Claim: ‘Occupy’ Protesters Are Mostly ‘Bored Morons Who Want Handouts’
Regarding Downing, Oct. 13: The American economic system is a meritocracy: Work hard, and you will succeed. Some believe this survival-of-the-fittest system is unfair, because all people are not born with equal aptitude. Capitalism is not fair to everyone. But it gives the largest number of folks the best chance to succeed, because there are many different routes to prosperity.
But the Occupy Wall Street protesters want bureaucrats to manage the economic shots. They believe governments have a moral obligation to provide a measure of success and education to everyone, no matter the cost. This, of course, is impossible.
I respect dissent, but not stupidity. Do these anti-capitalists ever read a newspaper or a history book? Greece and other European countries are collapsing under entitlement debt, and the entire world is suffering economically because of it.
The Soviet Union fell apart under communism. Cuba is a disaster. Zimbabwe is unspeakable. Every place on Earth that tries to seize private property implodes. Most human beings are built to better themselves, not to throw their talents into a collective kitty usually run by corrupt killers.
Generally speaking, the Occupy Wall Street crew is comprised of bored morons who want handouts. Every American has a legitimate complaint about something, but most of us don’t want to burn the system down. The protesters do.
Maybe if their brains were occupied with some perspective, we could get somewhere.
Lorin Wainwood
Correction
In “Finish Line” (Currents, Nov. 3), we reported that Green Party mayoral candidate Mary DeCamp was living in a tent at Occupy Tucson’s Armory Park protest after she was evicted from her foreclosed home. Actually, she was living in a tent at Occupy Tucson while facing a Nov. 10 eviction from her foreclosed home.
We apologize for the error.
This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2011.
“Maybe if their brains were occupied with some perspective, we could get somewhere.
Lorin Wainwood”
Lorin, their brains ARE occupied with some perspective – the perspective of folks who, after busting their butts at work (if they have a job), come home from work and realize they aren’t getting anywhere, or the perspective of students who can’t find work when they graduate, and yet are faced with tens of thousands of dollars in debt that they are struggling to pay without jobs. All this, while the upper 1% party on. Do you see no disparity in all this?
Peter Van Keuren
Oracle, AZ
Even the few intellectual conservatives remaining among us tend to agree with the 99 percenters that the vast inequities in the country cannot continue or our democracy will collapse. I’m sure there are a few miscreants among the Occupiers, but the great majority are average Americans, finally exhausted with desperation at the state of an economy that has been slowly strangled over the past thirty years by the messianic followers of a hack novelist, Ayn Rand.
No, Ms. Wainwood, the Occupy protesters do not “want bureaucrats to manage the economic shots”. Rather, they want the laws of this nation regarding fraud and theft enforced against the economic terrorists who ran the economy into a wall while enriching themselves in the process.
This is not a “handout”, nor does it demand the system be burnt down. Rather, it demands the system do its job and perform as advertised through equal application of the law. If you find this moronic, there’s no need to wonder why the system is self-destructing: you provide the perfect example.
You are correct L. Wainwood, however, you will never be able to reach the leftists with reason. Leftism is their religion substitute. They have no intellectual understanding of what was wrong with the Soviet Union and they never will. It’s like talking to the air.
And you have no intellectual understanding of the world as it currently is, maryalice-you are stuck in a mindset from 50 years ago. Citing the Soviet Union and its horrors is pointless since you are comparing apples to oranges-when did the USSR ever bail out its bankers and businessmen? Never, since it had no similar economic system. Any comparison of the current situation to communism is willful ignorance; communists want to smash the capitalist state, not make it enforce its laws.
Capitalism is a system where if you make money you keep it, and if you lose money, you are stuck with that debt for life. You, yourself; nobody obligated to help you with it.
Socialism, or communism (take notes, there will be a quiz next class) is where if you make money, it is taxed away from you to serve society and if you lose money, society is taxed to cover the losses.
Fascism is a system where if you make money you keep it, but if you lose money, the losses are transferred to the society as a whole.
Which system best describes America?