Are you interested in an article that’s heavy on opinion and light on facts? Then you will love David Cannon’s article “Peaceful protests work, from the Salt March to the Freedom Convoy” (published March 16).

In last week’s paper, David Cannon wrote about the “peaceful” Freedom Convoy protests and compared them to Martin Luther King Jr.’s protests for equality. However, the Freedom Convoy was not peaceful and was not formed to fight for the rights of a group of people marginalized by society.

Cannon uses examples of the mainstream media twisting the facts to make the Freedom Convoy look unpeaceful, when no facts were twisted. His proof for this argument was that when the “peaceful” protesters “decorated” (vandalized) the statue of local hero Terry Fox; the mainstream media only featured the fact that the protestors had defaced the statue and not the fact that they cleaned it up after. Apparently, David Cannon now decides what is legal and not. Just because the truckers cleaned up the vandalism afterward does not make what they did right. In Canada, I do not believe that if someone vandalizes something then cleans it up, they are absolved from all responsibilities for their actions. Also, they vandalized the statue with a confederate flag, a symbol of divisiveness. Peaceful protesters would not use a sign of hatred as a decoration.

Another example of unlawfulness at the protest was the arrest of four people who were planning an attack on anyone who interfered with the Freedom Convoy. These people were armed with 13 long guns, pistols, body armor, large magazines, a machete, and ammunition. Not only did these people plan for violence, they caused $5,000 in damage to property. Cannon cites the only charge against the truckers being a noise violation for excessive honking. Honking did not hurt anyone, but it was still illegal.

This is a main theme with this article from David Cannon — if he finds a certain behavior acceptable he is willing to excuse the lawlessness for his own form of anarchy. If we lived in a country under David Cannon’s view of law, it would be complete chaos because in his world people only follow the laws they feel like following and break others when it is convenient to their cause. To quote my grandpa, “rules are made for a reason.”

The Freedom Convoy was not formed to fight for the rights of a group of people marginalized by society. In David Cannon’s article, he compared truckers to people who protested for civil rights and women’s right to vote. The people he used in his example had no choice whether to be discriminated against or not. Also, in his examples people’s rights and privileges were limited by their race and gender at birth. In a stark contrast, the truckers had a choice to be discriminated against or not, a choice to be vaccinated or not. As adults, when we make a choice, we must live with the consequences. Welcome to the real world, snowflake.

George Coo

Enumclaw