Quote:
Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos
Okay, so they do harangue people walking by? That kind of changes things.
What would they say?
Do they get abuse thrown back at them?
My confession is that I'd take the chance to be nasty to them if they started hassling me.
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Essentially the long and short of it is this: They set up their posters of kids being hacked apart by machetes, Nazi Concentration Camp ovens, refugee camp massacres, etc, etc, pretty much the most gruesome stuff they can lay their hands on. Presumably because these are equivalent to abortion in some manner.
They then set up in the public courtyard between Mac Hall, Mackimmie Library and the Science buildings. So about as unavoidably public as it gets. If you're walking on Campus its pretty much impossible to miss.
They then have their little minions patrolling the courtyard with signs with some invariably inaccurate but perceivably catchy slogan to hunt down and harass people who are walking by. In previous years they were actually held within a confined space marked by snow fence so they couldnt hunt people down, but this seems to have ended.
If you're trying to walk by and ignore them they run to catch up to you to ask you what you're problem is. I actually got into a confrontation with them in my second year of Uni, I'd seen it before, I knew all about the song and dance, and I just wanted to get to the Den and get drunk after a long hard day of pretending to study.
The conversation was incredible. Things along the line of: What's your problem? Cant handle the pictures? You must be a pro-choicer....etc, etc, etc.
Here is the thing, people have a tendency to neatly categorize others based on their views, heres mine: I dont care. Its not an issue that has ever affected me in any way, if, at some point in the future it does, then I'll sort it out at that point in time. I am not an empathetic person, I have little patience and I dont gladly suffer fools. You have a problem with abortion? Fine, I dont care. Deal with it in some constructive manner.
Furthermore, here are some more views of mine: I firmly believe that almost every socially/politically opinionated University student almost invariably have no clear grasp about what they're talking about, and the ones that likely do arent eloquent enough to do anything about it.
Last piece of advice: Regardless of your beliefs on abortion or any other social matter, when your aim is transmit your beliefs or just simply get a message across, its far more effective when that message is coming across as a well reasoned, logically evaluated and thought out argument coming from a reasonable person.
No one is going to listen to you or whatever you have to say if you're trying to bludgeon your message into their skulls. People, or rational, free-thinking people at least, aren't receptive to having beliefs bashed across their heads.
If you want to take these people's approach, it doesnt matter if your message is "Chocolate Chip cookies are good" if you come across like the cat lady from the Simpsons, people aren't going to listen.