The teenage nameless, faceless, allegedly mens rea jihadist was just found guilty on charges of terrorism by an Ontario Superior Court in Brampton.At the same time, the co-defendant in the six-month court case - Canadian Law - was found guilty by association of Guilt by Association.
[Ding-ding: Tuque Souq sarcasm alert.]
"The law is on trial as well," explained U of T professor Wesley Wark to The Globe and Mail. "Is the law a functional law? Does mens rea [guilty mind] really apply? How much knowledge do you really have to have? This will test the dimensions of how terrorism activities are defined."
Well, the test results are in: The law can find this apparent juvenile delinquent - who is as much a Muslim convert as other teenagers are hipster-doofus converts - guilty of thinking himself an extremist after what was probably an all-too-easy brainwashing by the actual, still-untried, real extremists.
(And if, after a brainwashing, I think I'm a tomato sandwich - well then I am a tomato sandwich. Probably a soggy one.)
The case is now the standard-bearer, the precedent-setter, for Canada's anti-terrorism laws - seeing as how this case was the first of its kind in Canadian history.
Now, had prosecutors sought a lesser charge - perhaps that of mens situs [idle mind] - well, we could all get behind that. Or even mens Wii-us [video-game comatose mind]: then the law could have a precedent that could help society.
Perhaps simply mens-I'm-a-teenager-in-a-culturally-disoriented-post-suburban-morass-of-a-society. Alas, maybe that will come up during the appeal process.
Until then, the Tuque Souq warns: A guilty mind is the devil's pawnshop.
[End sarcasm alert.]
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