Forum Post: A Philosophical, Social, and Economic Justification for Why I Support Occupy Wall Street

I’ve decided that I support Occupy Wall Street

I’m not entitled. I’m not rich. I have a job. I commute 50 miles a day and am underemployed. I know full-well that the only risk I’ve taken in life was college, and it’s one that I have zero regrets over. I have zero expectations for entitlement. I have zero for meaningful reform. Despite this, the idea of the 1%, or those who earn the most and piss on everyone else, that’s different. I have zero expectations of people changing my life for the better, but I do believe that it’s morally and ethically right to protest those who, with their control over immense wealth and power, serve only to take more from the pockets of those who need it.

I believe in needs. Everyone has needs, and while no one in control of their faculties deserves handouts, they should not have to fight tooth and nail for ever-lower levels of capital. People who have money deserve to continue to make money, but the line ought to be drawn when their income is increasingly at the expense of their compatriots.

I believe that everyone also needs to have needs. Everyone needs to feel the sting of failure, and to suffer the consequences.

This does not mean that I do not support the government bailouts of banks and other institutions – millions more would be unemployed had those not occurred.

This does not mean that I believe things should have been structured so that a new rule in one instance ought to lead to exploitation in another – new rules leading to BoA and Citi to charging customers for the use of debit accounts is an example. To extend this, Citi’s announcement of charging those with less than $15,000 in their accounts is especially heinous. I do see that as a calculated judgment that lends itself to no one but the 1%.

I do believe that those with the Tea Party mentality have every reason and right to march, but I don’t think they have the right to act obstructively and to rain down hate and pessimism, lies and hypocrisy and think they have the authority to call the OWS movements “Fascist” or “Nazi-like”.

I do believe it’s every American’s right to live sheltered and in the dark, but it’s every young person’s right, despite the aforementioned group, to have the ability to own a home and pay down debts. This, however, is often labeled as ‘entitlement’ and ‘socialism’. I will forever disagree, so long as those same people benefit disproportionately from government handouts, subsidies, and entitlements of any kind, save for military service and age. I’m not an absolutist, neither should anyone be.

I believe that every marcher on Wall Street and across the country has realized injustice, but perhaps they have not felt injustice. I do not believe in a world without injustice as that would mean the removal of justice, as well, just as quickly. I think they have realized the injustices of their world, and are working towards something better, something that our Founding Fathers would see as a positive, those who actually participated in the Boston Tea Party would beam at with pride. I do believe that the perceived counter-culture is a fallacy, as many who march are incredibly hard working, but have had less to show for it than those predisposed to money and hardly work.

And finally, I believe that the organic nature of this protest, the ‘something for everyone’ mentality, I believe that it is perfect. This is not a movement to be hijacked; this is not a movement to be obscured; this is not a movement to be used politically. The nature of this movement is that it cannot be sold out. It encompasses everyone, despite whatever part the media magnifies and inflates, left or right. It’s a liberal movement, it’s a conservative movement. It exists for everyone, and seeks to restore sanity and preserve self-preservation. It doesn’t reject and is all but libertine. It’s a big hug of strange bedfellows, it’s a picnic of people who are told ‘yes you can’ just as often as they are told ‘don’t even risk it’. It’s a movement that requires everyone, left or right, old or young, rich or poor, sane or not, to step back, and stop giving out knee-jerk reactions to everything in their site, to stop projecting their pre-contrived views on it. I was biased against OWS at its inception, but on closer inspection, it illustrates a great maturity among Americans.

It shows that this country can, in fact, grow up. We don’t have to join hands and sing, but we can stand together and make a stand against vain immaturity on the part of the haves.

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