Skip to main content

The Advent of The Occupiers.

The occupiers have arrived in Maine, complete with their tent city which has all the markings of having been manufactured by corporations with productions abroad and distributors that sell to other corporations located in this country.

The Occupiers have their own legal adviser, John H. Branson, who has negotiated a one week permit to occupy a space in the city of Portland for a week. This makes the Occupiers markedly more professional than the Tea Party who would most likely use a Tea Party volunteer to obtain any necessary permits. Does the Occupier’s legal adviser work on a volunteer basis? If not who pays for John H. Branson's services?

The occupiers identify their actions as inspired by the protestors in the "Arab Spring" with "Arab Spring" being yet another media concoction that suggests the motivations and outcome of events in the Middle East are the subject of media fairy tales. The one thing that we do know about the events in the Middle East is that the end game of the protestors was clearly defined- the ousting of the dictators in the various nations. Who knows what "democracy" means after that? In Palestine it meant electing Hamas as the controlling political power.

The occupiers repeat media generated lexicon, such as "the Arab Spring" and channel politically generated mantras such as "fair share", both of which, like "hope and change" are murky terms that are wide open for interpretation by anyone anywhere.

The occupiers are here for an indefinite time until the indefinite goal of "change" is achieved. Well buddies you can leave now because change is the only constant. Other than "change" there does not seem to be any specific measure to signal that the occupiers have achieved their goals. They don't seem to get that the ones they emulate, the Arab protestors had a specific and measurable goal- to over throw a dictator. If the Arab spring is romanticized as a "democratic" revolution, once the dictator has been disposed the great challenge of forming a constitutional democracy becomes the new goal. If it is a pure democracy, it can mean the tyranny of the majority and if that majority is the Muslim Brotherhood, it doesn't make for a good fairy tale ending.

Meanwhile we already have a constitutional democratic republic. We already have a system, which like all systems works as well as the character of the people. Our system was designed, with the vast range of human character in mind, as a system of checks and balances. It is the fact that we already have a constitutional system that protects the rights of assembly and freedom of speech which makes the occupiers right to be heard a fact. What the occupiers don't like is that our constitutional system is based in a political philosophy that protects property rights and the right to the fruits of ones own labor.

Whenever I hear "fair share" I wonder why it isn't applied to government? Why does government sector have a right to spend the wealth that others create? I think government is well over its "fair share" already. But the concept that 'fair share" can be applied to the government sector is completely occluded from the meaning of this politically generated mantra straight from the Obama team, trying to repeat the great success of the "hope and change" mantra.

Now that the unions have joined with the occupiers in NYC, it just won't be complete until the government employees embrace it as well. More and better government pension plans!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How The MPERS Contract Came To Be Embedded in the Maine Constitution

Is The Maine Public Retirement System Unconstitutional? According to the Maine Public Employees ComprehensiveFinancial Report of 2010 , the Maine Public Employees Retirement System was established in 1942 to provide services for retiring public employees. No information is given about how the Public Employees Retirement System was legally structured in 1942. In the report MPERS is described as “an independent public agency of the State of Maine that traces its history to 1942”. Wikipedia  uses the same term but when the link is clicked it reveals that Wikipedia has no idea what " independent public agency " means.  An online search for history of MPERS between 1942 and 1985 comes up empty.  In 1985 during the administration of Governor Joseph E Brennan, the Maine Legislature passed a statute announcing its intentions of using general taxpayer monies to provide for retirement funds and death benefits for public employees, a faction which, incidentally, includes th...

High Brow Art VS the Marketplace and the Maine Juice Conference

TWEET THIS http://goo.gl/xdwZDk Continuing with my story from HERE ...(and incorporating a few paragraphs from this earlier but incomplete telling ) Finally, after a year of receiving stimulus fund notices for non-profits only, in the fall of 2009, I received an email from the Maine Arts Commission about a competition for small businesses for what I took to be, a modest grant for the sum of 30000.00 from an "anonymous source". In a moment of hopeful delusions, I imagined that the Maine Arts Commission had come to its senses and realized that they needed to support the private sector. The competition was called an "elevator pitch competition" which means a pitch delivered in five minutes. Even the written answers to questions on the application were required to be answered in a minimal number of words, brevity being stressed as being so important that if your couldn't explain a business idea in five minutes, then one's business idea is simply not ...

Statutory Bond Question Requirements Amplify -NOT Negate Maine Constituion

TWEET THIS http://goo.gl/VcBj8O UPDATE NOV 11 2014:  Since I wrote This post- I cam across the statute governing Bond Ratification- as amended by the 2013 legislature It looks to be that the sentence "To meet the requirement that the signed statement of the Treasurer of State accompany any ballot question for ratification of a bond issue, the statement may be printed on the ballot" was amended by adding this "or it may be printed as a separate document that is made available to voters as provided in Title 21-A, sections 605-A and 651" Section 605-A no longer exists and I am tracking it down. Section 651 says it can be posted outside the guardrail which separates voters from the rest of the world. I am writing a new post to cover this new information Update Nov 12, 2014!   The link I originally referenced is here ,  THIS IS HOW THE LAW WAS WRITTEN IN  2011 - showing the process of incrementalism at play In this link  part of the sentence below is s...