G20 Special: Police State

If you've read my past rants about anti-government and personal freedoms, you may expect me to get on here and call the police a bunch of fascists and complain about the "fucking police state" we call Canada.

You would be wrong. In fact, I'm getting pretty tired of all these G20 protesters still whining and crying "Police State!" several days after the summit has ended.

Let me make this perfectly clear: We do not live in a police state in Canada. If you had ever actually been to a true police state, I think you would appreciate your Canadian freedoms a whole buttload more. However, this also does not mean that I will be spewing a bunch of garbage about Canada being the greatest country on earth with absolute freedom. That "national pride" shit that politicians are always cramming down our throats irks me just as much and, in my opinion, is arguably more damaging than police state accusations. That's a different rant though.

If you nay-sayers would open your eyes for two seconds (or "wake up", as you like to call it) perhaps you'd see the irony in yelling "Police State!" all over the mainstream AND alternative news, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Blogger, etc. with no consequences. If you actually lived in a police state, you would not have the right to do that and you'd likely be locked up. Many people in police states have no real grasp of how large government dissidence is because speech is so heavily censored.

Alright, I've gotten that out of the way, so I WILL give you this: I see a lot of evidence of a rising police state. I think if we continue down the road we're travelling on, we WILL have a police state. There were lots of examples of police overstepping their grounds just last weekend. Yes, I DO think it's important to protest this and stop it in its tracks before it runs rampant.

Police State: getting there? Absolutely. Living in one? Fuck no. So quit'cher belly-achin'!

Guantanamo Shell

I had a downright ghastly experience at the gas station last night. I was driving home from work and hadn't eaten in a long time so I decided to stop at a gas station at about the halfway point to grab a bag of chips. I don't usually stop at this gas station, but as I pulled in I assumed I'd be able to grab my chips, pay, and leave. If that was the case though, I wouldn't be writing this.

Maybe I'm just not up to speed on gas station culture, but the Shell station I stopped at was seriously taking security on a joyride. I got out of my truck and noticed a younger guy outside talking to the clerk through a little window beside the register. I payed no attention and walked up to the doors, pulled, and discovered they were locked.

So I went over to the little window where the guy was still paying for his gas and smokes and waited. When he was done I said loudly to the clerk through the window, "Can I get a bag of chips or are you guys closed?" He replied back that he couldn't open the door but he could pass me them through the window.

Now this window was more of a small box attached to the side of the store. There was a door that the clerk could open and a door that the customer could open. They couldn't be opened at the same time though for security reasons I guess.

So the clerk goes around the counter and over to the chips and he starts pointing at bags and looking at me to signal to him which bag I want. But the aisle is set up in a way that I can't see what he's pointing at. So I keep repositioning myself and eventually I lean way over and it looks like he's pointing at the bag I want so I just give him a thumbs up and it's not the bag I wanted but fuck it, I'm sick of this shit and I feel like a moron.

Then he brings the wrong chips around and rings them up and go figure, I don't even have enough change to pay for them. So I have to put them on debit and have him stretch the fucking machine through the stupid god damned window-box piece of shit. And then we go through this whole process of him trying to pass me the chips through the window and it not working out because we're both trying to open our little doors at the same time and it doesn't work like that!

What the hell?! Why must I feel like a criminal at the gas station?! I felt like I was in a reverse prison cell and instead of passing stuff to me through a lockable slot in the door, they were passing my shit out. I understand the need for security at convenience stores, but isn't this taking it a little far?

It took me like four and a half hours to buy a bag of chips when I could have just walked in, gotten the RIGHT DAMNED KIND, plopped them on the counter, and paid. I'd have been in and out in 30 seconds. Instead I had to mouth words, play charades with a guy and pass a bunch of shit through a fucking window.

Next time hunger strikes while I'm driving, I'm pulling over and eating grass and dirt out of the ditch. I can't say it will be pleasant, but it will be filling and I won't need to be a theatre major to get some chow.