Christen Varley-
Valley Patriot Tea Party Columnist
Since we’re approaching
the two month mark for the Occupy
movement, I think it is now fair to ask a
few questions. What do you want? How do
you propose getting it? When are you
going home? Will you reimburse taxpayers
for what you’ve cost us? After all,
they are occupying public property in
cities across the country at great
expense to taxpayers. I have tried to
keep up on a daily basis with Occupy news
and have yet to see a coherent message,
mission statement or policy initiative.
What I have seen is chaos, crime and
filth.
From the beginning, the media has
attempted to compare the Occupy movement
to the Tea Party movement. This in itself
is ironic considering it took the Tea
Party movement nearly a year to be
identified as a movement. Granted, the
nature of the protest – take
possession of the property of others
while demanding handouts – has
created a stir. Police raids and arrests
are news. Rape, assault, prostitution,
vandalism, drug dealing, public
intoxication, public urination, public
defecation and public fornication are
headlines. I don’t begrudge Occupy
their disproportional media attention. I
do, however, resent comparisons to the
Tea Party movement.
Let’s start with the Tea Party and
police involvement. There hasn’t
been any unless you count police and park
ranger details organizations have paid
for to “police” their
demonstrations, something Occupy protests
have yet to be billed for. To date, no
Tea Party protesters have been arrested
while participating in a protest, rally,
March or demonstration. No rapes have
been reported in nearly three years of
Tea Party activity. No assaults of one
demonstrator on another have been
documented either. (There was one
incident where union members assaulted a
black man selling pro-Liberty t-shirts at
a Tea Party event but you probably
didn’t hear about that.)
Unfortunately, the numbers may be
difficult to verify within the Occupy
movement since they discourage reporting
crimes to police. They prefer to handle
such incidents within the organization.
The proposed punishment for inappropriate
actions on another person within the
Occupy movement – confiscate the
offending party’s blanket.
Tea Party organizers clean up after
themselves after an event. There are no
incidents of vandalism. Area business
owners and merchants do not complain of
an increase in theft nor have they had to
lay off employees because an event scared
off customers. Tea Party organizers work
with city officials to ensure taxpayer
funded public property is protected, as
are residents, commuters and visitors. We
obtain the required permits, pay the
required fees, purchase insurance
policies (to protect taxpayer assets) and
follow the rules as outlined by our host
city. Because of this, we have developed
cordial relationships with city officials
despite our differences in political
opinions.
The real differences between the Tea
Party and Occupy movements, however, are
ideological. While we both start at the
same point – government collusion
with special interests is an outrage
– the similarity ends there. Whereas
the Tea Party goes on to pinpoint the
remedy for widespread, bi-partisan
corruption is to scale back government
size, scope and power, Occupy believes
more government to oversee government is
the solution.
Whereas the Tea Party wants an end to
bailouts and a return to personal
responsibility, Occupy wants bailouts and
special favors for their allies on the
Left. The Tea Party wants you to have
more freedom to earn money and then to
keep more of the money you earn. Occupy
wants what it sees as its fair share
– a figure they nail down somewhere
between 50 and 100% of what you earn.
While the Tea party sees the Constitution
as a document worthy of adherence as it
provides for accountability and
transparency in governance, Occupy wants
an end to it.
The Tea Party came into being because
people recognized that resources are
finite – you cannot spend what you
do not have. Occupy is so consumed with
infighting about how to distribute the
donations it has received, it seems to
have missed the news that we, as a
nation, are broke.
It would have been a nice outcome if the
Tea Party and Occupy had been able to
come together in mission and help to
return our nation to its roots of limited
government, free speech, free markets,
personal responsibility and individual
Liberty but that train has left the
station they chose their 99% v. 1%
comparative. The 53% just isn’t on
board. The Tea Party has identified a way
to accomplish this objective – elect
constitutional conservatives and monitor
their every move. Occupy is still
throwing temper tantrums – at
continued expenses to us. I guess
we’ll just have to move forward in
spite of them. No worries, though. At the
rate they’re going, more than half
of them will be in jail by Thanksgiving
|
Christen Varley is the head of the
Greater Boston Tea Party you can email
her at cvarley@greaterbostonteaparty.com
Since we’re approaching
the two month mark for the Occupy
movement, I think it is now fair to ask a
few questions. What do you want? How do
you propose getting it? When are you
going home? Will you reimburse taxpayers
for what you’ve cost us? After all,
they are occupying public property in
cities across the country at great
expense to taxpayers. I have tried to
keep up on a daily basis with Occupy news
and have yet to see a coherent message,
mission statement or policy initiative.
What I have seen is chaos, crime and
filth.
