Oh, yes, economic injustice. A novel calamity known only to early Twenty-First Century denizens who have been subjugated by the unique oppression of the rise of corporate overlords. This phenomenon was previously unpredicted in literature and speculative thought except by such marginalized thinkers such as John Steinbeck, Aldous Huxley, Robert Heinlein, Bruce Sterlling, William Gibson, John Shirley, Neal Stephonson, et cetera, albeit neither as amazing or horrific as presented in literate. (As far as I am aware, there is no criminal penality for having an off-switch on one’s television.)
Curiously enough, those who scream loudly about economic injustice still enjoy the benefits of that injustice in comparison to the mass of the world’s population, and live in relative luxury to the most wealthy of the preceeding generations in most respects. In any case, squatting in public parks, hitting the bong three times daily, and refusing to engage in the socially anticipated acts of basic personal hygiene are not persuasive to the bulk of the population of the United States or elsewhere that their cause is just or worthy of more attention than the lastest commercial for low carb beer. So…good luck with that whole #Occupy thing.
Oops, mea culpa; I just notices this thread was in Great Debates, not the pit. Too many OWS threads to keep track of.
The second amendment quote was a snarky reference to the level of conversation in 2010 when the Tea Party was marching every other day. It is a paraphrased quote made by Sharon Angle, Harry Reid’s opponent in the race for the Senate.
SCOTUS making it possible was a snarky reference to Citizens United and it’s inevitable (or at least probable) consequence of the majority of political speech being corporate sponsored.
Now that I have cleared that up, I will step out. I wanted to rant, not debate, and I mistook my environment for an appropriate one.
I mentioned both. I just pointed out that you can assemble, unobstructed, indefinitely on your own property. Nobody is kicking the door down to stop people from doing that.
And since public space is just that then we regulate it’s use so people don’t bogart it for their own private use. At some point this nonsense is going to cause a great gnashing of teeth from people tired of seeing their parks and public squares usurped by a bunch of jerks who think they own the place.
Ummm yes it does. Absolutely. “Petitioning” your ruler absolutely involves physically going to to the palace of the ruler in question and airing your grievances. Not hanging out at home and complaining about them.
There is no way the intention of the 1st Amendment was it should just apply to assembling on your private property.
What good does this accomplish? The problem is that this really isn’t the fault of corporations–which exist at the pleasure of their shareholders and lack any defined moral conscience–but rather of the governing financial bodies which are owned or directed by governments and issue currency in the name of said nations. Read John Cassidy’s Why Markets Fail; the inception of financial institutions like banks and credit unions behaving in reckless fashion begins and ends with radical deregulation of bodies such that engaging in risky ventures was not only prohibited but was actually tacitly encouraged so they could compete.
The protesters come across as uniformally ill-informed and providing no workable solution other than “Tear it all down.” Yes, let’s let them throw temper tantrums worthy of a small child. And while we’re at it, let’s hand out crayons to let them write on the wall.
I can’t find an instance around the time of the revolution wherein any protest lasted any thing more than a few hours but maybe you’re thinking of Valley Forge.
Your “Free Speech hurting my feelings” in no way compares to your physical seizure of the park to hold it against me indefinitely for the purposes I and countless others would put it to–a place to gather my thoughts, relax for a moment, and absorb a small degree of serenity in an otherwise stressful environment. Maybe hear a bird sing.
I’m generally in favor of the Wall Street Protestors, and I think their level of violation of the law pales in matching Wall Street’s violation of the law. I mean conspircay to commit misdemeanors, if it exists in any jurisdiction, at worst has to be a low level felony. Compared to large scale thefts and frauds, only a fool thinks they don’t really have a right to do what they’re doing.
But to tell the truth they’d be utterly blameless in my eyes if they didn’t try to seize parks in a permanent way, which has got to be better than conspiracies to commit misdemeanors.
I think they should recognize reasonable rules governing parks, get up off their asses and march like any good protest ought to do.
I’d applaud all the way if OWS marched on Washington.
Let them start in the west and march east while the more easterly locations gain numbers and join them as the Western marchers pass through. Yeah YOU! CALIFORNIA HEALTH NUTS! Get off your ass and start marching east instead of sitting in a park. You know you can make it, you can walk across this country en masse. I’ll join you when you come through the great plains. I’ll have some refreshments for you too, and maybe counsel.
I agree with everything you said, but to answer your question: I don’t know. It may accomplish nothing. It may only change the conversation. It may spur division and and partisanship. It may help to turn the US in a fascist police state. It might even spur a sane re-regulation of business and focus attention on where the US government is failing its populous (did you know that the US is 27th in the world in science and math education? 27th!). I don’t know, but something needs to give and I am happy that people are finally paying attention even if they are uniformally (sic) ill-informed and providing no workable solutions.
Meh. While I generally agree with what you say here, I just can’t criticize too much. They are trying to get attention after all on an issue that is important to them. It’s their right and they should be free to get arrested if that’s what they want.
Regulation is not the answer. Regulation just means a bunch of paper shuffling beaurocrats can all point elsewhere and say “Not ME,” when the shit hits the fan. What we need is a justice department with gumption to enforce the cirminal law in a big way.
Now Wall Street gets the defense, in a “deregulated” environment, to claim that it is entitled to make financial decisions as though it were an infant not yet potty trained. If Mr. Holder had five thousand indictments he was busy with, the Banking system would soon decide it needed to behave itself responsibly, where every worker says, “hell no, I won’t sign off on that. You sign it. I’ll visit you in prison,” rather than, " well, we’re deregulated, and since that minimum responsibility of pointing to someone else who must be responsible was obviously too much responsibility, we now have no responsibility."
Regulation doesn’t work and deregulation doesn’t work. When you regulate it creates waste and if you then deregulate it makes people think that, since their irresponsibility wasn’t illegal before, it must not be illegal now, since the regulations were removed.
Regulation is a “proactive” fantasy that’s just as reactive as any other means of controlling behavior. It gives important sounding jobs with high salaries to people who can basically manage a filing cabinet.
Send the louses to prison where they belong. By the hundreds, Mr. Holder, or if you can prove it, by the thousands.
Yeah, well, once the demonstration marches past it’s out of sight, you know. In this instance, keeping it stationary keeps attention focused where it belongs.
I said the same thing about 2 weeks ago. Occupy a bunch of parks with a smatter of people across the country = an irritant and a curiosity. Get hundreds of thousands to march on DC = MLK territory.
Ummmm no it doesn’t. You can’t squat in a park in the name of free speech. They have nothing to do with each other. One is a crime, the other is the ability to freely communicate with other people. Freely communicating with others does not entitle one to property.
I’m sorry, but there is absolutely no way that that “peaceable assembly” applies to anything else but assembly on public property. When the framers said “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” they explicitly meant going to public property and airing your grievances, NOT hanging out on your front lawn complaining about how much the government sucks.
I’ve got to disagree; I think MLK territory is exactly where OWS belongs. Stay in the parks, eventually forgotten with no real change.
Make the DOD worried about what happens if someone arms us in Virginia along the way, at the last minute, and Congress will choose the path of least resistance, starting with criminal reform along the lines of holding the attorney general accountable for failure to prosecute a monumental greivance.
Send 1,000 wall street bankers (and/or their affiliates across the country) to prison for twenty years (like we’d do the desperate bank robber driven to moral failure after trying to deal with the banker theives on their terms) and Wall Street will not misbehave for a long, long, Long Long, LONG, VERY LONG TIME.