Agree to Disagree – Be kind, but not too kind

Random acts of kindness are awesome.

Who wouldn’t like to find out their coffee was paid by the person in line in front of them at Timmies or come back to a $20 bill tucked under their car’s windshield wipers?

Random acts of kindness make the world a better place. They also open the doors to predators.

Take Cornwall. This week, we heard reports of one such predator trying to lure people in his car, while stationed in the parking lot of major stores. The young man, around 19-20 years old, was targeting women by pretending his car had broken down. Women would offer a helping hand. A few even got in the car before realizing it was a bad idea and getting out of there. Thank God, nobody was abducted and the man, apparently, was apprehended.

While I have not confirmed this with the police, nor did it appear on the blotter–this is just an opinion piece–the thought of this happening here, in Cornwall scared the daylights out of me. As a Cornwallite, I do worry about the amount of crazy stuff I’ve seen in the police blotter over the last while. As a woman, I feel a little less safe walking at night by myself than I did a few years ago.

It is sad that we live in a world where kindness is often mistaken for weakness. But we know this, it’s nothing new. Yes, it may be getting worse, but that is why we need to always be alert, vigilant and NOT get into cars with strangers…

I had an interesting discussion with a woman the other day. She married a Pakistani man sometime in the 1980s. Shortly after, her husband’s brother “supposedly” got sick and they needed to “immediately” move to Pakistan to “get him the help he needed?” See, had it been me, I would have seen a whole lot of red flags in that story. But no, not her.

She willingly followed her husband, of her own accord, to a country where women’s rights are practically non existent, and eventually was forced to convert to Islam. Sad story, I know, and I can’t even begin to imagine the hardships this woman went through, but see, had it been me, I would have spent the rest of my life kicking myself for being so naive and trusting. I would have taken my share of the blame, accepted the fact that I was a big part of the why things happened. But no, not her.

Instead, she launched an all-out war on Muslims. She speaks about Islamic people with deep seeded anger and disdain, calls for their deportation and wants that religion (and other archaic ones) forbidden, becoming, in the process, the oppressor, the violator of human rights. Sadly, she is not alone.

Many fear an Islamic takeover is bound to happen sooner rather than later. Many think I’m blind and silly for thinking Muslims are not a threat to Canada. ISIS is, perhaps, but one does not equate the other.

Personally, I worry much more about the guy trying to lure women to his car in the Metro parking lot.