This Monday, a man was arrested and charged with trespassing at a Guilderland, N.Y., mall for refusing to remove a T-shirt that said, “Give Peace a Chance,” protesting the war in Iraq.

In other news, Susie Sunshine was arrested and charged with loitering in the Simpletown Elementary School Recess Park while waiting in line for the slide.

OK, I lied about the second event. But it might as well have happened — both acts were equally harmless and little deserving of police intervention.

I don’t want to sound like a white-flag-waving hippie, but even putting my one liberal view — we should not attack Iraq — aside, your average citizen should be able to exploit commercialism by using it to peacefully promote anti-war sentiment.

You have especially earned this right when wearing said commercialized political gear in the same mall containing the store where the clothing was purchased in. (Though, I suppose this general application doesn’t fit everywhere — using a condom in a drugstore would probably be frowned upon.)

But I guess I can understand where the mall and its security forces are coming from.

After all, anti-war protest shirts are highly offensive to other mall patrons.

Which is why malls have also banned* the sale and wearing of 4:20 paraphenalia, which celebrates the police code-inspired day dedicated to mindless, excessive use of illegal narcotics.

* — 30 percent of all trendy preteens and seventh-year sophomore college students buy and don these shirts in malls.

In truth, malls prosper and falter partially based on the sale of opinion-laden clothing.

What if I see an elderly woman wearing a “#1 Grandma” sweatshirt? I disagree. My grandma is by far superior to her and can make applesauce fit for the gods. “Police!”

OK, I don’t see eye-to-eye with the mall on that one, after all.

But I will agree that anti-war protestors do present a plausible and considerable threat to the safety of other patrons.

Nothing makes me hurry to walk on the other side of the mall than the fear invoked by a lone, most likely unarmed person who is against fighting, especially when it can be easily avoided.

I could be six inches from a barefoot, tie-dyed, flower-holding hippie, and my only concern would be hemp-stench — not the possibility of a vicious, anti-war, flower-power beating.

Abortion protesters have created large, traffic-stopping human chains, animal rights advocates have vandalized thousands of dollars of personal property with paint baths — and a mall is seriously threatened by one of a group that usually lights candles and sings “Kumbaya” in a giant circle to fight their causes.

Nevermind. The mall was completely wrong.

The Lantern refused to editorialize on this subject because it would be a criticism of an isolated incident. I columnized on it, however, because it is a glaring display of ignorance, intolerance and hypocrisy — three traits I simultaneously practice and fight against.

But seriously, folks.

We must be aware that we live in a nation in which a mall — the most public of private institutions — used police force to remove a person who silently and peacefully practiced his right of political speech in the same establishment which sold him his statement.

I’ve had it. This country has lost it. I’m moving to Spain.

Hasta luego.

Kyle Woodley is The Lantern opinion editor and is sick of Americans fearing everything. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].