Sven Danielsson, a 70 year old inhabitant of the little town of Grycksbo in Sweden took a walk the other day. Probably enjoying one of the first days of springtime in Sweden. He was jumped by three masked and violent animal lovers with baseball bats that beat him to the ground.
The reason?
In an interview about his life in the local newspaper Mr. Danielsson had said that he wanted to increase the hunting on wolf. He enjoys taking walks with his dog, "Packall" and the increasing numbers of wolves in the area had him worried about the safety of his dog. All the assaulters had said while beating him was that he should keep from expressing his thoughts on the subject of wolves.
I have expressed my concern for public safety due to the increasing numbers of wolves in Sweden in other postings on this blog, but it seems that there is an aspect of the public safety that I have previously missed. It used to be that people living close to the woods where wolves were known to roam brought their rifle with them for protection when they ventured out into the woods - just in case.
Never did it occur to me that people also must be prepared to defend themselves against the wolf collaborators. The punks that prefer to beat up a 70 year old man just because he doesn't like wolves, particularly not the ones that want to harm his dog. Nowadays land owners not only must put up fences to keep the wolves out, they also need to put up safety fences to keep the militant punks out of reach.
It also used to be the case that you could express a different opinion in Sweden without having to fear being beat up by masked punks with baseball bats. The Ku Klux Klan used to mask themselves before beating someone up that they found to be disagreeable to them in some fashion. Now animal lovers and wolf huggers in Sweden has adopted this established model of terror to reach their objective, a world without "wolf haters." And in that "noble" quest all means are acceptable. The mask is back on and the punk wearing it wants to beat somebody up.
