A completely bizarre protest that’s based on love of country *UPDATED*

I watched this short video that I found at Michelle Malkin’s site:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VMXz6xGeqc[/youtube]

As I watched this video, I had this very weird feeling that something was deeply, deeply wrong with this protest.  It looks wrong.

I’m a child of the Vietnam era, and I’ve managed to keep my eye on the news — and the protests — for the 40 years since those Vietnam era protests.  I know exactly what they’re supposed to look like.  They’re supposed to be heavy with references to blood, whether in words, photographs or paint splatters.  All this blood is meant to remind smug Americans sitting at home in front of their TV sets that evil Americans have, for decades, been spilling the blood of innocents.  You know who those innocents are:  Innocent North Vietnamese, innocent Hondurans, innocent AIDS victims, innocent rape victims, innocent South American communists, innocent Iraqi special forces, innocent Afghani victims, innocent mass murdering terrorist victims — all brutally slaughtered by an avaricious nation given to torture and deceit.  Heck, as far as the Truthers are concerned, even the 9/11 victims were killed by Americans.

The look of the protest is wrong too.  People should be dressed in dark clothing and have grotesque masks on, symbolic of America’s torture and rapine.  Regardless of the march’s ostensible purpose, there should always be at least a sprinkling of signs likening Jews and Israeli to the Nazis and demanding the Jews’ imminent return to the gas chambers.  As we learned during the last eight years, there should always be death threats against the president, provided that the President is George Bush.  And, of course, the American flag should be burned, trampled, despoiled, desecrated and in all other ways treated to the humiliation due the symbol of the evil nation being protested.

So what’s with these wacky conservatives and their amateur attempt at gathering a couple of million people to march on the Capitol?  They’re going about it all wrong.  They’re wearing and waving the American flag as if they’re proud of it, and they’re spouting incredibly foolish notions that have absolutely nothing to do with America being evil or America murdering people.  They’re also not excoriating Israel.

Here are just a few examples of these neophyte activists who seem to have absolutely no appreciation for the fact that the purpose behind a march on D.C. is to let everyone know how evil America is but.  These guys seem weirdly stuck on archaic concepts such as freedom, self-governance, self-reliance, and informed representative government:

Liberate Don’t Regulate

No Government Controlled Health Care

Stop Spending My Future (with a baby picture)

We Are Not “Astroturf,” Not “A Mob, Not “Nazis.”  We Are Fed Up.

Repeal What You Have Not Read

Socialism Sucks.  Always Has.  Always Will.

Dependency Is A Form Of Slavery (my favorite)

Socialism Is Not Freedom

Freedom Of The People, By The People, For The People

We Are . . . America

Got Common Sense?

Most peculiar of all, the marchers aren’t demanding (or fantasizing about) the President’s death.  Sure, some of the signs are hostile to Obama (likening him to a self-styled monarch or a socialist), but they don’t liken him to a Nazi or demand his death.  There are no paintings of him dripping blood, decapitated, or with bullet holes in his head.  Those foolish marchers, unversed in the way of protests, seem merely to resent his overreach, without having any desire to threaten him personally.

As for me, I don’t know….  Let’s must hope that ordinary Americans, sitting in their living rooms, will be impressed with this amateur style of activism, one tied to love of country and freedom.  Indeed, they may be so struck, as I was, by the bizarre look that this protest has, that they’ll actually sit up and pay attention to what the protesters are saying.  We can dream, can’t we?

UPDATE: Can’t link because I’m on an iPHone, but Little Green Footballs shows that there was an ugly side to the protest. That doesn’t change the top notes of patriotism and liberty, but the ugly side was there too.

UPDATE II:  In the interest of full disclosure, here’s the link to LGF.  I find it interesting that the negative signs are Charles’ focus.  I think that, while he continues to remain admirably strong with regard to Israel and the war against Islamic terrorism, he’s souring on the conservative movement generally.  As for his umbrage at the sign to “Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy,” I don’t see that as being as offensive as he does.  It’s an appropriate response to the fact that the Democrats leapt upon Kennedy’s death as a way to sell Obama Care.