Dude, First of all, the value of your precious money is relative. You live in this system, you know what it is and how it works. If you change to significantly different system, you can't predict how it would effect your relative well being. All the money you save not paying taxes would have to be made up somewhere to compensate people to deliver the same level of services to support this lifestyle. Or, maybe there would just be chaos. Doesn't matter, nothing will change except by tiny deflections anyway. 2nd, Lawyers make the laws. They write them to benefit the people who pay them. That's what Occupy is about. The balance is on the side of the billionaires, not the 99% so you are basically cheering for the Yankees. They create the reality; do you watch TV? They own it. They create the narrative, for now, but that is what is changing, Worldwide. What will be interesting is when everyone knows everything. Will Widgets sell if everyone knows Widgico's tax structure, their PAC donations, their foreign wage structure, their carbon footprint, their pollution rate? No liars, no lawyers, no bullsheep. 3rd, oh nevermind
So do you have an explanation why the police find it necessary to pepper spray nonviolent, nonthreatening people exercising their rights just as much as a tea partier with his gun? On second thought, I think we know why the police are hesitant to confront someone with a semi automatic rather then a tambourine.
Armed robbery? You mean taking back what was stolen from you, because the most successful thieves and crooks reside on wall street. Dude, turn off Rush. No one cares about your jet skis or 1989 corvette. This is about our banks "losing" hundreds of billions of dollars, just vanished, poof.
I would imagine it is a number of factors. Probably pretty high up the list is one group obeying the laws and the other not. In most cases, people who come into conflict with the police only do so after breaking a law. Is that an acknowledgment that TP events are in fact safer than those of OWS, BTW? Not that an acknowledgment is necessary, water is wet whether or not you admit it. I just noticed that you changed the subject after asking me to define safe (which I kindly did upon request).
They are violent and they are violating other citizens rights by seizing public land. As the judge in Boston decreed It's very simple, the reason the cops don't pepper spray the Tea Party is because the Tea Party doesn't defy the police or break the law. If asked to do something by the authorities, the Tea Party would comply because they are mature adults.
Surely any tax is armed robbery? Why is only progressive tax armed robbery? What's a regressive tax then? Armed subsidies?
The Tea Party are like the chicken at the breakfast, Occupy are like the pig. involved vs. committed But you guys are still arguing around the core, all the peripheral distractions that don't really mean anything. If you want to debate real issues how about how the 1% has completely changed the direction of the Supreme Court. Once a bastion of civil liberties, privacy, equality and social welfare it has evolved, especially since 9/11, into a body that allows corporate intrusion into public politics with an anonymity never given to individuals before, allows law enforcement access to privacy like it never has before (not my issue) and would probably rule with this judge against First Amendment rights.... we will probably see in the near future. The very structure of the democratic system is being decided: the people, truth and information vs. corporate interest, lawyers and PR men, and disinformation; reality vs. a created narrative supporting profit, corporate interest vs. the general welfare. And as they gain more control they will suck up every free dollar of profit until we have a two class, third world society; the rich investment class and the paycheck to paycheck consumer class. National policy will be decided over how it effects profits (health insurance? energy policy? pollution standards? capital gains rates?). Again, this is not an evil master plan, a nefarious plot, it's just a self-inflating trend that needs to be reversed. People and corporations with money can and I guess should spend (invest) money to make more money, that is the capitalist system. They buy lawyers, politicians, elections, ad campaigns and the pubic information system. It is up to The People to temper the unbridled greed and avarice with truth, public information, political action, civil disobedience in the face of systemic corruption, and organized voting using the one trump card they have, the numbers. Use public elections to vote for free thinkers who support the general welfare outside of the corporate, 'false choices' election bubble. (I'm going to be up there in the investment class, it won't effect me, I've got a funded retirement and health insurance, so essentially, I'm like Hightop advocating against my own interest)
Agree As has been said "It’s a lot easier to paint protesters as violent thugs than it is to explain what the financial system as a whole did to us and the country"
I am fully willing to admit that I am a patriotic American who pays his fair share of taxes so that our society can continue to be the best in the world.
You also are an American who believes in using forceful and violent means to take property from others Americans.
OWS: 21 more jobs destroyed: -- Milk Street Cafe Closing Thursday After Struggle with NYPD Barricades December 13, 2011 6:27pm | By Julie Shapiro, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer 0shareprint SEE MORE PHOTOS FINANCIAL DISTRICT — The Milk Street Cafe will close its doors for good on Thursday, after struggling for months with a loss of business due to police barricades that appeared on Wall Street during the protests this fall. The international kosher food hall at 40 Wall St. saw its sales plummet by 30 percent after the Occupy Wall Street protests started in September, largely because of the metal barricades the NYPD used to cordon off large sections of the street and sidewalk, the owner said. Even after the protesters were evicted from Zuccotti Park, many of the barricades on Wall Street remained in place, and owner Marc Epstein said two weeks ago that he was on the verge of closing the 23,000-square-foot restaurant. A Milk Street Cafe spokeswoman confirmed the planned closure at the end of business Thursday, first reported by the Daily News, but did not immediately comment further. Epstein did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday afternoon. In an interview two weeks ago, Epstein said he was frustrated that city officials had not been more responsive to Milk Street's plight, especially when he begged them to remove the rest of the barricades from Wall Street. "If I have come away with anything, it is that this is not a place that is conducive to small business," Epstein said two weeks ago. At the height of the protests in late October, Epstein laid off 21 workers and cut back the cafe's hours in an attempt to stem the loss of money. But earlier this month the restaurant was still losing $2,000 to $4,000 a day, and Epstein said it would take a "Hail Mary" to keep his doors open. Between loans and investments, Epstein and his partners put about $4 million into launching the Milk Street Cafe. At the opening ceremony in June, former Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith praised Epstein and his wife Beth for bringing much-needed jobs to Lower Manhattan. This Milk Street Cafe was an offshoot of the original Milk Street Cafe restaurant and catering hall in Boston, which the Epsteins opened 30 years ago. Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20111213/dow...r-struggle-with-nypd-barricades#ixzz1gWly4C26
Looks like this place was struggling to survive before the movement began. Oh well, free markets and all that! AMIRITE?
If "forceful and violent means" are being used to collect your taxes, there are much easier ways to go about it. File a 1040 and nobody will be forceful or violent with you at all.
