“You cannot be serious, Brett!” I hear you say.
Just up the road here in Wellington is a restaurant called Le Canard. Until recently this French restaurant offered its patrons paté de fois gras. Goose liver paté, a traditional stalwart of French cuisine produced by “force feeding” farmed geese, prior to them being dispatched and their livers removed and processed.
Recently a bunch of extremely noisy paté protestors set up camp religiously outside the restaurant each evening, harangued patrons as they arrived and departed, and created a cacophony outside, diminishing the experience of those dining indoors. Strangely the Police said they were powerless to do anything. I suspect drunken oiks attempting similar behaviour outside licensed premises would attract a different response from the constabulary.
After a while the restaurant caved in on paté de fois gras. They had no other option if they wanted to stay in business. Yet another victory for bullying.
There are countless other examples of intimidatory behaviour used against people going about their lawful business. So-called animal welfare and “environmental” groups are a case in point, routinely chaining themselves to chicken farms or ocean-going vessels. Protestors outside abortion clinics are another.
Some of these organisations even have the gall to pretend to be charities, collecting cash from the public to pay the legal costs of their bully teams. And they are allowed to get away with it. Indeed they’re actually encouraged to act in this manner by the same media that says it’s against bullying. That’s why I believe that bullying is alive and well and encouraged by our society.