Health care Protest

While we were out on the National Mall on Saturday, we walked up to Capitol Hill to check out the protest against the health care bill outside the House. Having lived in DC for nearly 6 years now, I have seen a few protests, but the demographics of this one seemed much older.  The anti-war and anarchist protests I've seen are generally full of college students and hippy-types. There were people in wheel chairs, middle class people, and lots of retired people. They were also a very patriotic bunch with lots of American flags. After having watched John Adams I was tempted to buy a Don't Tread on Me flag.

It was fun to see everyone's posters and hear their chants. I don't really feel comfortable at protests even when I agree with them like in this case, but it's fun to check them out. I did feel patriotic and like protests are democracy at it's finest. It makes me sad when a few people go over board, which they always do, and yell mean personal things or do illegal things. It seems like it's an unfortunate part of getting large groups of people together.