Occupy This.

I've already made my disdain for the Occupy movement clear. I see no need to launch into another philosophical tirade outlining my reasons for generally disagreeing with them.

However, the general tempo and timbre of their behavior over the past month, and some recent incidents that involved protesters affiliated with California-based Occupy movements presents a bit too ripe a target for me to not take the bait. And a principal segment of the movement that, due to shortsightedness on my part, escaped mention on my last piece on Occupy, needs some addressing.

First and foremost-the bastard child of "Don't Tase Me, Bro" that occurred at the University of California-Davis. I've noticed more than a few of my associates expressing outrage over the incident-in which two police officers used pepper spray against a protester (the officers are currently on administrative leave)-and sympathy for the protesters.

Secondly was an instance where protesters with Occupy San Diego assaulted a woman who was identified (at least by the protesters) as a Tea Partier in Downtown San Diego.

Regarding Don't Mace Me, Dude-why is it that whenever police take some sort of action against a left-wing protester, everyone immediately jumps to the conclusion that the cops were in the wrong and that the protester was innocent? It's almost never the case. Before you go on to say that the cops deserved harsher punishments, bear the following in mind: 1) The Occupy movement is sustained through extensive use of public property, oftentimes through squatting. 2) The Police exist for the express purpose of maintaining public safety. Which means making sure that We the People-you, me, anyone in the area unfortunate enough to get harassed by an Occupy protester, and the little brats themselves-stay safe and do not commit crime. Cops do not go roving around simply looking to brutalize anybody who can stake a claim (no matter how logically dubious) as being "exploited", they're there to make sure things do not get out of control. Occupy has had several instances these past few months where a loss of control has occurred. In addition, Police personnel have a right to defend themselves and use discretion in the line of duty. Odds are the protester would not have received a snoot full of pepper spray if he did not act belligerently towards law enforcement (I believe the idea that this man-and the majority of Occupy-are peaceful, nonviolent protesters is a myth. The odds suggest I will not be convinced otherwise. Besides, it was pepper spray. Will Sasso and Robert Ben Garant have had themselves sprayed with the stuff for comedic effect. He could have been tased. Or given an old-fashioned beat-down with a night stick (which would have been in police brutality territory, I have to admit)).

Speaking of acting like a jackass (not a political jackass, mind you; that is a job for Howard Dean), the second instance I brought up highlights why I think the idea that Occupy is peaceful is a lie. After getting past the fact that one of the protesters uttered an eleven-word sentence before striking the camera where the word f*** was at least six of those words, I had a flashback of my time at one of the original Tea Parties in El Cajon, where one of the Tea Party rank was physically assaulted by a group of leftist sympathizers who were looking to both pick a fight and discredit the then-young right-wing grassroots movement.

And they have the audacity to call us in the Tea Party troglodytes? (I'm sorry, but if you're illegally squatting on City property and smearing your own feces on food carts as part of what amounts to a massive campaign to draw attention to yourself, you've surrendered your privacy to whoever comes in trying to videotape-odd, considering you don't have a problem if the cameras have a news channel logo on them.)

In my last vent against Occupy, I made much about the members of the disgruntled working class who I presumed were the core of the movement. I made a glaring oversight-the core of the movement, I'm sorry to say, is made up of members of my generation. Many are college students. And here is where the trouble starts.

It would be one thing if the Occupy youth were mad because they were being screwed out of employment opportunities due to governmental mismanagement of public funds and economic cronyism. But, sadly, this is not the case. Most of these protesters seem to be motivated by a desire to get the Taxpaying public to subsidize the entirety of their college education (one photographer found a protester at one Occupy movement holding up a sign that put things quite bluntly: Pay My Tuition). It's greedy and idiotic to suggest you shouldn't have to pay off any of your debt because you cannot do it on your own. Yes, college debt sucks. I wouldn't even disagree with you if you said college tuition rates are overpriced. But here's the thing: it's a voluntary debt. You did not have to do anything to put yourself into the hole. You could have taken precautions to either avoid it or mitigate it (Forgive my getting personal, but this was part of my motivation to join the Armed Forces. I may share the general lack of experience and street smarts typical of a young generation, but I was at least blessed with enough foresight to select an option that would eliminate debt worries. And let me tell you, we in uniform have problems and issues a hell of a lot more difficult and painful than you do, Occupy, and we don't complain half as much).

Arguments justifying a bailout for the students justified on the basis that Wall Street got a bailout are at least somewhat logical, but still do not make the protest or its aims any more legitimate. Never mind the fact that the debt incurred by these corporations wasn't necessarily voluntary, the simple truth is we cannot afford to give money on that scale a second time, in spite of what 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue seems to think. Add to it that this is where the Occupiers and the Tea Party actually might have common ground, we didn't support the bailout, either. It is not the government's place to interfere with the markets and pick winners and losers.

But what bugs me of late is the general damn-foolishness of the entire movement. It has devolved into a general incoherence. We hear reports of twentysomethings in New York City screaming their lungs off at a Citibank branch on their way to another protest area on the basis that Citibank=financial corporation=evil; therefore local bank=stand-in for exaggerated, imagined corporate sleights geared in conspiracy to drown Generation Y in debt. We find out that many of these people are evolving into useful idiots, being handed signs preaching Communist rhetoric by manipulative anti-capitalist infiltrators who have deftly used this movement as a personal juggernaut and not having the damnest clue what's even written on the sign, let alone what it means.

What also bothers me is the way the entire Occupy movement operates. The problem can be found in the name itself: Occupy. Occupy Wall Street, Occupy San Diego, Occupy Seattle, Occupy Oakland. Combined with their extensive and at times legally questionable use of public property, the whole movement proudly advertises that the way it will change the nation is by taking over cities and just...sitting there. That is, when they're not being disruptive. Occupy, by definition, is a non-productive campaign. Which, in fact, is the entire problem. It wouldn't satisfy these people to build a better mousetrap-that would require-gasp-effort. Easier and more fun to simply destroy the one that already exists.

The last point stays in my mind because, with somewhat different wording ("throwing your bodies against the gears"), the exact same thing was advocated by an Occupy forerunner fifty years before; a man named Mario Savio who, inexplicably, has been disgracefully bestowed with the title of "free speech advocate." It's not the only 1960s parallel to Occupy: what took the Young Left roughly a decade to accomplish took Occupy only a matter of weeks-what started out as a youth-oriented and explicitly political movement has devolved into an excuse to do nothing productive, live rent-free, filch food off the generous and misguided, and create a less-than-authentic image of a rouge-a modern-day beatnikism-to more easily get some (If I need to define what "some" would be....I won't even bother. It should be apparent to anybody reading what I mean). In short, they've devolved into hippies. At least the original version of the filthy little devils that heckled and abused Chicago cops into knocking the ever-loving daylights out of them during the Democratic convention in 1968 might be able to blame it on their steady supply of recreational drugs and awful music. Occupy doesn't have the convenience of such an excuse.

Bringing up that last group of Occupy participants-I guess they would be hipsters, they're doing this to appear cool-reminds me of a couple of closing points. First, permit me a little self-aggrandizing and some hipster-bashing (the latter at least seems always welcome). I dislike hipsters, not just because of their pretentiousness, but also because of the way they try to claim the label of iconoclast. Wearing distasteful clothing, listening to unbearable music on the basis that it isn't major-label, and attaching yourself to every anti-the Man movement an iconoclast does not make. You're just as much a slave to the system as the people you set to rail against. Now, I'm a proud Republican from a blue state living in a blue city (Seattle's liberalism can scare even those used to dealing with Los Angeles and San Francisco lefties). I'm a white kid who comes from the suburbs, is a Christian, serves in the military, loves to listen to rap music and classical composers, builds model kits, loves using large words for no reason other than that I can, somehow is friends with a lot of beautiful women, athletes, and outcasts, drives (or rather plans to drive) a Volkswagen, wears my opinions on my sleeve, likes soccer, curses like a sailor, looks forward to college "debates" with left-wing professors with gleeful abandon, maintains a normally-left-wing love of stirring up the mess, and loves his country. And I do all of it because it is what interests me and what I've found I excel at. No pressures. Nothing is done simply to follow a particular crowd. Now, that's iconoclasm. Top that, you Pabst-drinking twits.

Now, getting back on subject, and closing on a personal note; I make a lot about being a painted-scarlet red Republican and being unabashedly right-wing, at times I remember that I've got a little Democrat in my blood, too. My late grandfather, a Marine veteran of the Korean War, my grandmother, herself a civilian employee of the Department of the Navy, and my mother, were all Democrats. Now, my mother and I have made our differences of opinion plain to each other, and we respect each other's views on this basis-even if there is disagreement. That's probably because the kind of Democrats my Mom's immediate family (going further down the line, I've found Republican lawmakers back in Pennsylvania) were from the generation of the party that maintained influence from 1912 to 1980-the "New Deal" Democrats. Now, I maintain my opposition to the Democrats even at this level, because it was in this timeframe that the Democrats advocated Progressivism, which in truth was nothing more than a universalist, watered-down variant of the kind of politics that caused a massive mindwipe of the body politic in Italy and Germany during the inter-war period, and also bequeathed the New Deal and the Great Society-broad-reaching social-engineering programs that, while designed with noble intentions, ultimately permitted a massive encroachment of the federal government on individual American lives and serve as the foundation for the vast majority of today's economic and societal problems (another topic for another time). But when the Democrats of this era claimed to be a Party of the People, there was at least an air of believability to it. That's why my Grandpa and Grandma were Democrats. That's how Mom was raised. But, as today's Democrat lawmakers nationwide fall in love with Occupy, I cannot help but wonder how Grandpa-a man who once actively campaigned for George McGovern-would react to it all. And as Democrat lawmakers in my beloved California continue to decide that protecting a bait fish and giving the children of illegal immigrants free tuition are more important than permitting prosperity and respecting the wishes of their citizens, I get the feeling that whenever I jokingly suggest to my family and friends who identify as Democrats that I will one day convince them to join the Republican fold, the suggestion just might be taken seriously.

But I don't know. I could be wrong. Which wouldn't bother me in this case.

(Before I forget-Happy Thanksgiving-three in a row I've been away from home. Hopefully that wil change for Christmas. Enjoy the holiday and don't drink and drive.)

Originally published on 23 November 2011.