Like many others, I went to Washington D.C. last week for the Stewart/Colbert rally. It’s late and the news covered the actual rally, but here are a few things I’d like to add:

• Yusef/Cat Stevens is awesome.  Listen to The Wind on repeat.
• The crowd was surprisingly civil, much older than I expected, and very friendly.  I don’t think this crowd was all that different from most other political rallies, but I thought I’d mention it.  Oh, and Reddit was very well represented.
• Reason.tv (and many others) went around interviewing people at the rally, with hilariously bad results.  Not surprising — a lot of the people they interviewed were 1) young and 2) stupid.  Turns out every political rally attracts people who don’t know what they’re talking about.  Who would’ve thought?  I’ve long advocated (to Brandon, who I assume uses his writer-powers to get all of my messages out to the masses) that both sides stop “Jaywalking” political events and admit that there are ideas on both sides that have support in both history and policy.  By failing to seek out those people and air their views we harm the marketplace of ideas, don’t understand our opponents, and perpetuate partisan bickering.  Not every Tea Party supporter is a racist bigot, and not every leftist is a druggie moron.  Some are, but let’s agree to ignore them for the greater good, okay?  Kthx.
• I thought Stewart’s speech at the end was great.  He’s said a lot of that stuff before, but it was nice to hear it all in one place.  I hope people took it to heart and that it influences them when they think about politics in the future.  Understanding the other side is incredibly important if you want to achieve lasting change.  We need to stop demonizing each other and making fear-based, irrational arguments.  And for Christ’s sake, liberals, stop comparing President Bush to a man who murdered millions of his own citizens.

For reading this far, you get a video!