Freedom Line Blog

Yes, well, the revolution always eats its own after all. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Attorneys for three Occupy Oakland protesters charged with hate crimes for allegedly using a gay slur during a skirmish with a counterprotester said Monday that police were smearing the activists to try to discredit their movement.

Police said the protesters – Michael Davis, 32, Nneka Crawford, 23, and Randolph Wilkins, 24 – stole the woman’s purse during a confrontation last month outside a Wells Fargo bank on Piedmont Avenue and called her a “dyke” during the incident. But attorneys for two of the defendants said the exchange had turned ugly only after the counterprotester used a racist epithet against their clients.

Well, what do you know? It turns out that enlightened left-wing activists can be just as bigoted and ugly as they imagine conservatives are. And now they’ll be prosecuted under the hate crimes laws that are their legacy.

This case underscores how ludicrous those laws are. What makes this trio of miscreants reprehensible is that they stole a woman’s purse — not that they stole a gay woman’s purse. Does their victim deserve more protection under than law than a middle-aged white man would have if this same group had stolen his wallet? Of course not. But the left has attempted to systematically disassemble those principles of equality before the law over the past several decades. Don’t look now, but that boomerang is spinning back around.

I’ve posted before on how the ‘Occupy’ protests — supposedly an outlet for the disenfranchised and underprivileged — have cast their lot with powerful left-wing special interests like the teachers unions. Now, according to Big Government, ACORN is getting in on the action:

Fox News reported earlier today that remnants of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), the radical community organizing group that collapsed after its corruption was exposed by Big Government, are playing a “behind the scenes” role in organizing the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

The Fox News investigation followed Matthew Vadum’s report two weeks ago at Big Government that ACORN was paying people to attend the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York through the Working Families Party, an ACORN front group.

Now, Big Government has learned that in an email sent by Fithian to Occupy organizers and supporters on October 22, 2011, she reported that the “New Bottom Line”–an effort to move as much money out of major banks as possible on November 5th–is being led by several ACORN-linked organizations: “National People’s Action, National Pico Network, and Alliance for Just and Sustainable Economy and other key state groups like ACCE in CA, NYCC in NY, or MORE in St. Louis.”

I don’t begrudge these groups their ability to participate in these protests. That’s a natural consequence of the robust rights of free association present in a liberal society. What I do object to, however, is the ‘Occupy’ movement’s continued rhetorical claims to be a voice for the voiceless when it’s doing the bidding of some of the most powerful and well-heeled liberal special interests in the nation. This isn’t a left-wing revolution promoting “people power.” It’s just the same old tax-and-spend crowd, only this time on the sidewalks.

Three days, two speeches, one important difference.

When Vice President Joe Biden spoke at the University of Pennsylvania on Wednesday, he said that opponents of the president’s jobs bill were okay that, as a result of blocking the bill, “murder will continue to rise, rape will continue to rise, all crimes will continue to rise.” Nary a peep was heard from the Occupy Philadelphia crowd.

By contrast, just the mere mention that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) would speak at Penn today brought on threats from Occupy Philadelphia to disrupt his speech.  Cantor rightly canceled his appearance at the last minute in order to avoid the kind of heckling for which liberal activists are notorious.

Biden argued that federal spending on state union members would somehow reduce murders and rapes.  Cantor was expected to speak on how to ease income inequalities.  If anyone needed more proof who these hooligans support and why, here it is.