Let's, like, demonstrate

"Occupiers" are coming to the forefront again, and in the predictable life cycle of these uprisings, have entered into their bomb-throwing phase.  Early on in that cycle, the tactics, as is always the case, quickly and permanently supplanted whatever purpose may have been originally envisioned, if one was.  Almost immediately, it became not about the achieving, but about the doing, and predictably devolved into Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.  This is okay if you’re a kid; it’s what kids do.  But not if you’re an actual grown-up.  (Movie stars are generally in the former category and so they, too, can be forgiven.) Establishment support for such purposeless and juvenile acting out is mystifying.  What exactly do they think is wrong with Wall Street and "Big Business" that can be addressed by this communal rant? And do they really think it’s a popular cause that has the implicit support of some silent but restive majority out there? The reality is this: Most of the relatively few people who are aware of it in any meaningful way don’t care about it.

The core tenet of the demonstrator/occupier religion is the conviction that something, somehow is being done to them, and if it weren’t for that something, their lives would be better. That’s about it. Their m.o. is to be hostile to, and in high dudgeon about, people who are in some unspecified way connected to money.  And that being the case, the things they say, and shout, and paint on their signs are difficult to refute. “I'm plenty mad, about money things, and, well, a whole bunch of other stuff, too” isn't the sort of thing you can really debate.  Not that they actually want to debate anything, as that would force them to suspend, if only temporarily, their primary activity: the care and feeding of their grand sense of moral superiority and the nurturing of their sense of mission, conveniently unspecific though that mission may be. (This lack of specificity is in vivid contrast to to the moral, and urgent, underpinnings of the causes that gave rise to past major and ongoing demonstrations/occupations -- civil rights for tens of millions of disenfranchised citizens and an end to the disastrous war in Vietnam. Those people were crying out. These people are whining. Big difference.) It's one thing to give them their space and let the thing play itself out. How supportive editorial writers and others see this as being in any way substantive or productive, though, is a mystery. But many apparently do.

Although it’s true that some bankers, lenders, and “Wall Streeters” have played fast and loose with our money – my money – in the recent past, and feloniously in some cases, the demonstrators would do well to keep in mind that it’s not a zero-sum game; money that “greedy” Wall Streeters take in does not come out of the pool available to wage earners and others. They are free to improve upon their circumstances regardless of what Wall Street is or is not up to. They're not poor because other people are rich. As for Big Business, it’s good to remember that it employs tens of millions of people and puts trillions of dollars into the economy, contributing mightily to the general prosperity; and it is owned, in the main, not by moustache-twirling villains but by shareholders, a huge percentage of whom are ordinary folks whose life savings are in those shares.

Speaking of moral superiority, one of the themes it extends to is the idea of inequality of income.  The demonstrators are, apparently, against this, meaning they are presumably for equality of income – or, put another way, they believe everyone should be paid the same amount of money; that it’s “unfair” if some people make more money than other people; that it’s morally wrong for a company president to make more than a cab driver; that there’s a small number of rich people and a large number of not-rich people, and that’s no good. Is that, in fact, what they believe? If not, then what? What does “inequality of income” actually mean? Please be specific.

Although attempts were made to characterize the Wall Street demonstrators as the left’s answer to the Tea Party, what’s striking is not how different these two groups are but how alike they are.  “I don’t have what I want – the job I want, the money I want, the life I want -- and it's somebody else's fault.”  That’s what every placard at the Wall Street protests should read and it’s what every placard at a Tea Party rally should read.  For the protesters, the fault lies with financiers and big business.  For the Tea Party, it’s “the government.”

Tea Partiers believe that their problems – and everybody’s problems – are caused by things the government is or is not doing, and so they want the government to cut it out.  Cut what out, exactly, isn’t clear except, perhaps being “big.”  But as has been the case with political parties and their constituents since the beginning of the Republic, what they really object to is not how big the government is but how it spreads that bigness around.  In other words, they’re in favor of the government spending they’re in favor of, and against the government spending they’re against.  The former category generally includes government spending that directly benefits them, and the latter category spending that does not.Taxation and government spending is not a commie plot.  We citizens pool our money in the form of taxes to buy for ourselves collectively things we want and need but which would be impractical to buy individually, including national defense, schools, roads and bridges, police and fire protection, libraries, parks, sewers, dog catchers, air traffic control and much, much more.  There’s a big difference between being skeptical of big government, which is sensible, and being anti-government, which is childish.

By the way, also included, by way of the will of the people, in the list of things we buy for ourselves through taxation are social security and Medicare.  If the Tea Party is against these programs because they believe them to be “socialistic” then they should step up to that and call openly and vigorously for their repeal -- and take that position to the polls in the next election.  If not, they should cooperate in finding ways to keep the programs healthy instead of confining their contribution to coy references to socialism and Ponzi schemes. 

Most of us working stiffs view the machinations of Washington and Wall Street as curiosities that don’t really affect our ability to live and prosper.  We simply get on with our work and our lives.  The chronic complainers of the left and the right should try it. They are free to improve upon the circumstances of their lives regardless of what “the government” or “Wall Street” is or is not up to, and electing their heroes – shameless demagogues, for the most part – isn’t going to help them at all.