Occupy Idiots

are quickly passing their sell-by date.

Yes. I recognize it’s easy to find obnoxious jerks in a large crowd of people and focus the camera on them. The same thing was done with the Tea Party folk. Zero in on the small clique of nutbars make that the whole story.

But you know? I can’t remember any Tea Party fringe nutbars spattering blood and urine on people in a petulant fit because merchants had cut off free service to ungrateful louts and poltroons. The cultures out of which these two movements emerged are very different ones, though their concerns have a lot of overlap. OWS culture is young, immature, ungrateful, and full of a sense of entitlement apt to boil over into spite at rather minimal offenses. Tea Party culture has a built in sense of civic decorum that tends to pick up its litter, wait for the crosswalk light, and respect other people’s property. If the OWSers can’t police their own they are going to lose a lot of the 99%, which would be a shame since many of their concerns are legit.