birdmechanical asked: What is your opinion to government kicking our OWS from parks? There's been a stronger vein of libertarianism from conservatives, and I understand they may disagree with the content, but I'm surprised at their support of them wanting government to shut them down for whatever reason. There's this idea of supporting rights and avoiding government meddling, but suddenly people are like, 'I don't know, the park was really dirty. Camping out, you can't do that!"
Well, as a libertarian, I ideally wouldn’t want public parks to exist.
However, since they do exist, I tend to side with the OWS people over the cities.
That said, I’m not completely without sympathy for issues like having the parks left in the same condition they were in at the start of the occupation. I can see (if not necessarily agree with) arguments along the lines of “Yes, it’s your right to protest and camp, but once a week or so, clear out so cleaning can happen.”
Yet there is one aspect of the situation I can take an absolute stance on: The police violence is not ok. At all. It is both immoral and illegal, and no one can consistently support small government — or heck, government of any size with at least some conception of morality — and also support stuff like this.
P.S. Related question from me to you all: Can someone explain why the camping is seen as necessary? Why would it be a problem for people to just be there all day, every day, but not set up housekeeping? I get that it’s probably partly a money thing, but surely there’s a strong enough network in place at this point that those who actually live in NYC could offer their couches/floors/guest rooms (ha! — guest rooms in NYC) for out-of-towners to crash. It seems to me this would actually make more sense because it would eliminate much of the bad blood with local businesses.
