Where to begin, I could go on all sorts of tangents about the events this weekend, but of course I didn’t experience them first hand. Like many of the residents of the internets we can only go by what we see on TV, what we read on the news and twitter streams and everything else.

Protesting and the right to protest is something that goes with any political event. When done peacefully and even better when the people protesting have a coherent message that while not being grounded in reality, can at least provoke thought. But such is never the case, protesting and events such as this always draws out the “anarchists” and “hooligans” that use any opportunity to raise some hell.

I don’t feel bad for the protesters that got scooped up along with the shit disturbers. You took your chances going out there, even with your good intentions you should have know you were risking getting scooped up. Hell, many of the real activists who do use peaceful methods and a coherent messages expect that they could get arrested, some of them even crave it. It gives them some “street cred” or something worth whining about.

For me, if I felt passionate enough about and issues to protest about it, I would do so certainly knowing the risks. However, the moment some asshat(s) decided to start smashing property, or clashing with the police, i would take my peaceful ass elsewhere in a hurry. Standing by when such vandalism and acts of civil disobedience occurs is no different than condoning it. Just because you’re not involved in it, standing around watching it happen is no better than taking part in it. You want to be recognized as not being a part of it, move away from it, quickly.

I have been trying to find the various messages that were being delivered from the protesters, but for the most part it seems all I could catch was those whom are protesting Afghanistan and Iraq. Protesting war is all well and dandy, futile, but all well and good and is something worth standing up for, even if it doesn’t have any impact what so ever. Protesting against capitialism amuses me of course. There is no really good political system, mainly because any system used is still being used by people and people invariable manage to screw something up.

It sucks to be poor, but blaming capitalism for it, is rather stupid, as I said on Twitter last night, even if we weren’t a capitalist country, there would still be people richer than you. Yes we need better regulations against big industry, we need better environmental actions, but at the same time, without industry we’d lose a built of our economic power and more jobs than i care to calculate. Things could be better, but they could be a helluva lot worse.

You want your message to get across to the world, be proactive about it, make it coherent, make it educated and use methods people will respect.

Smashing up shop windows, throwing bricks at banks and cop cars, setting things on fire does absolutely nothing good. Oh other than pissing people off of course, and perhaps that’s the point. Terrorism either internationally or domestically generally does not advance a cause, just piss people off and push them to rally against you. Destruction of private and public policy is terrorism, in a micro scale perhaps, but the fact remains.

We have freedom of speech, we don’t however have freedom of chaotic destruction. Disrupting the places of work for many of the citizens we want to rally behind our causes only makes innocent people suffer and makes you look like an asshat.

Do I think the police response in Toronto was excessive, in some cases probably so, overall, no. Yes you might get arrested and yes you might be innocent, and yes it’s an imposition of your time, but if you’re innocent, the only thing you loose is time, if you’re guilty you get what you deserve. It could be worse, at least there aren’t tanks in the streets and live rounds being sprayed at the crowds.

If you want to say something, be responsible and mature about it, educate yourself, so you can make a stand and be respected for it. There is nothing wrong with differing opinions, it’s about all about how you deliver it.