Occupy Wall Street protestors scream about “unfair advantages.” They claim it’s unfair for some people to make a profit, while others do not. Everybody should be equal, regardless of effort, ability or anything else.
Yet Occupy Wall Street, as a group, gets unfair advantages all its own. What other group would be permitted to camp out on public streets, obstruct commerce, or deface private property as they’re doing? The mayor of New York City has tolerated this from Day 1. The mayor of New York claims to be an “independent,” and insists he is neither Republican nor Democrat. But Occupy Wall Street is clearly on the side of the Democrats. They want unlimited
power for government officials, and they want unlimited rights of their own, to deface or destroy private property. This is what most career Democrats want, and if only they weren’t encumbered by things like elections and free speech, they’d reach for it in a New York minute.
Imagine if Tea Party protesters did any of this. They’d be jailed and convicted in a New York millisecond. They’d be tried in the court of public opinion, including but not limited to: Most of Congress, all of the White House, all of the major news networks except (possibly) Fox News, and most of the Internet. Freedom of speech rules the day when it comes to anti-capitalist protests. Any other kind of protest? Bring on the FCC, bring back the Fairness Doctrine or — its modern equivalent — the Orwellian “net neutrality.”
In our society, it’s acceptable to engage in just about any form of behavior you wish, just so it’s anti-capitalist. You will have Hollywood on your side, and you will have the bulk of the federal government on your side. You will have virtually all of academia on your side.
What exactly do these protestors want that they’re not getting? What do they object to in the status quo? The government either overtly controls, or runs from behind the scenes, just about every segment of our society. Education is nationalized. Medicine is now, with ObamaCare, nationalized on paper and soon to be nationalized in practice, once fee-for-service insurance providers go out of business, as they will if this law stands. The banking industry was severely regulated at the time of the 2008 crash. Now, after the bailouts of both the Bush and Obama administrations, the federal government has the permanent upper hand. Ditto with the auto industry, and ditto with cap and trade — the nationalization of energy — which the Obama Administration is implementing piecemeal via the EPA, since it wouldn’t even pass a Democratic Congress.
What else is there to nationalize, regulate, control or subsidize? What else do these people want that they’re not getting? OK, so there are some cranky Tea Party Republicans in Congress, with viewpoints that Occupy Wall Street objects to. So what? These Tea Party opponents appear unable to change a thing. Budget deficits continue to soar, the national debt is in the stratosphere, and government spending will not stop any time in the foreseeable future. When the economy booms, government spends more because, “It’s not fair that some make profits while others are left behind.” When the economy goes into a recession or depression, as we are now, the government spends more because things are so bad. This is how it has been for the entire lifetime of all these protestors, and even the Tea Party doesn’t seem willing to go all that far in reversing this.
So what do they want?
Some twits in my own local town are out on the street with signs saying, “Honk if you love small business.” I believe the people with these signs are sympathizers with the Occupy Wall Street movement. The reply to these signs should be, “Honk if you love free enterprise.” Or “Honk if you love freedom of competition.” Or better yet, ‘Honk if you love the civilization and creature comforts that capitalism creates.’ These twits who carry such signs are not really in favor of small business, and they’re not really against big business, either. Nor are they against crony capitalism, in which some well-off business people curry favor with politicians by paying them off.
What they are against is success.
Because of whatever has gone wrong in their personal lives, they resent what they perceive as the success or happiness of others. They believe that they would be happier if they had lots of money, because — despite all their protests to the contrary — they feel, deep down, that money does buy you happiness … and they want some of that loot, themselves. Or, if they can’t get it, or if they no longer care, they want to at least destroy it for those who do have it. These are the kind of illogical, twisted and irrational motives that lead people to support these protestors against capitalism. They’re as sick as they look, smell, sound and act.
It’s a sign of how arrogant and ignorant our times are that the biggest movement grabbing attention these days is an anti-capitalist, pro-socialist movement. As wrong-headed as socialism is, you could at least understand the presence of a socialist movement in a society that was still primarily capitalist. But that’s not the case. In America 2012, we already have about all the socialism there could be, short of completely nationalizing everything and having it run by one party, presumably the Obama party. Communism is all that’s left.
Is this what they want? Soviet-style Communism? One party rule by Obama, who doesn’t even appear to be socialist enough for these protestors?
The Occupy Wall Street people won’t say. Much is made of their lack of hygiene and manners, with good reason. But why doesn’t anyone ask them to actually espouse an idea? It seems that we’re no longer a nation of ideas, and consequently nobody is asking. If anybody took the time to do so, you’d find out pretty quickly that these people are as insipid and intellectually vapid as their speech, public bathroom habits and lack of hygiene all imply.