United Liberty

Today is the Occupy movement’s birthday. But while the group received a lot of media attention in the days after protesters on Wall Street inspired similar groups to pop in cities across the country, it is now an afterthought in American politics.

These protesters had some legitimate complaints, such as the collusion of corporations and government which led to taxpayer-funded bailouts and ingraining “too big to fail” into public policy. But the tactics that displayed by many of these protesters were, well, shocking and violent at times. Not to mention that views put forward by the Occupy movement are the worst of Leftist thought. Occupiers should take heart, at least in some respect, since it looks as their rhetoric has seemingly been adopted by Team Obama.

During a trip to Denver for BlogCon last year, I had my own run in with a local Occupy group, who, for some reason, decided to show up uninvited to a private event. They were hostile and tried to force their way into a closed-door session. They came back later than evening for a protest outside our hotel. Some of us tried to engage them, but the hate toward us from some of the protesters was very strong, making it impossible to have a conversation.

Many of us from BlogCon watched Occupy Denver be removed from the park at which they had been protesting. Some of the protesters eventually made their way to the 16th Street Mall, which was close to the hotel hosting BlogCon. More than a dozen protesters were arrested.

They griped about income inequality in the United States, but put in perspective, many Occupiers are part of the 1% of the world. They complained about government, but their answer was more government, which is not the answer to the corporatism that politicians in Washington love, but rather the cause of the problems.

There has been talk of a comeback of the Occupy movement. These folks have a right to make their grievances know, but Americans are not going to be willing to what will view as a group of crazies camped out in a park like some sort of hippie commune. Act like adults. Try to have a civil conversation. Otherwise, the Occupy movement will continue to be rejected; not that it wouldn’t anyway with its collectivist agenda.