So I understand the “Occupy Whatever” crowd is back. “An associated Facebook page announced a protest against the ‘regressive 1% agenda of Gov. Andrew Cuomo and for a truly progressive one that includes the basic needs and human and environmental rights of the people.’ Similar calls for Friday protests were issued by Occupy Philly and Occupy DC.”
Doubtless you remember the Occupy crowd’s collective temper tantrum a couple of years ago when thousands of young people assembled in various public places, camped for weeks, stank to high heaven and demanded equity of resources and paychecks regardless of whether or not they wanted to work for a living. Most of America had a good chuckle at their expense.
But now they’re baaaack. According to organizer David Swanson, “Awareness has grown, education has spread, and ideas have sunk in. People now know that we can’t lift up the poor without pulling down the plutocrats. It’s understood that we can have democracy or billionaires, not both. The notion of shifting priorities is even making headway; behind the screaming of ‘no cuts!’ and ‘less spending!’ there’s a steady, rising voice – ebbing and flowing like the ocean – insisting that we can move the money from the military and the oil corporations and the bankers to green energy and schools and trains and parks and actual aid to everyone on earth, with plenty of tax cuts to spare.”
Wow! That message is completely different from the last time these yahoos decided to have nationwide urban love-ins on other people’s dime.
Mr. Swanson’s rant embraces many things he finds objectionable – health-care inequity, weapons sales, international political interference – and somehow he feels camping in Zuccotti Park and other locations will correct these issues.
I’d like to make one thing very clear: I don’t necessarily object to many of the issues the Occupy crowd wishes to address. I believe America interferes too much in international affairs. I believe there is an incestuous and unholy alliance between big bankers, Wall Street and the government. I believe there is a horrific amount of domestic spying going on.
But if you look at the root cause of all these complaints, the one unifying factor is government. When Occupiers say they want health care for all, or wealth to be redistributed, or social justice, or fairness, or any other complaint they feel can best be expressed by breaking windows, what they don’t say is that the only way these goals can only be achieved – literally the only way – is at the point of a gun through government coercion and at the expense of freedom and liberty.
When it comes down to brass tacks, the Occupy solutions call for more unconstitutional government regulations … not less.
It’s gotten to the point where neither Democrats nor Republicans, neither Occupy brats nor Wall Street executives, will admit the depths to which our government has departed from the original, streamlined, minimal role it was supposed to play.
Occupiers blame government corruption on corporate and wealthy elites. In their psychedelic worldview, the poverty-stricken (but progressive) politicians are being seduced by the evil banksters. The reality is the reverse. Politicians have unconstitutionally created legislative loopholes, sweetheart deals, backroom agreements, defacto monopolies and other shady arrangements. If we returned to the limited government envisioned by the founders, within a short time these abuses would correct themselves. After all, there’s no point in bribing someone to do something they can’t do.
Remember, bankers and corporations cannot hold a gun to my head and force me to comply with their wishes. The government can, and does. (Health care, anyone?)
The government is doing its best to ensure future generations of useful idiots (such as the Occupy crowd) by instigating such farces as Common Core, which informs sixth graders that the Bill of Rights is “outdated and may not remain in its current form any longer,” and encourages children to “prioritize, revise, prune two and add two” amendments to the original document.
This is what happens with government schools (government again!). Frankly, any time Washington gets involved in private affairs such as education, health care, welfare, corporate assistance, etc., the result is corruption, monopolies and manipulations on an unimaginable scale.
In short, if the Occupy protesters want the wealth in this nation to be redistributed more “equitably” (or any other social justice claptrap) by increasing the power of government and placing more chains on the individual, then they’re just as evil and mistaken as the banks and politicians they claim to protest.
Now remember what the Occupy crowd was like two years ago. They had to be booted from public places because the garbage and human waste was so bad. Disease spread. Rapes were reported. They weren’t another Woodstock; they were a laughing stock.
And above all, the Occupiers didn’t understand the ideals they purported to endorse. They stuttered and hemmed and hawed and demanded the usual progressive cadre of unrealistic and unconstitutional twaddle (all of which are proven historic failures) and then applauded their own eloquence. After all, “Every liberal idea is so good that it has to be mandatory and enforced at gunpoint; just ask a left-winger and he’ll tell you so,” noted Phil Elmore.
The difference with the Occupy crowd versus the capitalists they profess to hate is the Occupiers want equal outcome, not equal opportunity (which already exists). They want money and health care and housing and a college education, but they don’t want to work for it. They want the government to “do” stuff for them or “give” stuff to them, whereas capitalists want the government to get out of the way so they can get stuff done themselves.
If the Occupy crowd really wants to work toward reform, they should work toward reducing the size of government and re-establishing free-market capitalism. We need government interference out of businesses, out of education, out of medicine, out of health insurance and out of everything not specified in the Constitution.
There is no other way America can survive. Occupy that.
Media wishing to interview Patrice Lewis, please contact [email protected].
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