Clarity

I saw a friend yesterday who happens to be nice enough to log on to my blog now and again. She posed a wise question: "Are you against protests altogether?"
The answer is emphatically NO. I can't be; by nature, I am a writer, and I value my free speech rights far too much to be one of those people that believes that protests or demonstrations should not exist in a country like ours.

I just don't like this one. It smells like whining to me, and given my personal history...I am unable to muster up a sufficient amount of sympathy for those that are expressing themselves.

My problem, as always, is with what this does to the hard-working police men and women that are down there protecting a human right to free speech. I get the fact that they signed on to do the job, but does that also mean that they signed on to be maligned, bullied, threatened, called names, shouted at, and perhaps assaulted by fellow citizens? I have an interest here that hits very close to home: Roc has been called out of SoB and into the Melee tonight. He will be down on Wall Street. I will have "boots on the ground" so to speak...and therefore able to report back to you directly after his shift.

I thought of my friend and allowed a small chuckle later on. How could I ever be against protests? I'm Italian, and in most of the world, that generally means that I would also be Catholic.
But I'm a Protestant.

Some of you will get that.