Posted by
Tzimisce on Friday, March 02, 2007 1:51:01 PM
March 17th (one of my favorite days of the year, St Patrick's Day) this year will feature yet another anti war demonstration in Washington DC. Nothing special about that. And this demonstration will feature the usual cast of tired characters: ancient hippies trying to cling to their fading youth, movie stars trying desperately to rekindle their smoldering careers, college kids looking for free drugs and the Union rent-a-mobs to swell the ranks the ranks of protesters in an attempt to make them look bigger than they are. This protest will be a march around Washington, passing by some of the monuments to the wars our nation has fought and then up to the capitol.
Okay, that's fine by me. These people have a right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and so on. No big deal.
But this protest will feature something different: a counter protest. A veteran's group called "A Gathering of Eagles" has announced that they will be on hand at various war monuments to make sure that nothing gets vandalized. After all the reports of peaceniks spraying paint on the White House steps, spitting on Iraq war vets and various other nefarious things I can't imagine why a bunch of vets would want to do this.
Anyway, the left is horrified that someone would dare show up to counter protest them. I personally think what the left is really scared of is the backlash against them. You see, whereas the peaceniks are mostly there to party and take free hits from the bong, "A Gathering of Eagles" is there out of genuine anger. I'll never forget the 2000 election fiasco and the angry protesters showing up at the doorsteps to the election office to prevent the Dems from giving themselves the vote. It was the first time I've ever heard left wing politicians suggesting the crowd shouldn't be listened too. Usually big lefties have tears in their eyes as they point to the assembled mass and say "all these people are here, we should do what they say."
Same thing here. The left thinks they should own the protest lines. Other people shouldn't be allowed to speak against them: that's "hateful".
So as a conservative this is really fun to watch. It would be great if the counter protest turned out to be larger than the actual protest.