Occupy Wall Street-A Student's (Different) Perspective

Have you heard about Occupy Wall Street? Many people have by now, and it's looking like it will be around for at least a little while longer.


Anyways, today a student stood up in my religion class and made an announcement that they would be occupying my city as well. He tried to get me to come to a meeting on Wednesday night and stressed how important it was for us to "make our voice heard".


I have never had a problem sharing my thoughts or making my voice be heard, but I decided to get straight to the source of these Occupy Wall Street people. That, of course, meant Facebook stalking them and looking at their main Web page. I have linked it here. This is their list of demands (not ideas, demands) that form the core of their movement.


As a college student, I was initially interested in this movement because quite a few of these people are my peers, college students or twenty somethings. After reading through these demands, I find it important to distance myself as far as possible from this lunacy. It's never a good thing to be ignorant, but the only thing worse is to be ignorant and not realize it.


So let's take a look at what these people are camping out for.


1- A new minimum wage ($20 bucks per hour). Why $20? If we are giving ourselves a raise, why stop at $20? Let's make it at least $100 per hour so we can all be richer?


2- Institute a single payer healthcare system. Obamacare is rolling closer and closer, and more and more people are seeming to have problems with it. I will save this for another post


3- Guaranteed minimum wage, regardless of employment. Awesome! I'm quitting my job and hoping to get that minimum wage raised up even higher. This money is obviously coming from....o wait....I'm not actually sure where it's coming from.

4- Free college education. Screw this! If everyone makes $20 per hour, why go to college?


5- Ending the fossil fuel economy while "bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand". I'm not exactly sure where to even start here. First of all, solar power is actually a long way from being effective (see Solyndra). Second, I see no fast track way of ending the ENTIRE FOSSIL FUEL ECONOMY. Let's see....that encompasses....uh...yeah just about everything.


6-One trillion dollars in infrastructure spending.


7- One trillion dollars in ecological restoration, as well as shutting down all of the nuclear power plants.


(Not even worth typing a reply to those above....o wait....oops.)


8- Racial and gender equal rights amendment. See 15th, 19th, 24th and also the 14th Amendments.


9-Open borders migration. I think they actually mean immigration, because we have some pretty free migration already here in the US. Actually, as good as the Border Patrol is, this may be the demand that we could most easily achieve....because we are almost there


10-Bringing American elections up to the "standard" of the rest of the world. I find it amazing that we peacefully transition elected officials every 2-6 years. Are we a perfect system? Nope. Are we the best in the world right now? You bet.

11-Immediate and total debt forgiveness. " "And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period." 


12- Outlawing all credit reporting agencies


13-Allowing workers easier voting access in Union formation or something. I basically had quit reading here.


Actually, there is a post script:


"These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy."


Yup...that is Occupy Wall Street. At the core, people who really have no idea what they want or what they are doing. Don't think they are the 99%.


Of course, that's news for any of us.


That meeting tomorrow night? I can't go...I'm busy working.


Adios