A hypothetical question about the OWS protests
I confess I know very little about the Occupy Wall Street protests that seem to have sprung up of late. What I do know is confined to what I picked up scanning a few headlines - a notoriously dangerous way to look for information. I don't really know what the point is (I have my suspicions), how many people are involved or exactly where the protests are taking place.
I gather that, while they may be noisy, they aren't violent - or else I'd have seen lots of headlines.
One banker is quoted as saying the protesters are, "a bunch of whiny people who are lazy or incompetent." Given Wall Street's antics over the last several years, having a banker call someone else whiny, lazy and incompetent seems the height of unintended irony.
As I was reflecting on all this, I thought of when a bunch of right wing right-to-carry protesters a couple of years back decided they needed to make their point by coming with weapons to a rally in a national park.
Let's assume, for the moment, they had every right to do this. The right wing media (FOX, etc) certainly insisted they did, as did Tea Partiers, Libertarians and more or less the entire Republican party - and I'm not going to argue otherwise.
My question is this: how would the same right wing media, Tea Partiers, Libertarians and Republicans play the story if the Occupy Wall Street protesters decide *they* would exercise their right-to-carry in front of our favorite Wall Street financial institutions? As long as they are law-abiding, right?
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
I gather that, while they may be noisy, they aren't violent - or else I'd have seen lots of headlines.
One banker is quoted as saying the protesters are, "a bunch of whiny people who are lazy or incompetent." Given Wall Street's antics over the last several years, having a banker call someone else whiny, lazy and incompetent seems the height of unintended irony.
As I was reflecting on all this, I thought of when a bunch of right wing right-to-carry protesters a couple of years back decided they needed to make their point by coming with weapons to a rally in a national park.
Let's assume, for the moment, they had every right to do this. The right wing media (FOX, etc) certainly insisted they did, as did Tea Partiers, Libertarians and more or less the entire Republican party - and I'm not going to argue otherwise.
My question is this: how would the same right wing media, Tea Partiers, Libertarians and Republicans play the story if the Occupy Wall Street protesters decide *they* would exercise their right-to-carry in front of our favorite Wall Street financial institutions? As long as they are law-abiding, right?
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
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