Redefining ‘Occupy’: Do Indecent Exposure, Rape, and Theft Fit in the #OWS Movement?

Originally posted at BIG Government

Apparently, liberals have a problem differentiating the literal meaning of certain words. Either that, or they feel comfortable altering meanings to accommodate things they say they stand for but would rather not actually have to live out.

#OccupyWallStreet began as movement for economic justice but has grown into a situation where demonstrators appear to be confused about what the movement and the word “occupy” actually means.

As thousands of uninvited progressives take to the highways and byways to inhabit places like Wall Street, Cleveland, Hartford, and Seattle, the same tendency to accommodate amorphous definitions of the word “occupy” seems to be infiltrating a nationwide liberal movement.

Growing numbers of protesters are taking a stand against greed, corporate wealth and economic inequity.   Yet amongst marchers who demonstrate to uphold sharing and caring in Tarpaulin Towns springing up across America, there are some who are exhibiting counterproductive behavior.

The fact that some of these people are confused is understandable. One meaning of the word “occupy” is to “engage the attention or energies of someone else.”  That definition may explain what a fellow in Seattle, accused of indecent exposure, did on the five occasions he performed lewd acts in front of children.  Being a participant in the “Occupy Seattle” protests, the offender may have mistakenly interpreted “occupy” to mean “engage the attention” of 13-year-old girls on a swing set.  Or could it be that the alleged offender was just engaging energies better left unseen by those around him?

The same could be said for free-spirited activists on the streets of New York City who have let their freaky fairness-flags fly by dispensing used condoms and human excrement alongside police cars and on street corners and engaging “the attention of others” by exposing innumerable pairs of “sinfully bare breasts.”

The official term “occupy” also includes the act of “taking up a place or extent in space,” which could explain what happened in Cleveland when a 19-year-old girl, after demonstrating against corporate greed, was told by event coordinators to share a space with a fiscal fairness activist named Leland “due to a shortage of tents.”

As the old saying goes, “Occupy can mean one thing to one person and something else to Leland,” and who’s to tell Leland his definition is wrong? So allegedly Leland “took up,” so to speak, with his tent-mate against her will, and after the sleepy, satiated suspect had occupied her private space by force, he “slept in a sleeping bag” provided compliments of the “sharing the wealth” rally.

As a result, the “sexual assault incident in [Cleveland’s] Public Square,” which Leland evidently understood to be “occupying” is now “being classified as a “kidnapping/rape.”

What discussion about comparative interpretations of a word like “occupy” would be complete without discussing Shawn Coleman, the infamous agitated “Occupy Hartford” activist who was arrested for brandishing a knife when asked to share a blanket in “Turning Point” Park’s canopy tent town.  Maybe when it comes to blankets, Shawn takes the word “occupy” literally, which to some means “to take or hold possession or control of.”

The same holds true for the “occupiers” who are presently looting, pillaging, and stealing personal items like computers, cameras, thousands of dollars in monetary donations, and even umbrellas and fold-up beds in Zuccotti Park. It could be that just like the word “truth” can mean different things to different people, to some “occupy” could connote taking hold and possession and control of other people’s personal property, which is what the spirit of the “occupy” movement is all about anyway, isn’t it?

Let’s face it, occupiers have quite the role model in Barack Obama, the Occupier-in-Chief is presently attempting to, albeit poorly, perform the functions of the office and position of President according to how he loosely interprets documents like the US Constitution.

It appears as if the President of the United States and the group he proudly identifies with have difficulty differentiating between “residing in as an owner or tenant” on both Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and desecrating, dishonoring, and seizing public property.

Thus, the definition of “occupy” has been reduced to a cacophony of definitions, including having “creepy thugs…running from warrants” looking for “cheap drugs and free food” and a place to be “fed, get wasted and crash.”

The chant “Occupy, occupy, occupy” is now being misused as an opportunity to rape, plunder and partake of “free chow” in the form of $16-a-pound smoked salmon and cream cheese.

With that in mind, someone needs to inform the 99% demonstrators that “occupying” doesn’t mean stealing the innocence of children, forcibly occupying the bodies of young women against their will, divvying up fellow occupiers’ personal possessions without permission, or knifing a person because he or she wants to share a tent and a blanket.

31 Comments

  1. Your hatred and narrow-mindedness betray your fundamental insecurity with our changing world. Hence your conservatism. Unfortunately for you, and quite paradoxically, your insecurity is actually justified. Why do I say this? We, those are who working against your failure of imagination to improve the political and economic situation in this country, are left to handle the fact of your insecurity. All the more evidence of how badly our voices need to be heard.

    You accuse liberals of weighing down society. But your armchair criticisms do nothing. If you have a job, you are probably under-performing and wasting an opportunity to espouse the free market nonsense you claim to believe it. If you did believe it, you and others would be losing your jobs to those who are protesting and occupying, because they are more educated, and more importantly more aware than you are.

  2. Well you aren’t more educated than me, I’ll be happy to compare my credentials and brainpan with yours.

    As a lifelong conservative, I’ve always taken a more difficult path in life. I lived through the recession in the early 80’s and then again post 9/11, as well as other dips in the economy. I’ve always seen these normal cyclical movements as opportunities rather than setbacks as you seem to have.

    Yes, opportunities. When times get tough, its a great time to go back to school or start a business since costs are low. In short, its a great time to reinvest in oneself.

    I’ve never accepted government help nor plan to. I put myself through 2 college degrees, working three jobs (including scrubbing toilets), taking night classes, and taking 8 years to get it done. When I started my business (s) I saved up to get it going. When times got tough, I slept on friend’s sofas and worked for lousy wages or took on roommates to make ends meet. In short, I did for myself, and did it without complaint.

    People who take government money then complain about the hand that feeds them are the worst kind of ingrates IMHO. Yes, our government needs work, and the Occupy people are absolutely right that crony capitalism is damaging our nation– the big box companies are too many and the small shopkeepers are too few.

    But sitting on street corner with a sign and pontificating with big words in comment section isn’t going to fix it. What is going to fix it is getting involved with the election process, finding good candidates to replace the lousy ones and then voting them into office, and then holding them accountable at the ballot box every election.

    You talk about armchair criticism; instead you should be complaining about the street corner critics who are quickly becoming pawns of more powerful and more savvy political interests.

    Last point– when you make comments with aphorisms and expanded phrasing you do not seem more profound. Instead, it makes you look like your argument is about yourself rather than the issues at hand.

  3. Julie

    Dear Kyle,

    Huh?

    Forgive me, but in your effort to show the world what an intellectual giant you are (and I’m trembling as we converse); you have effectively demonstrated that you are, indeed, quite unaware of anything but others’ perceived insecurities. Instead of telling us how you’re so educated and aware, would you mind stating something meaningful???

    On second thought, don’t bother. I have to go earn my paycheck (which isn’t large, but I am grateful for it and for my job), and feed my family.

  4. John Luke

    Chances are that if you are posting your thoughts on here, you are not the bomb throwing variety of protester, but just a sophomoric, misguided clown. Did mommsy and daddsy somehow faaaaiill u? Oh that bad, bad capitalism. Grow up! Get a job!

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