Law to Save Wall Street Protest

In February of 2010, Mervin Fried was arrested in Kingman, Arizona for bringing a symbolic pitchfork to a protest in a county administration building. Fried argued that the county already allowed citizens to carry guns-a more dangerous weapon-into government buildings, and was later acquitted.

Most notably, in November of 2009, ten protestors angry over ObamaCare were arrested for engaging in disorderly conduct outside Nancy Pelosi's office in Washington, D.C. The ralliers were discovered to have been organized by rabid anti-abortion activist and Democrat Randall Terry of Operation Rescue.

Let's not forget the recent riots abroad, mostly in Western Europe, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protests. It's awfully close, but I'm going to have to suggest that Occupy Wall Street is less law-abiding than the Tea Party. Yet to hear the mainstream media present it, Occupy Wall Street is every bit as peaceful and legitimate as the Tea Party.

The disparate treatment given to these wildly uneven tallies reflects the double standard set by the left-leaning media: One Tea Partier raising his fist in anger over intrusive government is as alarming as one thousand Occupy Wall Street protestors clashing with police.

Some commentators have noted that Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party both began out of anger over the nation's largest banks being bailed out. Though the sources of their grievances overlap, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street have used vastly different tactics to get across their messages. Ironically, the Tea Party, which is more suspicious of government, has been following the letter of the law. Occupy Wall Street, which favors more government regulation, has been trampling all over the law.

The Tea Party believes the government has legitimate, limited functions, such as the power of the police and courts to protect people from the initiation of force and violation of property rights. In contrast, OccupyWall Street believes legitimate functions of government include providing universal healthcare, free college education, and a living wage; naturally, they see its policing functions as rather superfluous and heavy-handed, if not downright militaristic.

Just before the fall 2008 bank bailout, which most Democrats supported and most Republicans opposed, President Bush infamously observed that he had "abandoned free market principles to save the free market system."

The members of an Occupy Wall Street movement that claims to be concerned with justice have been wildly indiscriminate in their violation of the law. Occupy Wall Street protestors apparently believe they must abandon our civilized system of government in order to save it.