Occupational hazards

The reawakening of interest in the principles of limited constitutional government represented by the Tea Party movement has been the most hopeful political event in the United States since the election of President Reagan in 1980. We have no need to sort out or rehearse the causes of the the rising of the Tea Party. Given the Obama project and the huge Democratic congressional majorities of 2009, the impetus for the emergence of the Tea Party movement was overdetermined.

Harking back to the the verities embedded in the founding of the United States, the movement was peaceful, law abiding, biting, funny, and smart. And the Democratic Party along with its media adjunct were of course dedicated to its defamation and destruction.

Occupy Wall Street and the related Occupations around the country have presented a stark contrast with the Tea Party movement. Listening to just about any one of the videos made featuring conversations with the OWS crowd, it’s hard to miss the crowd’s incoherence and, shall we say, ignorance. Reason’s production of Peter Schiff at OWS, for example, is comedy gold.

The OWS phenomenon has also given rise to an impressive crime wave. The OWS crowd is now liberally associated with various illegalities including rape, murder, assault, drug dealing, drug-related death, arson and other property destruction, and attacks on police officers. John Nolte has compiled the long OWS rap sheet so far, but it was obsolete roughly from the moment it was posted. As we have repeatedly noted, it is almost impossible to keep up.

In addition to the crime wave the OWS movement has created a public health hazard. The encampments are filthy. The New York Post took note of the Panic in Zuccotti Park. Watch out: You might contract Zuccotti lung. Personal hygiene is not these folks’ strong point, but then again, what is?

In each of these respects the OWS crowd contrasts with the Tea Party movement. It has accordingly enlisted the support of the Democratic Party establishment, right up to and including President Obama and Nancy Pelosi, as well as the mainstream media, whose excitement over it as palpable.

With a view to the OWS crowd and its fans, what can we learn about the state of the left from it? The phenomenon has yet to run its course, so I offer the following as preliminary observations.

Among the leading features of the left represented by the OWS crowd are the following. It is parasitic. It is sick. It is not smart; it is lacking in reason and argument. But it is long on the will to power.

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