I don't understand people who protest. Protest being with signs, megaphones, and whistles. Maybe I am lacking social conscience or awareness or whatever but I simply don't get it. When has a protest ever changed anything? Now, I am not talking Rosa Parks, or the black college students that would do sit ins. I am not talking suffragettes. I am talking people who have nothing better to do than sit around with handmade signs and yell catchy chants about "books not bombs". What EXACTLY does that do to change the world?

The gay marriage movement is sweeping the country. Unlike many of my conservative compatriots, I totally support this. No second class citizenry! But they are DOING something! There may have been a time where people just sat around with signs and megaphones, I'm not really sure, but now they are taking action. I support and understand action.

What I do not support and what I do not understand is the group of maybe 30 college students that just marched under my window, stopping traffic, surrounded by 10 police officers. Why are you disrupting my work day? Why are you causing a distraction to drivers, causing at least one fender bender? Why are you taking these officers off the streets where they should be fighting crime, not protecting you from people who might disagree enough to take action?

Are you doing this to remind me that there is a war going on? I don't need reminding, since my brother is overseas right now fighting the war on terrorism. I don't need reminding since every generation in my family has sent men to die to protect that right to protest. It is a free country because of all those bombs and I acknowledge that.

My question to the protesters is this: What do you do when you lay down your sign? What do you do when the chants die down? Are you taking any ACTION besides screaming loudly at "The Man?"

I have a feeling a lot of these kids are chanting to be part of the cause. I think that if all they are doing is chanting, then they are part of the problem.