Dear Protestor:

Dear Protestor:

I'm well aware of your views on [the Olympics/animal cruelty/Kyoto/globalwarming/insert current media darling cause de jour]. I'm not illiterate nor stupid so please don't assume that when I don't agree with you that it's because I don't understand the issue at hand. Or do not care enough.

I see you waving your signs, screaming like some maddened two year old throwing a tantrum and otherwise displaying your brutish behaviour; exemplifying your ignorance of the realities and true facts in so many different ways that any sympathy I may hold is quickly subsumed by the pure disgust for your disregard for the views of anyone else but you and your rabid cohorts.

Too harsh you say? Let's examine harsh. Dousing people with blood? To ruin the fur coat they are wearing. Why? So they'll go out and get another one, thereby requiring the (supposedly) inhumane slaughter of more helpless cute little minks? Ever met a mink? Talk to a farmer who's had to clean up dead fowl time after time and see how cute and helpless he finds them. Ask them how many of those chickens were destined for his own family's consumption. And releasing them to 'run free'. Yeah, there's a good idea. Turning helpless animals accustomed to the safety of cages out into the wild to die of hunger or horrendously at the paws and teeth of non-domesticated animals. Ever think about the consequences of your actions? Ever think rationally at all? Because about now, it doesn't appear that way to me.

And the lecturing me about how I could be a better resident of earth? Pullleeeassee...

Stop eating meat. Stop slaughtering animals bred purposefully for just that purpose and become vegan. Stop eating food I enjoy and thrive on? Put my children in danger of disease and illnesses that could be counteracted by eating a balanced diet?

Uh...,no. How about you just go ahead and live your life your way and stop telling me how to live mine?

Stop animal testing. Sure okay, you going to step up? Are you going to offer up your children to save the lives of thousands of others? Thought not. No, animals are not expendable but are humans? Although to see how you all wail about the cruelty to animals and turn a blind eye to the plight of people all around you living in less safety and comfort than most animals in a zoo or on a farm or heaven forbid running in a chuckwagon team. Not to mention with adequate and reliable healthcare. Given all that, I have to believe you do care more about animals than you do people.

Oh wait, you protest that too. From your home here in N. America. You protest about the actions of a country across the globe from you. Decrying the actions of people you have absolutely no clue about. But some celeb spokesperson you admired in a role in a movie or heard on the radio or wears the clothing you want to said they were bad, so here you go, jump on the bandwagon quick before it runs over your toes.

Oh, you say you're protesting for the world. You're not one of those 'crazed' protestors. You know about what you're protesting about. You have researched it and made your own decisions and you protest in an orderly fashion.

You hand out pamphlets and do your part. You recycle and you drive a responsible vehicle. Probably a hybrid. And you teach your children to not be cruel to animals.

Let's examine all of that.

Pamphlets. By popular definition, printed paper products filled with information about your cause.

Paper. Made from lumber. Lumber comes from trees. Trees work to maintain the earth. They provide wind breaks and shade for other flora. They provide shelter and food for fauna. They contribute in a large way to doing exactly what you're telling others how to do by cutting them down, running them through a pulpmill (adding all sorts of polution to the area but also creating innumerable jobs and in some instances revitalizing a community) printing them and oh yeah, handing them out. Yep... definitely doing your part with the pamphlets.

Recycling. You mean reusing things that are old and useless and making them new and usable again? Wow. Who knew? I mean that's such a novel and brilliant idea I bet no one ever thought of that before. I wonder if my grandmother knew she was doing such worldy good when she'd turn the seams on a dress. (by the way for those of you who don't know that means take it apart, resew it together again so it would show less wear not send it off to good will so you can feel good about yourself and also make room in your closets for more clothing you won't wear more than a dozen or so times before the season changes and I'm being generous here, before you send it off to good will again assauging your conscience because you're recycling AND doing a good deed) spend hours darning socks after working in her garden that she used compost on. Compost...wow now there's another wonderful idea. Rotting waste and using it as fertilizer. Good thing you lot came along. The earth had NO idea how to feed itself until then.

Not enough, you decry? Why not? Aren't we here to live? Some of us choose to live large and leave a footprint the size of small state on the surface of the world. Some others, do not.

While you are protesting the loss of freedom in the third world countries maybe you ought to take a good hard look at your own tyrannical attitudes towards your very neighbours. Who are you to decide what I eat, how I get to work, what I wear. Isn't that why I choose to live in a free country and not go somewhere else where my every movement will be monitored?

Didn't the US win their freedom from oppression? Didn't Canada finally squiggle away from most of it? Don't we owe it to other countries and people to have that self esteem?

Give someone something, without any strings. Something precious and particularly difficult to define; something you cherish beyond all thought, with every action you take in life. Will they cherish and husband it the way you do if it's not as hard won as your own? Somehow, I find it difficult to believe that they will. We won't even get into the people that don't want to be saved by you or anyone else.

So, dear protestor, not that I think any of you will change your ways, perhaps, you'll find an iota of truth among my sarcasm and examine your own actions and govern yourself differently. Because were I to forcefeed you this as you choose to do your causes to me I'd be exactly what I'm pointing out you are. So there shall I leave it. Whether you take anything away from reading this or not, is up to you. I've said my piece. I'll probably say it again somewhere along the way.

But one thing I guarantee you, I won't ever be caught waving a big sign and screaming about it on TV.

signed,

a reasonable female