Way back in December 2002, I went to the first of several "peace" protests in order to take pictures of the wacky signs and such. I ended up getting a few "Instalanches" (links from Instapundit) out of it, and Andrew Sullivan even linked to one of them.

Plus ca change, as Sully is now an Obama supporter and so on. And, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit is now linking to (pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/74067) wacky protests featuring loony signs, even highlighting signs featuring "John Galt", a character from the Ayn Rand novel Atlas Shrugged: pereiraville.com/scribble/?p=7104

In retrospect, the loonies at the "peace" protests were partly right about the war being a bad idea and about those promoting it having questionable motives, even if they were partly right for the wrong reasons.

Now, maybe I'll be partly wrong in this case, but I don't think so. These protests are going to have absolutely no impact whatsoever. They don't have the numbers, and, after several weeks of protests across the country, they're obviously never going to have the numbers. If those in positions of power were worried about the "tea party movement", rest assured that you'd see endless hit pieces from the MSM and so on. Instead, they've mostly ignored the "movement".

Further, just as ANSWER was more extreme than most of those at the "peace" protests, those promoting the current protests are more extreme than most of those attending. "Objectivism" is an immoral and anti-American ideology. Thankfully, it's never going to catch on in the U.S. Go up to one of those holding up a John Galt sign and try to take away their Social Security, public roads, and all the other goodies and see what happens. And, if you want to go Galt, you can't do it in the U.S. because anywhere in the U.S. is under the protection that the U.S. provides. The only place to truly go Galt is in a completely lawless area, such as by getting on the next boat to Somalia and leaving the rest of us alone.