I believe that dissent is patriotic.

I also believe that a high concentration of the people who attend demonstrations like these are clinically nuts (certainly not all of them, to be fair).

I just got back from taking a bunch of photos from the war protest taking place over at Lake Eola. The idea of the protest itself is completely fine by me. The peaceful expression of what is an extremely emotional issue is why we're so lucky to live here. It provokes conversation and discussion. It encourages people to research their thoughts and educate themselves. It serves as a mechanism to drive voter participation. Without protest, without that sense of "cognitive dissonance", we'd endanger the conversation and discourse that's so desperately needed in this country.

The thing is, for every parent who has suffered the loss of a child, for every pacifist who doesn't believe in violence, for every student who disagrees with our foreign policy, there are a handful of people who haven't cut their hair since 1959 and look like they're stoned out of their minds. Then you get the absurd Vietnam-vets-were-baby-killers crowd, the increasingly ridiculous 9-11 truther crowd (side note: Bill Mayher is right, 4 mins in), and the straight up we-hate-america folks. Everyone has the right to peaceful assembly, but the presence of some of these stereotypes truly undermines any reasonable effort these protesters have at being taken seriously.

"Bush = Hitler," really? Don't you see how that makes you come across as not only ignorant of world history, but also as a little bit looney? On one hand, we have Hitler. The definition of all that is evil. A murderer of tens of millions of people. Someone hell bent on the complete domination of Europe by a largely inferior Germany and smart enough to have had a realistic chance of it until the rest of the world came together in their own defense. The man was systematically attempting to erase an entire race of people. On the other hand, we have Bush. He responded to an attack that took place on domestic soil in a controversial way after he was given a blank check by a dual-party congress elected (and re-elected) by the American people. We're not sure if he can read.

Yeah. I can see how the two are similar. Why don't we all listen to your thoughts on foreign policy?

I admire most of the folks who braved the rain this afternoon to come downtown. I admire the counter-protesters who did the same. I can't wait for the day in the future when so much of the confusion and the pain surrounding 9/11 and its aftermath has been resolved. I just wish the current state of the world wasn't such a breeding ground for conspiracy, conjecture, hyperbole and cynicism. People forget that in some countries, criticizing the government would be enough to have them thrown in jail. People forget that while they're complaining about the rain that came during their protest, volunteer soldiers are fighting overseas for a country that they love.

I hope those carrying these anti-Bush/anti-America signs are at least able to recognize the irony.