Break camp and go find a job.

I see humans as being a greedy bunch and I believe that the individual needs to be controlled lest he or she gets out of hand and does things that are against the best interests of the group.  The societal problem is always who exercises how much control over whom and how that control is exercised.  A lot of different systems have been tinkered with over the many millennia since our specie  appeared on earth, starting with dog eat dog and morphing into all kinds of tribes, monarchies, dictatorships, and isms.  Today, we have what we call democracy and free enterprise capitalism with all kinds of modifications that we skip over lightly in school, but apply rigorously and imperfectly in our day-to-day lives.  Scholars can easily prove that our form of democracy is not really very democratic and our form of capitalism is not really very free, but whatever our system has been, it has served us pretty well for several hundred years and our country has become the most powerful in the entire history of civilization. (Not necessarily the best, but certainly the most powerful.)

The Occupy Wall Street folks appear to be questioning the validity of our political/economic system going forward and a number of politicians are attempting to associate themselves with these inarticulate protests to push their own political agenda.  The forces that are presently at work within our society will inevitably bring change, but the questions are how much, and what kind of change will be applied to whom, and when.   This kind of situation is always politically unsettling.  Because it is happening to those of us alive today, it is in our minds, the most serious challenge that our country has ever faced.  Poppy cock.  Washington, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, Wilson, and two Roosevelts had more difficult challenges as did a whole raft of other plain folks adjusting to changing times like reconstruction, industrialization, worldwide depression, worldwide war, and the threat of global communism.

The details are unique, but the threat is not.  Very simply put, the challenge that faces us is whether we have the resilience to modify our system adequately to deal with current facts on the ground without giving up the intangibles that have held us together as a nation.  Those of us (myself included) who cling to traditional values will inevitably be disappointed with the change that is coming, but that change is inevitable and we had better get used to it.  Having said that, I am going to continue to argue for a conservative approach to social and fiscal problem solving, because I believe that is in the best interest of all of us - liberal and conservative alike.  I believe that President Obama recognizes the challenges that face this country, but I heartily disagree with the policy set that he has proposed to deal with those challenges.  He obviously has a very high IQ and, like many other intellectuals, does not have what it takes to bring a nation together.  What we need right now is a leader that can unify the country, or at least most of it, so that we can get on with creating a better world for ourselves and those around us.

PS:  It is time for the occupiers to break camp and go find a job.  If it is true that we have tens of millions of illegal immigrants taking jobs away from honest, red-blooded Americans, it is time for some of those Americans to go take those jobs back.  If the folks who are pooping in public try to argue that they are too well educated to take menial positions, I am sorry, but I have zero sympathy for them.  Like most of my generation, I started at the bottom and worked for what I got in life.  I actually enjoyed it, but if I had not done it I would have been called a slacker.  As I look at the accumulation of high tech tents, down sleeping bags, designer clothing, laptop computers and cell phones, I have difficulty finding a better term for what I see.