Keep your laws off my penis

Dream State is one where protesting seems a way of life. Or let's say if you were a protester of something, you'd likely end up here.

In my prior state, I can't say I recall ever seeing a protest.

Wait, I take that back. I remember one that occurred just as I was moving to my first grad school city. Unlike the ghost town mentioned in the article, however, I remember driving into the foreign city and seeing Cubans lining the streets waving Cuban flags, yelling, jeering...you name it.

It was a super awesome welcome. I nearly returned home.

Anyway. So here, it is pretty normal. I've seen people out in front of what I can only assume was a Planned Parenthood location praying and offering literature. I've also seen people protesting circumcision*. The theme in all of these protests is that they consist of a group of people who come together about a topic and I assume attempt to educate the public or at least draw attention to their issue.There's probably a social component to the decision to belong to the group and go out on a protest.

What I don't understand are individual protesters. Just a single guy with a sign around his neck yelling out whatever his slogan is for his issue. I suppose this could include the staple religious fanatic you find at probably every college in the country...but still this is a bit different. The religious zealot has a pattern wherein he or she arrives on campus say, every Wednesday and yells out Bible verses. What I'm talking about is the random seemingly ordinary person who shows up on a busy corner one day and yells. The next day he's gone, never to be seen again.

But here's what I'm wondering the most. What goes through the guy's head before he shows up on the corner? Is it a spur of the moment decision? You're just so worked up about the issue that you grab some card board, write a message, and yell? Or is it planned? You have Thursday's off so you're thinking you might head up to the corner of Main and Central around maybe 4:30. Then hang out till rush hour foot traffic dies down around 7 and then head back to watch some Bones. In which case, what if something comes up? Do you postpone your protest until Friday or the following Thursday or do you kind of lose interest and take up being a sports team groupy? What does this individual get out of his single protest? And, does he believe he really made a difference?

Today's random was yelling about: Obama-fraud, medicare-fraud, Obama-fraud, mortgage-fraud, Obama-fraud.

I think I get his point (regardless of whether I agree or not) but don't you think you'd come up with a better chant that specifies your concern as opposed to making your 'audience' guess what exactly you're protesting? I mean is the guy not wanting us to vote for Obama again, blaming Obama for the economy, saying Obama is a fraud...or something else?

I'm no protester, but I'm thinking you'd want to reduce the cognitive effort required by your 'audience' so they can agree with you more easily.

*It's got to be awkward calling in the banner order to kinkos and asking it to say in 4 foot lettering "Keep your laws off my penis!" I'm just saying.

I bet you thought this posting was going to be about my opinion about circumcision, didn't you? I hope you weren't too disappointed by the time you got this far into the post.