by Marybeth Hicks, Columnist
Call it an occupational hazard but I can’t look at the Occupy Wall Street protesters without thinking, “Who parented these people?” As a culture columnist, I’ve commented on the social and political ramifications of the “movement” – now known as “OWS” – whose fairyland agenda can be summarized by one of their placards: “Everything for everybody.”
Thanks to their pipe-dream platform, it’s clear there are people with serious designs on “transformational” change in America who are using the protesters like bed springs in a brothel.
Yet it’s not my role as a commentator that prompts my parenting question but rather the fact that I’m the mother of four teens and young adults. There are some crucial life lessons that the protesters’ moms clearly have not passed along.
Here, then, are five things the OWS protesters’ mothers should have taught their children but obviously didn’t, so I will:
Life isn’t fair. The concept of justice – that everyone should be treated fairly – is a worthy and worthwhile moral imperative on which our nation was founded. But justice and economic equality are not the same. Or, as Mick Jagger [2] said, “You can’t always get what you want.”No matter how you try to “level the playing field,” some people have better luck, skills, talents or connections that land them in better places. Some seem to have all the advantages in life but squander them, others play the modest hand they’re dealt and make up the difference in hard work and perseverance and some find jobs on Wall Street and eventually buy houses in the Hamptons. Is it fair? Stupid question.
Nothing is “free.” Protesting with signs that seek “free” college degrees and “free” health care make you look like idiots because colleges and hospitals don’t operate on rainbows and sunshine. There is no magic money machine to tap for your meandering educational careers and “slow paths” to adulthood and the 53 percent of taxpaying Americans owe you neither a degree nor an annual physical.While I’m pointing out this obvious fact, here are a few other things that are not free: overtime for police officers and municipal workers, trash hauling, repairs to fixtures and property, condoms, Band-Aids and the food that inexplicably appears on the tables in your makeshift protest kitchens. Real people with real dollars are underwriting your civic temper tantrum.
Your word is your bond. When you demonstrate to eliminate student loan debt, you are advocating precisely the lack of integrity you decry in others. Loans are made based on solemn promises to repay them. No one forces you to borrow money; you are free to choose educational pursuits that don’t require loans or to seek technical or vocational training that allows you to support yourself and your ongoing educational goals. Also, for the record, being a college student is not a state of victimization. It’s a privilege that billions of young people around the globe would die for – literally.
A protest is not a party. On Saturday in New York, while making a mad dash from my cab to the door of my hotel to avoid you, I saw what isn’t evident in the newsreel footage of your demonstrations: Most of you are doing this only for attention and fun. Serious people in a sober pursuit of social and political change don’t dance jigs down Sixth Avenue like attendees of a Renaissance festival. You look foolish, you smell gross, you are clearly high and you don’t seem to realize that all around you are people who deem you irrelevant.
There are reasons you haven’t found jobs. The truth? Your tattooed necks, gauged ears, facial piercings and dirty dreadlocks are off-putting. Nonconformity for the sake of nonconformity isn’t a virtue. Occupy reality: Only 4 percent of college graduates are out of work. If you are among that 4 percent, find a mirror and face the problem. It’s not them. It’s you.
( 2011 Marybeth Hicks)
Columnist Marybeth Hicks, a wife of 20 years and mother of four children, lives in the Midwest. She is the author of The Perfect World Inside My Minivan — One Mom’s Journey Through the Streets of Suburbia, a compilation of her columns. She uses her column to share her perspective on issues and experiences that shape families nationwide. She currently writes a column for the Washington Times. This column first appeared in and is reprinted with permission from the Washington Times. Visit her Web site, www.marybethhicks.com or send e-mail to marybeth.hicks@comcast.net
Thank you Marybeth. Thank you Post Scripts.
It reminds me of my favorite movie from when I was a kid (that’s how old I am) called The Wild One, with Marlon Brando before he got fat. It is about a wild outlaw motorcycle gang before Harley’s were acceptable. One straight citizen asks Marlon’s character, What are you rebelling against? He answers, “Whatta ya got?”
Pardon me but I take some exception —
1) Marlon Brando never got “fat”, he became portly.
2) Harley Davidson motorcycles have always been acceptable. Just some of the riders have not.
How extravagantly suburban she is.
Why was she in New York? Do you go to New York to avoid the street people?
But as to “transformational change”, she is (though oblivious) not far off the mark. If you haven’t got it, don’t spend it. If you have got it, don’t spend it.
Short of lighting one or two of them $20M bankers on fire … this is how we are going to bring them down.
“Short of lighting one or two of them $20M bankers on fire … this is how we are going to bring them down.”
You make me sick.
Q, if you are still hot to put a bullet in someone do the world a favor, put another one in Eva Braun the first one didn’t do the trick.
The Tea Party has specific goals while the occupy clowns don’t stand for anything except wanting a free ride. Those who jumped up and supported the early occupy clowns will take a hit at the next ballot box.
Regardless of the attempts by the media to disparage them, the Tea Party hasn’t disappeared – it’s just waiting for November, 2012 . .
I take issue with most of Hicks’ objections.
“Life isn’t fair.”
This seems to be a pretty empty argument. Everyone knows that life can never be absolutely fair. The question is, how do we make the system the most fair it can possible be, for the greatest number of people? OWS and its opponents have different answers to this question. But “life isn’t fair” isn’t an answer, it’s just empty words.
“Nothing is “free.””
Again, I think Hicks is missing the point by pointing out something that everyone, even the most wooly-headed Marxist out there, already knows. The question is not whether something is literally “free;” the question is who should pay for it. For example, are college education and healthcare good things to invest taxpayer money in? I think so. In fact, most people probably think so, and the question then becomes how much money we should invest in it and how much each individual should pay for themselves. This answer usually varies based on the individual’s circumstances. The issues are much more complicated than Hicks makes them out to be.
“There is no magic money machine to tap for your meandering educational careers and “slow paths” to adulthood and the 53 percent of taxpaying Americans owe you neither a degree nor an annual physical.”
Here, Hicks is just sneaking a false premise into her argument. 100% of Americans pay taxes, not 53%. The latter is an approximate number of Americans who pay INCOME tax. Many commentators, both conservative and surprisingly even liberal, have left out this important distinction, which creates a very misleading perception.
Also, I think its relevant to point out that while those who pay income tax may not “owe” their fellow Americans a degree, a physical, or anything else for that matter, they might want to consider whether paying for such services will benefit the overall economy, and by extension even themselves as individuals, in the long run. The debate should not be framed, by either side, in terms of the more fortunate “owing” something to the less; it should be framed in terms of how social welfare can help (or, possibly, hurt) the economy and the individuals participating in it.
“A protest is not a party. On Saturday in New York, while making a mad dash from my cab to the door of my hotel to avoid you, I saw what isn’t evident in the newsreel footage of your demonstrations: Most of you are doing this only for attention and fun. Serious people in a sober pursuit of social and political change don’t dance jigs down Sixth Avenue like attendees of a Renaissance festival. You look foolish, you smell gross, you are clearly high and you don’t seem to realize that all around you are people who deem you irrelevant.”
Some of this I agree with–there are certainly people in every protest movement who make the whole thing look bad. Many on the left pointed out such people in the Tea Party movement, which Tea Partiers found offensive, and in many cases rightfully so. It is wrong to paint an entire movement based on the actions of a few. Occupy Wall Street is a much more diverse group than the Tea Party. It is also a movement much more attractive to the young than the Tea Party, and I have to admit, many young people are incredibly stupid and selfish. That said, I feel that conservatives are only reporting on the more extreme people and ignoring the many normal citizens, military members, religious people, etc. that make up the movement. Some of these people have been quite newsworthy; some victims of excessive force from police have included a Marine, a young pregnant woman, and an 80-year old woman. On my college campus, all of the people I have seen participate in rallies have been well dressed and well behaved. They are serious about their concerns.
“There are reasons you haven’t found jobs. The truth? Your tattooed necks, gauged ears, facial piercings and dirty dreadlocks are off-putting. Nonconformity for the sake of nonconformity isn’t a virtue.”
Once again I have to point out that Hicks is only focusing on the looks of a few of the protesters, and is ignoring the diversity of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Also, these days, tattoos and piercings rarely prevent people from getting jobs.
And the whole attitude of “if you’re unemployed, it’s your fault” is quite naive in these times of record unemployment.
“She currently writes a column for the Washington Times.”
And here I must say, why am I not surprised?
A plea for common ground, in the form of a nifty Venn diagram:
howconservativesdrovemeaway.blogspot.com/search/label/Occupy Wall Street
And you make me sad.
The sort of deep thinking evidenced in your post would not be a problem, except that you have way, way, way too much company … which imperils our republic, yes it does.
And speaking of Eva Braun … I highly recommend Michael Lewis’s latest, Boomerang. I haven’t finished it yet, but I have got as far as “the Germans.” I’m a quarter German … oh, dear.
If you can laugh at it, it won’t kill you … but if one or two high-ranking Goldman Sachs employees were to mysteriously come alight … it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
Seriously, though the book lays things out all too clearly, if you have it clearly, you can work through it.
Great post, clueless commentators.
Wow! Alfred Adler in drag. This woman is too pissed off to think straight. I’m an OWS protester, and that’s how my mother raised me. And that’s how I raised my kids. This horrid thing doesn’t even know us, but has decided to make enemies of us. That’s how civil wars get started. Over NOTHING. What a moron.
No, civil wars do not get started over nothing. They get started by rhetoric about putting a bullet in a fellow citizen’s head or burning them alive. Nothing illegal caused the crisis of 2008. Banks wrote sub-prime mortgages to people who normally wouldn’t be given the opportunity. This should actually be a good thing to OWSers. The risk got bundled, the mortgage holders overall couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain and the scheme collapsed. The taxpayers (under duress because most of us didn’t want to bailout the banks) via the fed gov kept the banks from failing by lending them the money to stay solvent. As of now, they paid most of TARP back with interest. So, tell me. What harm was done? What crime was committed? What deserves a bullet in the head?
rechall, you wrote, ” Nothing illegal caused the crisis of 2008. Banks wrote sub-prime mortgages to people who normally wouldn’t be given the opportunity.”
You’re right that nothing illegal caused the crisis. You are wrong about banks writing sub-prime mortgages being a good thing. While it would be a good thing for more people to be able to afford their own homes and acquire some equity to create wealth for themselves, it isn’t a good idea to put them in that position when they can’t really afford to keep up the payments! This is exactly the situation that made those loans “sub-prime” and banks were forced by the law to make those bad loans. Jimmy Carter signed a law that forced banks to lower their lending standards and later Bill Clinton expanded the law forcing banks to increase the number of bad loans banks had to make. Those loans poisoned the sub-prime market. The government kept assuring lenders that it was safe because the loans were guaranteed by the government through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So although it was perfectly legal it was morally reprehensible. The government forced business to operate in such a way as to crash the system!
“So, tell me. What harm was done?”
People have lost their homes, their jobs, and a great deal of their savings/investments! People have lost jobs and cannot find work! Businesses are reluctant to invest or hire because government has continued to pass laws and regulation that make planning for the future difficult because uncertain future expenses loom. The Obama EPA is adopting policies that will make energy prices soar…but by how much? Nobody can tell you! Obamacare law that goes into effect next year and in 2014 make healthcare expensaes for business uncertain. American business already faces a difficult situation with the highest tax rates in the world making it difficult to compete with foreign business. Democrats are married to higher tax rates as a solution to these problems…that is as stupid as making bad loans to people who can’t afford them was!
Government must find ways to cut the cost of government and it must find ways to untie the hands of business. These things will allow the private sector some breathing space to create jobs. Working Americans will feel the relief and have money to spend…the economy will recover and begin to grow.
Don’t look for it to happen as long as democrats who are committed to the socialist model and republicans who continue to make deals with them are in office.
OWS needs to realize the enemy is socialist policy! Socialist politicians wrote bad banking laws. Congress failed to correct the bad laws when the looming problem was exposed over a period of at least seven years and regulators failed to monitor the situation adequately!
A lot of harm was done! Harm that was created and should have been prevented by our representatives in government.
Too many of the OWS crowd are either uninformed or in cahoots with democrats. They continue to support the very party that continues to excuse and defend themselves and the stupid laws that caused this mess. Those democrats, including the President, have spent the last three years demonizing banks and business and OWS know nothings are buying it!
My advice? Pick up stakes and march on Washington and vote for candidates that support business and will do right by the American people! Socialism doesn’t work and this mess is exactly why it doesn’t work.
I couldn’t disagree with you more. Making the “wealthy” accountable for college and health care would not help the economy. It would create an entitlement civilization. Do you honestly believe a graduate would come out of college driven to succeed let alone graduate at all? The socialist environment you describe is a sorrowful one. The only thing that should remain free is our will.
“Banks wrote sub-prime mortgages to people who normally wouldn’t be given the opportunity.”
But the banks (or entities like Countrywide) structured the loans for default. Borrowers who could handle four percent, positively could not handle 4.75, which was bound to come, and the lenders knew it (and they knew they were lending to, alas, ignoramuses).
Should such entities have been bought or bailed?
Couldn’t agree more!
My comment above is a reply to Chris’ post of 11-17-11.
Libby: “But the banks (or entities like Countrywide) structured the loans for default.”
Either through coercion by or in partnership (corporatism) with Bill Clinton/Henry cisneros/HUD!
Democrat policies set the table and wrote the rules!
One more time:
http://cw.ua.edu/2011/11/17/clint-carter-policies-true-reason-for-housing-bubble/
http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/the-true-story-behind-the-economic-meltdown-hud-the-clinton-bush-administrations-and-the-national-homeownership-strategy-779266.html
“The National Homeownership Strategy” document here:
http://www.huduser.org/publications/txt/hdbrf2.txt
Turns out Obama had a hand in the intimidation lawsuits brought against Citibankbank:
http://finance.google.com/group/google.finance.662713/browse_thread/thread/68806a014a2fd2d7
http://clearinghouse.wustl.edu/detail.php
Link above: item no longer availabletranslation, it was pulled, scrubbed, shredded!
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/dangerous_pals_cvq7rDCHftKwJyLaecfPQK
Democrats can run but they cannot hide from their involvement, direction, coercion. partnership and ultimately personal gain associated with this socialist redistribution idea run amok.
Chris G: “Do you honestly believe a graduate would come out of college driven to succeed let alone graduate at all?”
As a student who will be graduating from CSU Fresno next semester, thanks entirely to federal student aid: yes, of course I believe that most college students are driven to succeed regardless of whether or not they receive government aid. Why wouldn’t they be?
The reason so many college students are choosing to accept government aid is because…they want to go to college. That in itself shows a drive to succeed.
And because they are receiving help from the taxpayers to go to college, most of these students will succeed in ways they could not have otherwise. And because of this, they will be far less likely to rely on government aid in the future. It costs much less to educate our population now than it does to spend on other social services for them in the future. It also costs much less to educate people then it does to incarcerate them.
Complaining that your tax dollars are going to help your country’s citizens gain a college education is ludicrous; would you rather spend it on welfare for those same people? Because practically speaking, those are your two options. The people who accept government aid are low-income, and without a college degree they will likely end up on welfare at some point in their lives. But with a college degree, they can make a better life for themselves, get a better job, and not have to rely on your support in the future.
As for healthcare, the individual mandate is our cheapest option; even the Heritage Foundation recognized this fact, until it became politically inconvenient for them.
“Either through coercion by or in partnership (corporatism) with Bill Clinton/Henry cisneros/HUD!
Democrat policies set the table and wrote the rules!”
Will you quit hiding behind this partisan (and not entirely truthful) horsepucky! What’s this got to do with anything?
Should such offensive entities be bought or bailed?
Libby: “Will you quit hiding behind this partisan (and not entirely truthful) horsepucky! What’s this got to do with anything?”
I’ve explained and explained it to yuou Libby…you choose NOT to let it in.
For those who might still be open I will say this:
Prior to interference by government first under Jimmy Carter and later Bill Clinton, banks and lending institutions were controlled by regualtiions that required them to lend to people who could show they had the ability, the means, and credit viability to take out a loan. they were required to disclose the terms and conditions of the loan and even to allow the lendee to back out of the agreement within several days if he changed his mind.
REGULATION! Democrats constantly hold them up as a necessary CONTROL on business so they can’t HARM consummers…Right?
Jimmy Carter and mostly BILL CLINTON changed the regulations governing lending…people didn’t need to meet those requiorements to get loans. As a result many of them could not make regular payments…many walked away from the obligation. The loans were HIgh RISK…they were bundled by banks and sold. banks were told time and again by Barney Frank on the Ways and Means Committee that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would cover these loans so the investment in bundled loans were safe. George Bush started warning Congress about the potential danger of so many toxic loans in the system…nobody listened. The bad loans eventually saturated the system and when the bubble burst it effected entire world markets since the bundled instruments are traded worldwide.
IF THE REGULATIONS HAD NOT BEEN CHANGED THERE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN SUCH AN ABUNDANCE OF TOXIC LOANS IN THE SYSTEM. THEREFORE TWO DEMOCRAT PRESIDENTS “SET THE TABLE” FOR THE CRASH.
Loans had been bundled before and they were a good investment because most of the loans in the bundle were good…forced bad loans poisoned the pool.
To make this even more political and insidious community organized groups like ACORN were advised (by organizers like Barack Obama to go to banks and threaten them with civil rights lawsuits if they would not make these bad loans. Banks cooperated to avoid expensive lawsuits and to satisfy government regulation even though it was not wise or smart business practice.
“Should such offensive entities be bought or bailed?”
I was against the bailout, although I realized that government (my government) had caused the problem and we had an obligation on a world wide scale because of it.
The entities should be allowed to use smart business practices TO AVOID toxic messes that government intervention caused (for political reasons…dems were about buying the poor and black votes).
Shame on the lying, coersive, stupid Democrat Party for not giving a crap about the messes they leave in their wake! And shame on you Libby for pretending to be so dense aqs to not see how that interference caused the mess!
Now..I’ve got pies to bake! Have fun pilgrims; play nice.
I first wondered how someone could get OWS so wrong, and then I did some research on Mary Beth Hicks and discovered she’s just another right-wing wacko.
I love how she tries to denigrate a real, authentic grass roots movement (unlike the millionaire backed Tea Party) by trying to disparage individual members of the protest. Then, her arguments not only lack common sense, they lack historical perspective.
Life is not fair (?) Really?
Absolutely correct. Life is NOT fair, but laws and the justice department should be and must be. We must all believe that laws will be enforced equally and fairly on both millionaire and the poor. Where are the indictments of the bankers, rating agencies, and brokers who broke the law and collapsed the economy for their own enrichment? If someone robs a bank of even $10 I guarantee that person will go to trial and probably to jail. When bankers and broker steal or defraud the country of BILLIONS no one has yet to be prosecuted!
As for life being fair, I find the argument that we should suck up the unfairness and get on with our lives comes from a woman who lives in the United States of America, where her civil and personal rights are guaranteed to be EQUAL to everyone who lives in this country. The fact that she does not have to wear a burka, can own property, drive a car, travel without a male escort and hundreds of other freedoms that are NOT common in other countries around the world dumbfounds me.
She totally misses the point.
Good points, Jim.
Tina, you are incorrect about the causes of the financial crisis. The vast majority of subprime mortgages were issued by private firms that did not have to abide by the same regulations as Freddy and Fannie:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/10/12/53802/private-sector-loans-not-fannie.html
“More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions. Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year. Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that’s being lambasted by conservative critics.”
Chris democrats can spin till they drop on this issue.
The private sector is REGULATED! The question isn’t who made the loans or how many loans were made at which banks. The question is what made the loans SUBPRIME. You do know what SUB means? It means less than, low in value, less desiirable. It means risky!
Legislation conceived by Carter/democrats and expanded in the Clinton administration (REGULATION) forced lenders to make risky loans to people without the means to pay for them. Those loans poisoned the market with high risk securities.
Another person who was largely responsible was Barney Frank (DEM). He refused to listen or act when warned about the growing storm these loans were creating.
Regulators were also NOT DOING THEIR JOB (how could they when REGULATION (law) was forcing the problem?
Fannie and Freddie executives were telling lenders not to worry…they would buy the subprime loans:
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/former-clinton-official-paid-26-million-fannie-mae-taxpayer-bailout-now-obama-shortlist
She and Barney were playing fast and loose with a taxpayer backed promise. She made 26.5 million in salary and bonuses from 1998 to 2003.
There were people in the private sector that saw opportunity in the housing boom that was fueled by low interest rates (another government action that some say was extended for too long) and high demand but there is no question that government regulation made the large number of subprime mortgages possible.
The denial by democrats defies all logic and sensibilities…but then, democrats never admit their responsibility in anything.
Tina: “The private sector is REGULATED!”
Uh, not really. As the McClatchy article points out, “Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that’s being lambasted by conservative critics.” The other 24 sold subprime mortgages not because the government told them to, but because they thought it would be good for profits.
Fannie and Freddie, along with Barney Frank, did act irresponsibly. But their role in the financial crisis was very small in comparison with the role of the deregulated private sector.
Here are some links that show why deregulation was actually the root of the problem. Many states used to have strong anti-predatory lending laws; these laws were gutted in response to pressure from big banks.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/what-caused-the-financial-crisis-the-big-lie-goes-viral/2011/10/31/gIQAXlSOqM_story.html
Chris…more typical left wing cherry pickin spin. Try reading the following articles (in full) to really appreciate how the Community Reinvestment Act (scam) as expanded by Bill Clinton actually worked. Non lending institutions actually made many of the loans with large sums of cash virtually extorted from banks. The articles are long; I have excerpted from each just to give you the gist:
http://nlpc.org/stories/2009/12/16/congress-seek-expand-community-reinvestment-act-punish-mortgage-lenders
See also here:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_the_trillion_dollar.html
This legacy of intimidation, extortion, and manipulation absolutely poisoned the securities pool…that cannot be denied. No one has denied that there were other contributing factors and a number of unscrupulous characters involved. A lot of them, however are demopcrats. Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorellick of Fannie Mae and Angelo Mazillo of Countrywide fame, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank are but a few, see here:
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2008/06/12/Countrywide-Loan-Scandal/
http://www.loansafe.org/issa-153-countrywide-vip-friends-of-angelo-mortgages-lavished-on-fannie-mae-employees
Smart reasonable regulation is needed…not politically driven scam regulation that mucks up the works and ultimately causes massive harm to everyone. The people this feel good plan supposedly were trying to help are worse off now in most cases than they would have been and the rest of us have lost life savings and investments.
Sorry…I just don’t want to hear any more excuses. Democrats were wrong (and many of them opportunistic and greedy) to make this law!
Does it really matter WHO was in charge of lending the money to people to get house loans? I think not! In the end, the person buying had all the say. It’s all about responsibility and the people who got THEMSELVES into the mess should figure out how to get themselves OUT of the mess they created. Yes banks enabled them to do this, but they still signed the papers knowingly what they were getting into. If they hadn’t researched a loan and how it works-whose fault is that? All this hullabaloo is all about responsibility. Yeah, our government sucks right now and is trying to create our FREE country into a socialistic one, but what good are these groups really doing? It’s been HOW long since they’ve been protesting and what has changed? Nothing. Take responsibility people and make changes yourself to better your life; stop trying to rely on others to do it for you.
Tina, I’m sorry, but I have this personal rule that says whenever I see the word “ACORN” in a sentence written by someone from the conservative persuasion, I just stop reading. Now you might find that harsh, but in my experience I’ve found that this is a huge red flag that declares the rest of the article will most likely be irrelevant partisan hackery. I do the same thing when I see the name “George Soros.” Both are complete bogeymen to the right, and when they are brought up it is a pretty convenient signal to me that I shouldn’t waste my time reading any further.
In all seriousness, anyone who still clings to the myth that ACORN is responsible for the housing crisis is just not qualified to discuss the issue. By bringing ACORN into the conversation they are making it clear that their goal is to grind a political axe rather than to deliver factual information.
It is a fact that CRA loans performed better than non-CRA loans, and were less likely to be subprime. Non-CRA loans were much more likely to be subprime. It is also a fact that the CRA was dramatically weakened by the Bush administration. Here are some articles which make these points, among others, to show why the CRA was not responsible for the housing crisis:
http://www.newamerica.net/blog/asset-building/2008/no-larry-cra-didn-t-cause-sub-prime-mess-3210
http://www.businessweek.com/investing/insights/blog/archives/2008/09/community_reinvestment_act_had_nothing_to_do_with_subprime_crisis.html
http://www.newamerica.net/blog/asset-building/2008/its-still-not-cra-7222
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/things-everyone-in-chicago-knows/
This debate worries me, Tina. How can we ever prevent something like this from happening again if we can’t agree on the basic causes, or how to fix them? Republicans say it was overregulation, democrats say it was deregulation. And we’re still arguing over whether or not the New Deal worked! *sigh* No wonder it’s so hard to get anything done in this country.
Uh, the captchas for this comment: “orgies” and “purt.” Is this site headed in a bold new direction? 😉
Chris: “I’m sorry, but I have this personal rule that says whenever I see the word “ACORN” in a sentence written by someone from the conservative persuasion, I just stop reading.”
If you are not willing to read about the extremely radical elements of your party and the strength and power they have, or to learn about the ultimate aims they have for our country, there is really nothing left to say. You are certain you are right and apparently think they are harmless and that’s the end of it. Thank you for informing me. I will not waste my time any further on long explanations.
“This debate worries me, Tina. How can we ever prevent something like this from happening again if we can’t agree on the basic causes, or how to fix them? Republicans say it was overregulation, democrats say it was deregulation. And we’re still arguing over whether or not the New Deal worked! *sigh* No wonder it’s so hard to get anything done in this country.
Republicans do not say it is “overregulation”.
Republicans say it is stupid regulation designed for political reasons rather than designed around rules to prevents fraud and abuse that support sound business principles. A law that requires banks to make loans to people who don’t have money for a down payment and cannot demonstrate they have good credit or even a steady job is just plain stupid!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“And we’re still arguing over whether or not the New Deal worked!”
WRONG!
Your side is attempting to evaluate the New Deal sans a historical perspective. It’s all about the big projects rather than the conditions most citizens continued to endure for 10 years. Ours is pointing out how history proves free markets, property rights and the rule of law works better for everyone and would have worked if tried during the depression.
SOCIALISM…no matter which form it takes (communism, fascism, democratic socialism) always ends in economic and social disaster. There is no getting around it. AND the history also is clear that when free market principles are adhered to, backed by property rights and the rule of law, economies and most people within those economies thrive!
The argument really comes down to whether or not charity is a personal obligation. Social programs are the heart and soul of the Democrat Party. You believe that as a group it is your right and obligation to take from some citizens so you can be charitable toward others. This model requires a powerful political organization to force legislation through Congress and to set up the needed bureaucracy to support it. It requires very little of the people other than blind submission and devotion and a willingness on the part of activists to intimidate or make promises of goodies to be handed out by gov’t.
Conservatives believe that encouraging all citizens to take care of their own needs while having personally charitable hearts is a better model. We believe citizens get along best when they mind their own business and have respect for others. This model requires an excellent educational system. It requires that the bulk of our citizens be taught and have high standards for excellence and morality. Interestingly, under socialist ideals, these things must be undermined and destroyed so that it seems reasonable to support the redistribution of wealth, dependency of government, and the creation of a big expensive bureaucratic federal government.
The two waring positions described are at the core of the debates we have. It will continue to be difficult to get things done because these systems are in conflict. It’s as simple as that.
Responsible: “Does it really matter WHO was in charge of lending the money to people to get house loans?”
Yes, because from there we can figure out whether they were pressured into making these loans by regulations (as Tina claims) or if they did so because anti-predatory lending regulations were loosened (as I have stated). It is important to know this information so that we can advocate government policy which will make such loans less likely to happen in the future.
It may be emotionally satisfying to blame poor people for taking the loans they were offered, but it’s not very constructive. We can’t do much to stop individuals from taking bad loans, but we can regulate (or deregulate, if Tina is correct, though I don’t think she is) banks so that they don’t offer bad loans in the first place.
Tina:
Thank you!
Instead of simply hurling epithets, informing nobody of anything worthwhile, you marshaled the facts and presented them clearly.
Thank you for being an adult and contributing to meaningful civic dicourse on a significant issue of our time.
Martin
Civil liberties are important. We now think that whiners do not deserve freedom of speach?
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
– Martin Niemller
I recently read an article by Marybeth Hicks, a Washington Times columnist commenting on OWS. The gist of her piece is how very upset she is with these protesters. Ms. Hicks believes their mothers have not taught them important life lessons, mainly that: Life isnt fair. She sets to correct this over sight of other mothers by teaching this lesson in her article (Some belated parental advice to protesters, October 18, 2011:
http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/18/hicks-some-belated-parental-advice-to-protesters/ ).
Quite frankly I believe any mother worth her chocolate chip cookies tells her kids, Life isnt fair. It is as common a parenting tactic as if Randy jumped off the bridge would you? Nonetheless, when one of our kids is treated unfairly, by a classmate, teacher, or friend, most moms (and dads) rush to their childs defense to correct the injustice. Ask any teacher. We do this to assure our kids we have their backs and to model how to stand up for themselves later in life.
Yes, it is true, life is often not fair. Loved ones die; hearts are broken; bad things happen to good people. That is life and it is not fair. However, the young protesters are not railing against life; they are angry about how man-made constructs impose unfairness. Life can be unfair and cannot be challenged, it will always have its way. Man-made constructs can and should be challenged. If they werent we would still be sitting in the dark and women and African Americans would not have the right to vote. It is our birth right as Americans to work toward social equality.
Ms. Hicks sounds angry and judgmental while making a mad dash from her cab to the door of her hotel to avoid the protesters. She is undone by the tattoos, piercings, dreadlocks and gauged ears of the protesters. I imagine her mother is very proud of her. I dont think, however, her mother taught her not to judge others on their appearance.
When I drive by the Occupy Pittsburgh protesters, I share Ms. Hicks wonderment, Who raised these kids? Some are not working, they are sleeping on the ground, getting wet, traipsing through muddy camps, eating Thanksgiving dinner at a local church. Through their persistence, they are obviously creating discomfort for some people and institutions. I ask myself, Who raised such a dedicated, ambitious generation?
My generation has been very quiet. The generation before us fought the important battles of the day and we coasted on their achievements. I have often felt quietly ashamed of our passivity born out of what difference can I make? I am excited to witness this generation finding their place by making one.
I am not commenting whether I support what they are attempting to accomplish. That is a separate issue. I am speaking to the relatively new phenomenon of young people organizing, joining forces, and speaking out against what they experience as unfair. Is this not what our fore fathers did? I am sure Great Britain was not happy with our founding fathers (and mothers). I am sure the King wished to shame them back into submission. How entitled we were. How ungrateful. How misguided.
On Thanksgiving night, I went to meet the protesters in Pittsburgh. My husband and daughter came with me. We brought pies and blankets. Isnt this what the Native Americans did for the pilgrims? We met these people. I found them to be articulate, intelligent, respectful young Americans, and they didnt smell. They were not half as angry at Ms. Hicks as she is at them. They are concerned at the America they are headed into, the decay of the cities infrastructure, the lack of jobs, the high interest rates of their student loans. I did not hear anyone asking for anything free–only for change. Many of them had jobs and came to the Occupy Pittsburgh encampment on their days off.
I suggest, Marybeth, before you run from these kids, spent some time with them. Spend a day in their shoes. Get to know what worries them. These kids are challenging the status quo. How is that wrong? Perhaps Marybeth you do not agree with the parenting styles of other mothers or the actions of their grown children. But your ad hominem attack of other womens children is wrong. You may disagree but dont call them names or insult their character. Who is the adult here?
These foolish, gross smelling people offered the sleeping bag and blanket we brought them to a sick homeless man that was wet and in need. They didnt run to avoid him or call him smelly. In fact, they were eating Thanksgiving dinner with him. They helped and they cared for him.
Ms. Hicks admonishes these irrelevant people for being peaceful, playful and perhaps high (although it doesnt sound like she actually got close enough to them to make that accusation). Would she prefer they throw temper tantrums? Maybe bring guns, destroy property, be angry, threatening? Perhaps their moms didnt do such a bad job after all.
Chief Dan George, author, poet, and Academy Award-nominated actor says, If you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them you will not know them, and what you do not know you will fear. What one fears one destroys.
I think, Marybeth, that you are really afraid of these protesters and want to destroy their character without talking to them. For that I am…mother to mother…sad.
Patricia thank you for taking the time to express your thoughts with us on Post Scripts. I agree with some of what you have said. I do have a few areas where I think you may miss the point of those who object to this group. You wrote:
“the young protesters are not railing against life; they are angry about how man-made constructs impose unfairness.”
Who can blame them? But what have they learned about the American system if their first inclination is to take to the streets like an unruly mob? What message do they send by living in tents, defiling public places (at great expense to the local community) and treating the police like an enemy when they attempt to enforce laws? Why should anyone listen to their concerns or take them seriously when they break laws having nothing to do with their protest and in quite a number of cases destroy property of ordinary working stiffs?
These “kids” are angry without a clue! Their leaders are angry with a communist/Nazi/socialist agenda to “transform” America and make it into the model they prefer. (It will look a bit like Venezuela or Cuba and not the nirvana they imagine).
“It is our birth right as Americans to work toward social equality.”
NO! Our birth right as Americans is that we are free! Our “social status” or place in society is something we can personally choose to change because we are free! We have the God given right to pursue happiness and “change our stars”…we were never promised equality of outcomes or fairness!
“I ask myself, ‘Who raised such a dedicated, ambitious generation?'”
You’ve got to be kidding! Dedicated to what? Ambitious about what? I’m not being facetious! It takes about as much dedication and ambition to protest as it takes to put on a kegger. There’s nothing difficult about hanging with friends, even in the cold and mud, or making silly signs!
“Is this not what our fore fathers did?”
I don’t think it is. Before one decides to protest one needs to know what the problem is. These protesters are throwing a tantrum against capitalism or so-called greed. Capitalism isn’t the problem. Wall Street isn’t the problem. Greed isn’t the problem.
They are right that constructs have been created. They have been created within our political system. One important factor is that some of the constructs were made in the name of “social equality”, a manipulation that created unworkable rules and regulations and set the stage for disaster.
“Would she prefer they throw temper tantrums? Maybe bring guns, destroy property, be angry, threatening? Perhaps their moms didnt do such a bad job after all.”
I’m glad to hear that you encountered a group of compassionate, civil, articulate young people. I wish you had had the tools to do more than encourage their association with this radically run group. The leaders of these groups (mobs really) are dedicated and angry and out to destroy not only property but the very freedom we enjoy. If you aren’t aware of that aspect of OWS you aren’t paying attention.
Martin this is late in coming but if you are still reading…thank you. We need all the encouragement we can get here at Post Scripts.
Patricia, wonderful comment! Please stick around–we need more people here like you.
Tina, your response smacks of the same kind of haughtiness and snide attitude that has characterized your entire response to Occupy Wall Street. How can you accuse Patricia of “not paying attention” to the movement, when she has actually been there and sat down with the activists to find out what they are about, and you have not?
“But what have they learned about the American system if their first inclination is to take to the streets like an unruly mob?”
What do you mean by this? The problems OWS is responding to have been festering for a very long time. The actions of OWS do not constitute a “first inclination” to do anything; it took a long time before such a protest emerged.
“What message do they send by living in tents,”
The message is: we will not be moved! The message is that they are going to make a fuss and, yes, be a nuisance as long as the system stays as it is.
“and treating the police like an enemy when they attempt to enforce laws?”
Funny how you are still ignoring the fact that documented instances of police brutality have occurred, including instances where the police were clearly the only ones BREAKING THE LAW by using excessive force on peaceful, law-abiding protesters. An 84-year old woman was pepper-sprayed in the face! An Iraq War veteran was given brain damage by a police projectile. And you say nothing?
“Their leaders are angry with a communist/Nazi/socialist agenda to “transform” America and make it into the model they prefer.”
Tina, you really believe that the “leaders” of Occupy Wall Street have a “Nazi agenda?” Excuse me, but you have no freaking clue what you’re talking about.
“NO! Our birth right as Americans is that we are free!”
Social equality = freedom, Tina. For some reason you interpret it to mean “equality of outcomes,” even though no one involved in OWS as far as I know has advocated for such a thing.
“You’ve got to be kidding! Dedicated to what? Ambitious about what? I’m not being facetious! It takes about as much dedication and ambition to protest as it takes to put on a kegger. There’s nothing difficult about hanging with friends, even in the cold and mud, or making silly signs!”
You may not be intending to be facetious, Tina, but that’s certainly how this portion comes across.
“These protesters are throwing a tantrum against capitalism”
No.
“Wall Street isn’t the problem.”
If you honestly believe that, you are blind. I have already shown you irrefutable proof that unregulated private banks had more to do with the financial crisis that Freddie and Fannie. Choose to ignore that at your own country’s risk.
“Greed isn’t the problem.”
Of course not. It never is. How could it be? “Greed is good!”
“They are right that constructs have been created. They have been created within our political system. One important factor is that some of the constructs were made in the name of “social equality”, a manipulation that created unworkable rules and regulations and set the stage for disaster.”
Again, nope. The banks most responsible for the disaster were not bound to any such constructs, and could have given a fig about social equality.
Chris: “How can you accuse Patricia of “not paying attention” to the movement…”
I didn’t! I wrote that if she hasn’t noticed the hard core militant leadership involved in the movcement she is not paying attention:
“The actions of OWS do not constitute a “first inclination” to do anything…”
Really? What do you think these young people and activist progressives have done first?
“The message is: we will not be moved! The message is that they are going to make a fuss and, yes, be a nuisance as long as the system stays as it is.”
Exactly! They are going to add to our problems with symbolic displays. Whoopie! The cost to local municipalites struggling with their own financial problems is estimated at 13 to 19 million as of last November.
http://www.owsexposed.com/2011/11/cost-of-occupation-to-local-taxpayers-19-million-and-growing/
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/1014/Cities-fret-over-democracy-s-costs-as-Occupy-Wall-Street-stretches-on
“Funny how you are still ignoring the fact that documented instances of police brutality have occurred…”
Ignoring? The discussion was the behavior of OWS participants. If the police acted inappropriately the local laws that govern police behavior will address the problem. In any case it is a seperate issue.
“…………And you say nothing?”
Whaaaaaaaa! If the “protesters” had complied with the police when they were asked to move along….but then, I’m speaking to a child, yes?
“…you really believe that the “leaders” of Occupy Wall Street have a “Nazi agenda?” Excuse me, but you have no freaking clue what you’re talking about.”
And you are as a naive dupe. Groups and parties that endorse and support OWS:
http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2011/10/31/the-99-official-list-of-ows/
“Social equality = freedom”
That is a progressive slogan. It derives from the communist manifesto. (Sadly, you have been educated by our public school system.)
“I have already shown you irrefutable proof that unregulated private banks had more to do with the financial crisis that Freddie and Fannie.”
Chris the meltdown has many causes and economists don’t all agree about what the major cause was, however there are two things that are true regardless the opinion as to direct cause. 1. All laws and regulation governing these entities, whether public or private, are passed by our government. The government created the underlying structure for this disaster. As I said STUPID regulations set the table. HUD and F&F did indeed play a significant role:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_policies_and_the_subprime_mortgage_crisis
Ahhh…at TAXPAYER EXPENSE! Therein lies the “STUPID” about the regulations and laws. Private banks should be regulated to protect the people. If they make stupid moves and get in trouble they should fail…on their own dime!
A lot of the stupid regulation was driven by strong political desire to meet “social equality” requirements of the progressive mindset…and it was made with the ubnderstanding that taxpayers would PAY! Democrats have no sense of personal responsibility…they spend other peoples money.
“Of course not. It never is. How could it be? “Greed is good!”
Greed is an unavoidable human condition. SMART regulation would at least ensure that those who risk would lose their own money. the progressive, social equality method of regulation puts taxpayer money at risk and gives cover even to private risk of the “too big to fail”.
“The banks most responsible for the disaster were not bound to any such constructs…”
Banks are regulated by the government…PERIOD! What they can and cannot do is determined by government regulation. The government writes the laws, Chris…banks do not have the power to make law!
http://www.frumforum.com/did-washington-push-banks-to-make-bad-loans
David Frums final word: “…In the new anonymous securitized market, high-flown liberal egalitarian ideals became the material out of which self-interested and consequence-indifferent financial engineers built the biggest economic bomb since World War II.”
The government set the table.
“…and could have given a fig about social equality.”
Unfortunately they were compelled to act as if they should. Social equality is not the business of the bank! Attempting to make them something they are not is at the heart of this whole debacle.
Progressive ideas (guiding regulation) have caused us all to swim in a toxic pool. Clear, simple regulation that makes sound fiscal sense is what is needed. We won’t get it from the social equality crowd. That would be most of those engaged in OWS protest and the clowns in Congress and the WH who agree with the progressive way.
Tina: “I didn’t! I wrote that if she hasn’t noticed the hard core militant leadership involved in the movcement she is not paying attention:”
A distinction without a difference. Clearly, you don’t think Patricia has “noticed the hard core militant leadership involved in the movement.” So by the logic of your “if-then” statement, you ARE saying she hasn’t been paying attention.
I’m beginning to wonder if you have a problem with basic sentence structure. Lately you seem to not notice the obvious logical implications of what you write. If I lived closer to you I’d offer some free tutoring.
“Really? What do you think these young people and activist progressives have done first?”
Tina, our financial crisis/near-depression has been going on for several years. I doubt most of the protesters only noticed the day before they decided to protest. Many of them might have started by posting blog comments, for all I know.
“Exactly! They are going to add to our problems with symbolic displays. Whoopie! The cost to local municipalites struggling with their own financial problems is estimated at 13 to 19 million as of last November.”
A few telling quotes from the Christian Science Monitor article:
“Cities find these kinds of protests really disruptive,” she says, “so its natural for them to put a dollar sign on what its costing in order to raise opposition to the protesters. Of course, no one complains about the added city costs of providing security during other kinds of mass public gatherings, she notes. Had the Red Sox gone to the World Series this year, the cost to the police department could have been way more than these protests.
…
Those costs are usually seen as a positive impact on the city, observes Mr. Squibb, the Occupy Boston protester.
If we were another group with any number of local citizens or another local event, there would be a lot of press about how much tourist dollars were generating,” he says in a phone interview.
Squibb hopes the city ultimately will see the bigger picture.
We can find hundreds of millions of dollars to supply financiers and fund wars of volition abroad, but we cant take care of our own, and thats why were trying to take our government back, he says. Our protests are really a minor expenditure to preserve democracy in our country.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/1014/Cities-fret-over-democracy-s-costs-as-Occupy-Wall-Street-stretches-on
“Ignoring? The discussion was the behavior of OWS participants.”
And as part of this discussion you brought up the relationship between protesters and the police. But you attempted to do so by only mentioning the conduct of the protesters, and making no comment on improper conduct by the police. That’s unfair and illogical. You can’t form a clear picture of the relationship between protesters and police by only talking about one side and ignoring the other.
“If the police acted inappropriately”
If? See, Tina, this is exactly what I mean by cowardice. You can’t even bring yourself to say that it is inappropriate for a police officer to pepper spray an eighty-year old woman in the face. You seem to have this psychological block that won’t allow you to criticize certain people or institutions that you support.
I will readily admit that many involved in the OWS movement have said and done things I find abhorrent. I don’t even know if I agree with the basic idea of the tents–personally, I think it invites a bad element and I’m not sure if the potential benefits are worth the potential harms.
I’ve never seen this kind of self-reflection from you. Not once. I’ve been discussing politics with you for years now, and every time someone on your side goes too far, you make excuses and deflect.
“the local laws that govern police behavior will address the problem. In any case it is a seperate issue.”
As I said, it’s not a seperate issue because you’re talking about the relationship between the protesters and the police. If you’re only going to talk about the protesters treating the police badly, and not say anything about the police treating the protesters badly, then you’re not adding anything substantial to a debate; if anything, you’re actively detracting from it.
“Whaaaaaaaa! If the “protesters” had complied with the police when they were asked to move along….”
So anything is justified if protesters (and why the scare quotes? Are they not really protesters? I don’t get it) don’t comply with police orders, even if police are violating their first amendment rights?
Do you also blame Civil Rights protesters for the firehoses being turned on them? (Actually, since you’ve said before you have no respect for civil disobedience–which was THE key tactic for the Civil Rights movement in the Jim Crow South–then maybe I’m a little afraid as to what your answer to this question might be.)
“but then, I’m speaking to a child, yes?”
No.
“And you are as a naive dupe. Groups and parties that endorse and support OWS:”
Once again I have to wonder about your reading and writing skills. You clearly said that the “leaders” of Occupy Wall Street had a “Nazi agenda”; you didn’t just say that Nazis “endorsed” OWS, which is a big difference. I even made sure to emphasize the word “leaders” in my question to you. You couldn’t have missed it.
But then, you know this. You’re just shifting the goalposts, trying to act as if “Nazis support them” is evidence that “The leaders have a Nazi agenda,” when this does not follow at all. Look, you’ve been arguing with me for a long time. You should know me well enough by now to know that I would point this out to you, so I really
don’t understand why you did it.
But while we’re on the subject of naive dupes, I find it almost adorable how you seriously believe that Nazis support the goals of Occupy Wall Street, which is an extremely multicultural movement which advocates more aid to the (largely minority) poor. It’s pretty transparent that Nazis are only claiming to support OWS to get attention. If you were seriously fooled by them, then I think the term “naive dupe” applies better to you.
Another reason this is an embarrassing argument for you to make is because of the support that Nazi and other white supremacist groups offered to the Tea Party. This is documented fact, and it further proves that Nazis will try to attach their names to anything, because they are crazy attention wh*res. But does that mean it would be fair to accuse the Tea Party of having a “Nazi agenda?” I know you wouldn’t find that fair, and I wouldn’t either. So you shouldn’t think it fair to make this accusation toward OWS either, when there is exactly as much evidence of OWS leaders having a “Nazi agenda” as there is that Tea Party leaders have the same agenda. The amount of evidence in both cases is roughly zero.
“That is a progressive slogan. It derives from the communist manifesto.”
Jesus, Tina. I can find countless examples of American heroes such as MLK Jr. using the phrase “social equality” and talking about how it increases freedom, but I won’t waste my time or yours. You already know this. Your attempt to link the phrase solely to communism is insulting and disrespectful to such heroes, and shows an unbelievable amount of historical ignorance.
“Sadly, you have been educated by our public school system.”
Sadly, you apparently weren’t educated in history, writing, or how to construct a logical argument based on your recent attempts at debate.
I won’t comment any further on the reasons for the financial crisis; I have made my case and I am satisfied with the evidence I’ve presented.
Chris: “A distinction without a difference.”
OK. She’s paying attention and the participants I mentioned are invisible.
“Of course, no one complains about the added city costs of providing security during other kinds of mass public gatherings…”
Oh yeah, public gatherings. You know, where a permit is acquired, often a fee paid and the event has a start time and an end time and the place is left relatively clean and requires NOT hauling people off to jail or dealing with broken windows and defaced property or enormous public health hazards? That kind of gathering?
“Those costs are usually seen as a positive impact on the city…”
Not for the businesses and tax payer.
And the Red Sox comparison is off the mark…the LA riots would be a bit closer.
“we cant take care of our own…”
LOOK AROUND THE WORLD! Governments all over the world are in big financial trouble because they thought government was capable of taking from the richer to “take care of our own”. IT DOESN’T WORK. Never has; never will! The underlying purpose, if this is indeed the purpose, of your protest is flawed. Not to mention the fact that your country is not based on the principle of “taking care of” but of freedom!
“Our protests are really a minor expenditure to preserve democracy in our country.
And the destruction of property or the intent to disrupt the ability of others to do business? These go directly against the principles upon which we were founded. OWS has many tools at their disposal. OWS prefers disruptive, destructive, and frankly unproductive laziness/partytime.
“That’s unfair and illogical. You can’t form a clear picture of the relationship between protesters and police by only talking about one side and ignoring the other.”
A grownup can. It’s about personal responsibility. “If? See….blah blah blah!”
OK, “when”. Happy?
“I think it invites a bad element and I’m not sure if the potential benefits are worth the potential harms.
I’ve never seen this kind of self-reflection from you. Not once.”
OK.
“…it’s not a seperate issue because you’re talking about the relationship between the protesters and the police…”
No I was talking about the “cost” to the community!
“So anything is justified if protesters (and why the scare quotes? Are they not really protesters? I don’t get it) don’t comply with police orders, even if police are violating their first amendment rights?”
I’m talking about citizens having responsibilities as well as rights. And the quotes were used because when responsibility is tossed out the window the protester has become part of a mob…anarchy is not protest…not in the peaceful, haqrmless context you are attempting to sell.
“you have no respect for civil disobedience”
DR MLK and his group NEVER defaced property, never created a health hazard, never held open ended occupation of anything! DON’T YOU DARE attempt to compare these two movements! Or castigate me because I ask you to be as responsible and adult as he was.
Chris is it that you are in denial or just excuse making about the various radical groups associated with, funding, supporting, backing, endorsing, and participating in OWS? Be specific!
“trying to act as if “Nazis support them” is evidence that “The leaders have a Nazi agenda”
The left context of “…taking care of our own” is sentiment associated with Nazism as well as all of the other isms on my list. OWS wants government to “control” Wall Street and redistribute to the masses. The defacto leader would be Obama himself…his handling of GM is absolutely Nazi like.
“I can find countless examples of American heroes such as MLK Jr. using the phrase “social equality” and talking about how it increases freedom, but I won’t waste my time or yours.”
You’re too young Chris to see how far that slogan has been taken since Dr. MLK. Inn the sixties the movement was about equal opportunity and respect. It was not about big government programs and redistribution of wealth.
“Your attempt to link the phrase solely to communism is insulting and disrespectful to such heroes”
Your thinking that redistribution is American is insulting and disrespectful!
Nice play on exit Chris. You managed insults and haughtiness. I will let our readers decide if your evaluations of me or the financial and housing meltdown are worthy of interest or comment.
Tina: “You’re too young Chris to see how far that slogan has been taken since Dr. MLK. Inn the sixties the movement was about equal opportunity and respect. It was not about big government programs and redistribution of wealth.”
This claim would make me wonder how young you are, if I didn’t know better. You LIVED through this time, Tina. You have no excuse to say something so blatantly untrue. MLK Jr. ABSOLUTELY favored what you would call “big government programs and redistribution of wealth.” He advocated an Second Bill of Rights that would guarantee a job to everyone who was willing to work. He favored affirmative action. For you to claim that the Civil Rights movement has since moved further to the left shows a profound level of ignorance about a period that you lived through.
No time to comment further right now.
Tina, can you believe Chris? lol He really thinks this revisionist history is real and challenges us on it when we didn’t just read about it like he did, we saw it live – we lived it, but he knows better! lol
Chris did you know MLK was a republican?
I’m sure you will disagree, so save it and just go read this….
Why Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican
By Frances Rice
“It should come as no surprise that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. Why? It was the Democrats who Dr. King was fighting, and he would not have joined the Democratic Party, the party of segregation and the Ku Klux Klan. To understand why MLK was a Republican, lets take a walk through history.”
Jack it’s impossible to give Chris the experience that made up our national reality before the big welfare state and all of its appendages. He has no way of knowing that MLK would not think of his fellow blacks with such indignities as equal outcome and redistribution. He has no way of understanding the sense of pride and ability that all Americans had about taking care of their own needs prior to the big government welfare state. What he hasn’t learned in school is what gives him that skewed idea of what was so in the early sixties.
“He has no way of knowing that MLK would not think of his fellow blacks with such indignities as equal outcome and redistribution.”
It’s called “Google,” Tina. There, you can find many quotes from Dr. King where he specifically advocates for redistribution of wealth. Yes, he uses those very words! I don’t recall him arguing for “equal outcomes,” but then again I also can’t recall any progressive ever arguing for “equal outcomes.”
Jack, I don’t care if MLK was a Republican or not. Were he alive today, Republicans would be calling him a socialist.
I don’t care if you and Tina lived during the sixties; you’re wrong about everything going on right now, so I don’t know why I would expect you to have been more informed about anything that happened fifty years ago.
Some facts, if you don’t mind:
“The Chicago campaign convinced King that many of the problems faced by African Americans were due to fundamental economic inequalities in American society. Consequently, he called for a redistribution of wealth and resources, advocating a move away from the harsher aspects of capitalism toward a society modeled on some form of democratic socialism. The last campaign King planned with the SCLC was a Poor People’s March to Washington to dramatize the problem of poverty in the United States. But on April 4, 1968, before the march took place, King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was supporting striking sanitation workers.”
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1009
“It’s become a TV ritual: Every year in mid-January, around the time of Martin Luther King’s birthday, we get perfunctory network news reports about “the slain civil rights leader.”
The remarkable thing about this annual review of King’s life is that several years his last years are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole.
What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968).
An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn’t take a sabbatical near the end of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever.
Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they’re not shown today on TV.
Why?
It’s because national news media have never come to terms with what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for during his final years.
In the early 1960s, when King focused his challenge on legalized racial discrimination in the South, most major media were his allies. Network TV and national publications graphically showed the police dogs and bullwhips and cattle prods used against Southern blacks who sought the right to vote or to eat at a public lunch counter.
But after passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation’s fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without “human rights” including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow.
Noting that a majority of Americans below the poverty line were white, King developed a class perspective. He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for “radical changes in the structure of our society” to redistribute wealth and power.
“True compassion,” King declared, “is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
By 1967, King had also become the country’s most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his “Beyond Vietnam” speech delivered at New York’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 a year to the day before he was murdered King called the United States “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”
From Vietnam to South Africa to Latin America, King said, the U.S. was “on the wrong side of a world revolution.” King questioned “our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America,” and asked why the U.S. was suppressing revolutions “of the shirtless and barefoot people” in the Third World, instead of supporting them.
In foreign policy, King also offered an economic critique, complaining about “capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries.”
You haven’t heard the “Beyond Vietnam” speech on network news retrospectives, but national media heard it loud and clear back in 1967 and loudly denounced it. Life magazine called it “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.” The Washington Post patronized that “King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.”
In his last months, King was organizing the most militant project of his life: the Poor People’s Campaign. He crisscrossed the country to assemble “a multiracial army of the poor” that would descend on Washington engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Capitol, if need be until Congress enacted a poor people’s bill of rights. Reader’s Digest warned of an “insurrection.”
King’s economic bill of rights called for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America’s cities. He saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its “hostility to the poor” appropriating “military funds with alacrity and generosity,” but providing “poverty funds with miserliness.”
How familiar that sounds today, more than a quarter-century after King’s efforts on behalf of the poor people’s mobilization were cut short by an assassin’s bullet.”
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2269
Chris: “It’s called “Google,” Tina. There, you can find many quotes from Dr. King where he specifically advocates for redistribution of wealth.”
I am well aware of the things Dr King said that would seem to advocate for redistribution even when the words were not used. Here are a few of them:
Tina, you’re free to disagree with many of Dr. King’s ideas; I’m on the fence about some of them myself, including affirmative action. But I don’t feel like debating whether or not all of his policies were right or not. I just want to know, are you now admitting that Dr. King and many other civil rights activists DID call for redistribution of wealth and big government programs, and that you were wrong to state otherwise before?
I do have to say how much I love this quote of his, however:
What I’m saying to you this morning is that Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the Kingdom of Brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of Communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis.
Beautifully stated.
Dr. King did advocate for redistribution but very late in the movement’s progress and, I suspect, after considerable pressures from the far left and much more militant associations like the Black Panthers and Nation of Islam (Their themes did not originate from love but instead, revenge). Redistribution was not something he talked about in the early movement, his movement, prior to passage of The Civil Rights Act. Dr. King was a minister and his focus was as a minister rather than a politician. That is clear from his speaking and writing. Jack and I share this experience of the man. Since he was as devout as he was it’s difficult for me to believe he would support much of what is going on today. Redistribution is one; aboriton is another. He has a quote about loving every human being (made in Gods image) that makes me suspect he would be against it.
The quote is okay. In it’s time it might have held more meaning for people. However, today it is clearly not an accurate assessment of the two in practice.
Communism is not just an alternative economic/political system of equal or even similar value. It led/leads to harsh oppression, stifled creativity, loss of opportunity, terrible economic suffering/harm, cruelty, and imprisonment for dissenters and dictatorship. (Not to mention millions of dead)
Capitalism has uplifted citizens, brought incredible improvements to the world, abundance, and opportunity and should not be dismissed as just another idea without heart because of the errors of the few. Overall it is the best system we have ever seen when backed by private property rights and the rule of law. It would work even better if our citizens had more appreciation for what we have, were better schooled, and taught to have stronger morals and standards. This country was founded on the principles of love and justice found in the Bible. It is inhabited by flawed human beings so it will never be perfect but, no system will without divine intervention. In general we have done well to hold on to it this long. And we are the most charitable in the world.
From my perspective it is impossible to synthesize godless communism and capitalism; they are very different at the core. I fear we are fast moving away from the lovely bone structure, the founding principles, that made America possible and toward the lie (nirvana or sameness disguised as equality) that is at the core of Marxism/socialism/Nazism. Marxism is a dead system lacking in compassion, love, aliveness, creativity, and human urge. Freedom and capitalism allow for all of these in any man and when morals and values are taught, when appreciation for our founding is taught, things like greed, sloth…all the seven deadlies..can be kept to a minimum and handled by the justice system (or God).
I guess I’d say Dr. King meant well when he said it but it turns out he was wrong about capitalism:
http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/classroom/religious_liberty3.html
Chris the sixties were about civil rights but unfortunately they also became the leading edge of reckless self- indulgence and instant gratification. We definitely have lost our way and it undermines our economic, capitalist system as much as it does anything else in our society.
Conservatives are attempting to move the country back in the direction of morality as a condition of freedom and justice as a means of upholding those principles we value under the law. We are often castigated for it but we will soldier on. The things we value, freedom and justice, are precious beyond the politics of the day.
So…shall we ask the question again? “Who parented these people?” It’s an important question.