Occupy Wall Street - A Parable

Occupy Wall Street started out as a supposedly peaceful protest by a bunch of clueless, radical '60s wannabes. And as this type of purposeless leftwing gathering tends to do, OWS degenerated into whining, filth, and finally rioting. Just like the Tea Party. Or not. Michelle Malkin has a pretty good roundup filed under her "Moonbats" category.

Over at Power Line, Scott Johnson posted this video. Its title is "Just After Halloween, 2011."



Johnson's comments following the video are perfect:

Given that citizens of lesser means always outnumber the rich, the classic political philosophers held that government based on majority rule was untenable. They were of the view that it would lead to organized theft from the wealthy by the democratic masses. Aristotle observed in The Politics, for example: “If the majority distributes among itself the things of a minority, it is evident that it will destroy the city.”

The Founders of the United States were deep students of politics and history, and they shared Aristotle’s concern. Up through their time, history had shown all known democracies to be “incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.” James Madison and his colleagues held that the “first object of government” was to protect the rights of property.

They understood the protection of property rights to be bound up with freedom itself. “In a word,” Madison explained, “as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights….” The Founders thus incorporated numerous provisions of the Constitution and Bill of Rights to protect the property rights of citizens from the power of the government.

Whatever else might be said about him, President Obama operates on a different philosophy of government from that of the Founders. His credo is reflected in the proposition: “I think at some point you have made enough money.” By contrast, the Founders thought that at some point the government had enough power. They created a system of government that was meant to establish protections against the likes of President Obama and the OWS crowd.

I'd say that 2013 can't come soon enough, but the politicians who have a track record of actually slashing government spending aren't the ones who are running. And the ones who are in the race have been ever so eager in the past to take away our candy and give it to Barry and the other kids in the neighborhood. I can't say I'm optimistic.