No comparing the movements

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests have produced many public statements by progressive politicians and their sycophants supporting, or even praising, the conduct of these gatherings. Some, including our president, have compared OWS to the “tea party,” which, incidentally, these same political partisans have maliciously and fallaciously derided in the vilest of terms.

Let’s recap the documented activities of the respective movements to see if the comparison is just. At OWS gatherings, there have been thuggish violence, arrests, property damage, trespass, conscription of public space, sexual assaults, child endangerment, squalor, disease, homicide, drug sales/usage, public debauchery, paid protesters, incitement towards violent revolution, no permits, with a plethora of demands, few of them coherent.

Within tea party gatherings there have been no arrests, no violence, no trespass, no conscription of public property, cleanliness, propriety, proper permits, no paid protesters, with unwavering calls for electoral resolve towards demanding fiscal sanity and constitutional governance.

Factual comparison of these movements reveals the only irrefutable similarities are bipedal locomotion and humanoid mitochondrial DNA.

Yet the distorted comparisons will continue, which brings to mind Voltaire, who observed, “Those who believe absurdities can commit atrocities,” a perfectly apt explanation for the OWS miscreants and their political accomplices.

Gary Warren

Spokane