Another good article on the Occupiers.

[retdetsgt]

A great article by Marybeth Hicks.

Call it an occupational hazard, but I can't look at the Occupy Wall Street protesters without thinking, "Who parented these people?"

As a culture columnist, I've commented on the social and political ramifications of the "movement" - now known as "OWS" - whose fairyland agenda can be summarized by one of their placards: "Everything for everybody."

Thanks to their pipe-dream platform, it's clear there are people with serious designs on "transformational" change in America who are using the protesters like bedsprings in a brothel.

Yet it's not my role as a commentator that prompts my parenting question, but rather the fact that I'm the mother of four teens and young adults. There are some crucial life lessons that the protesters' moms clearly have not passed along.

Here, then, are five things the OWS protesters' mothers should have taught their children but obviously didn't, so I will:

* Life isn't fair. The concept of justice - that everyone should be treated fairly - is a worthy and worthwhile moral imperative on which our nation was founded. But justice and economic equality are not the same. Or, as Mick Jagger said, "You can't always get what you want."

No matter how you try to "level the playing field," some people have better luck, skills, talents or connections that land them in better places. Some seem to have all the advantages in life but squander them, others play the modest hand they're dealt and make up the difference in hard work and perseverance, and some find jobs on Wall Street and eventually buy houses in the Hamptons . Is it fair? Stupid question.

* Nothing is "free." Protesting with signs that seek "free" college degrees and "free" health care make you look like idiots, because colleges and hospitals don't operate on rainbows and sunshine. There is no magic money machine to tap for your meandering educational careers and "slow paths" to adulthood, and the 53 percent of taxpaying Americans owe you neither a degree nor an annual physical.

While I'm pointing out this obvious fact, here are a few other things that are not free: overtime for police officers and municipal workers, trash hauling, repairs to fixtures and property, condoms, Band-Aids and the food that inexplicably appears on the tables in your makeshift protest kitchens. Real people with real dollars are underwriting your civic temper tantrum.

* Your word is your bond. When you demonstrate to eliminate student loan debt, you are advocating precisely the lack of integrity you decry in others. Loans are made based on solemn promises to repay them. No one forces you to borrow money; you are free to choose educational pursuits that don't require loans, or to seek technical or vocational training that allows you to support yourself and your ongoing educational goals. Also, for the record, being a college student is not a state of victimization. It's a privilege that billions of young people around the globe would die for - literally.

* A protest is not a party. On Saturday in New York , while making a mad dash from my cab to the door of my hotel to avoid you, I saw what isn't evident in the newsreel footage of your demonstrations: Most of you are doing this only for attention and fun. Serious people in a sober pursuit of social and political change don't dance jigs down Sixth Avenue like attendees of a Renaissance festival. You look foolish, you smell gross, you are clearly high and you don't seem to realize that all around you are people who deem you irrelevant.

* There are reasons you haven't found jobs. The truth? Your tattooed necks, gouged ears, facial piercings and dirty dreadlocks are off-putting. Nonconformity for the sake of nonconformity isn't a virtue. Occupy reality: Only 4 percent of college graduates are out of work. If you are among that 4 percent, find a mirror and face the problem. It's not them. It's you

[greg72982]

Love it.

[Cat_Doc]

I'd like to see you repost this in pcw27's "attacking protesters" thread.

[fatboyjim154]

Nice article, very true and the comment sin the last two paragraphs mirror our 'soap dodger' protesters.
People that have had the ability and oportunity to gain higher education, yet p1ss it up the wall under the guise of protest and change for the better.

[MikeG]

I would like to know who is buying these idiots food.

[PathosLogos]

Fantastic article! I'm truly disgusted with what I see from the Occupy Movement--a bunch of spoiled brats who want everything handed to them for free and instantly. I don't know if this newer generation of hippies gained this self-entitled attitude from their upbringings, from the typical liberal propaganda touted in college textbooks and by professors, or maybe from their naive acceptance of the empty promises made by politicians.

Things really need to be put into perspective for these twerps. I consider myself blessed to have the opportunity to attend college, something which people in third world countries do not typically have the ability to do (that's dedicated to you, pcw27 ).

It's nauseating.

[retdetsgt]

I would like to know who is buying these idiots food.

Democrats, mostly.

Despite attacks, Dems standing by Occupy Wall Street - The Plum Line - The Washington Post

[Big Sexy]

Bet'cha in sports, they all received trophies for participating, because we all know in life, everyone's a winner.

[greg72982]

Things really need to be put into perspective for these twerps.

I haven't seen the word "twerps" used since '84....

[MikeG]

I haven't seen the word "twerps" used since '84....

Was that the year (and word) the Dr. welcomed you to the world with?

[greg72982]

Was that the year (and word) the Dr. welcomed you to the world with?

Nope I was two then. I guess that's where my twerphood started.

[PathosLogos]

I haven't seen the word "twerps" used since '84....

Are you mocking my vocabulary, sir?

[greg72982]

Are you mocking my vocabulary, sir?

Maybe, what are you going to do about it?

[PathosLogos]

Maybe, what are you going to do about it?

I can and will get physical.

And no, not in THAT way.

[rwreagan]

I would like to know who is buying these idiots food.

Probably you