Assholes

You may have heard that a handful of morons vandalized police cars and shops after the Habs won round one of the playoffs.

In the "duh" department, here's a quote from Beverly Best, a sociology prof at Concordia (quote taken from the Gazette):

"This can't just be about hockey. It has to be symbolic of something else. There has to be some other source, some other feeling of dissatisfaction that can't be expressed in an everyday way. It's a form of dissent."

Ya think? Of course the vandalism has nothing to do the hockey. It's a combination of dispossession, alcohol, and a lack of adult supervision. We can't cure the first without either 100 years of enlightened social policy or labour camps; we can't do anything about the second; but we can do something about the third. Yes, a stronger police presence can help, but instead of a wall of riot police, might it not be more effective to station two officers at every shop? Or one? I suspect the city does not have enough cops to do that, or enough money to pay them.

Good thing we have hundreds of city councillors to debate the idea.

What the police did do was close to that concept, but there were simply too few men in blue. They mingled instead. They need to catch the culprits and quite publicly try them. Convictions need to lead to significant jail time. Consequences need to deter the acts.

Another thing we could use is a healthy dose of vigilante justice. You see an asshole, you grab four justice-minded friends and beat the shit out of him before he sets anything on fire or breaks any windows. And, later in the year, get liquored up and visit him at his birthday party and kick him in the nuts to help him celebrate it.

You may choose from a selection of hoodlum videos here.

P.S. I'm not one of the assholes. I'm in the Bahamas, remember?