Hey look! They made an action toy based on characters in my town this last week. Oh yes. In 2014. In North America. There were no pitchforks (this isn’t a farm town) and it was daylight so there were no torches. In this incarnation the angry mob was a bunch of rednecks with trucks, beers, and I assume guns. This mob, led by two people who just moved here 2 weeks ago, didn’t want a certain individual living in town and did not want another guy to employ him. So they were surrounded by the mob and the guy was forced, under threat apparently, to fire the guy and the guy was literally run out of town by sun down. Yup.
Small town life. The grass isn’t always greener.
I had nothing to do with any of this. But today I’ve gotten the nerve up to say publicly: THAT WAS SO WRONG. It may make me a target now, and it is a true fear for anyone who speaks up about it, but since I’m gay and there was an underlying (but not primary) homophobic smear to this mob thing they definitely know who I am. In the past we’ve always just ignored – shunned – people you don’t like or are judging. It’s the New England and Maritimes way. But now apparently all it took was 2 new bad eggs and a whole dozen cracked. Now violence, or the threat of it that is, has been legitimized as a means to obtain what you want. Frontier justice. Judge, Jury, & executioner. So gross. So very gross and so very wrong.
MATTHEW'S ISLAND 
Ugh…how awful. Let it be a reminder to us all that there is plenty of work to be done still.
What is wrong with people? How do they get away with it? I know the answers to those questions – just rhetorical disgust.
It’s hard to summarize exactly what happened as there are so many layers of hate, reasons people supported or hated the guy who was run out of town, different levels of sanity and drunkeness and intelligence amongst those involved… and I did not personally witness either the public-but-by-invitation-only (roll eyes) meeting where death threats were made and the mob that struck out after the guy after that meeting.
It all boils down to the guy, who was born and raised here, having sexual contact with a minor (boy) years ago. He went to jail for a while and went through a sex offender rehab program. He’s had no contact with minors and not been in trouble. He wanted to move back to his hometown, 6 years after the incident. That’s what brought on the angry mob and death threats and running him out of town when he tried to move back. Thing is, there is a guy on the island that molested a young girl, did his time, and has been back on the island for years now. Most everyone shuns him but no one has formed a posse to oust him. That’s where I suspect homophobia also started to seep in – the guy who was run out of town touched a boy, the one who touched a girl is shunned but allowed to stay.
If given the choice, no, I would prefer not live in a small town with sex offenders (or violent criminals or…). But that’s just it – it’s not my choice. They are free to live pretty much wherever they want and be given the privilege of being left alone. What was done to this guy was illegal: criminal threatening, terrorizing, reckless endangerment all seem to apply. I doubt the cops will get involved. It won’t go any higher than the courts of public opinions. What makes this all more hypocritical is that some of the alleged guys involved in the “mob” have been convicted of assault on women, deadbeat dads (not paying child support), and so on. Who the hell are they to judge?