Protests in Boston

Here is the take of the Instapundit on the protests down in Boston.

Law Professor Ann Althouse labels it viewpoint discrimination.

Have you actually read the list of 13 demands?  Well, actually "There is NO official list of demands."

But, the "Occupy Wall Street" web site linked to above does give us this list below, which the disclaimer says, was never proposed or agreed to on a consensus basis with the NYC General Assembly.

Demand one:

Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two:

Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three:

Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four:

Free college education.

Demand five:

Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six:

One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven:

One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

Demand eight:

Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine:

Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten:

Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven:

Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve:

Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen:

Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

It is Demand Eleven that worries me.  If we cancel all debt, who will pay back the banks what is owed, and who will pay back China, even if China would go along with it?  Sure, my checking and savings accounts with Bank of America are protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, but when the FDIC runs out of money who will pay?  Those of us who are tax payers, so I will be paying myself.  How is that going to work?  It sounds like a formula to bankrupt the rich and Middle Class.

To wrap it up, here is a comment on the Althouse blog, from "Shouting Thomas:

My leftist friends on Facebook are all saying:

"Well, violence could break out if this or that condition is not met, or if the police respond in the wrong way.  Mind you, we don't approve of violence, but it would be sort of understandable given the frustration the demonstrators are experiencing."

Contrast this with the insistent leftist condemnation of anything that might hint at violence in any way at any point in the future in the case of the Tea Party.

You see, the intentions of the demonstrators are so admirable that, if violence were to break out... well... what can you do?

What can you do?

Regards  —  Cliff