtown core of our largest city just so a group of so-called world "leaders" can enjoy a little get-together and plan policies in private that the rest of us will have to endure for years to come.
And I'm especially miffed about having to pony up ONE BILLION DOLLARS for the privilege of hosting these puffinjays and the nasty little crowd of violent sociopaths they always seem to draw.
Don't get me wrong! I'm a child of the 60s and, consequently, more than familiar with (and not unsympathetic to) social protest. But I must admit that the small-time terrorists I see on the streets of Toronto ( who are "brave" enough to burn police cars but too cowardly to show their faces) don't strike me as protesters; because, while they delight in tearing things down, they apparently have neither the brains nor the balls to offer any realistic plan for rebuilding something better.
And even among the more enlightened marchers, I see signs like "CAPITALISM SUCKS" which leads me to wonder if they actually think the mere sight of that will shock Obama into repentance, bring the world's banks to their knees and startle an uninformed public into action.
As part of that public, I can tell you this much, people: You're preaching to the choir!
It reminds me of Winston Churchill calling democracy an awful system but insisting it was still the best we've got.
I guess I've always mistrusted utopias (and the people who advocate them); because utopias are never designed to accommodate those most characteristically human traits: the power to screw up and the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
We will never completely overcome those, and I'm not sure I'd want us to. After all, they are what make our species so interesting.
So, my suggestion to those Canadians demonstrating on the streets of Toronto this week is this: Go home and do something useful. Begin organizing for the next federal election, since that's the surest, most immediate step to making changes in your world.
Let's concentrate on ousting a federal government that represents only one in three Canadians and seems hell-bent on pushing their own unpopular agenda. And all it takes to do that, folks, is to get off your ass, travel a few blocks to a polling station and make an X on a piece of paper.
Of course, that will be just the beginning of a long, laborious process. But it's worth it - and bound to be more effective than simply shouting and waving signs. And here's the best part: it won't cost anything like a billion bucks!
