Mayor Bloomberg has finally disbanded the Occupy Wall Street Movementfrom its headquarters in lower Manhattan, calling the 3-month-oldprotest a "health and fire safety hazard."
The bigger story: What took him so long?
Bloomberg's bizarre dance with the Occupy Wall Street protestersover the past months will certainly rank among low points of histenure in office, and it goes beyond the notion that a mayor who'sprimary responsibility in office is public safety seemed to ignore forfar too long that the area in lower Manhattan where the protestersoccupied was anything but safe.
The bigger reason was his absurd pretense for allowing protesters tooccupy Zuccotti Park in the first place. Mayor Bloomberg has framed itas a Libertarian-First Amendment rights issue without recognition thatsuch rights have had and always have limits, particularly when theycollide with the rights of others.
And OWS movement's right to protest began colliding with the rights ofothers just about from the day it began.
Of course, you didn't hear too much about the dark side of life downat Zuccotti Park; most of the media viewed the rabble of Marxists,drug dealers andvagrants that assembled in lower Manhattan as a peaceful movement ofyoung people voicing much needed criticism of the banks. It was as ifthe reporters and commentators making such statements never steppedfoot in Zuccotti Park because if they did, what was unmistakably cleareven aside from the flags of Che and Marxist literature, was the waftof marijuana in air, the constant banging of drums, the stench ofliving in a public park without proper sanitation and increasingviolent nature of the "peaceful" protesters.
For three months, Bloomberg relieved himself of the burden of dismantling thismess because as unwholesome as the occupants might be, he explained, the U.S.Constitution protected their right of free speech, ignoring that suchrights have and have always had certain limits.
Those limits usually center on how "rights" to do and say certainthings cease being protected rights when they affect the rights ofothers. There are of course grey areas; the Founding Fathers mighthave written the Constitution to allow flag burning but doing so inthe name of inciting a riot, and destroying public property and peacein the process, would cross the line.
And for much of the protesters' occupation of Zuccotti, there have beenfew grey areas. Consider the following: many people might thinkZuccotti is owned by the City and thus it's public land open to publicprotest.
But it's not. Zuccotti is owned by Brookfield Properties, a privatecompany, and you don't have to be an expert in constitutional law torecognize that only under extreme circumstances (eminent domain beingone of them) can government seize private property for the publicgood.
Does Mayor Bloomberg really believe OWS is so much a public good thatthe rights of the park's owners should be trampled on?
Then there's the rights of everyone else: The people and theirchildren who live in the increasingly residential lower Manhattan (note to protesters: Most of the big Wall Street firms have moved tomidtown), the people who own businesses in the area, and anyone whomay want to voice a word of opposition.
In essence these folks had no rights during the past three months ofprotests. People who lived in the area were subjected to constantnoise, public urination, drug dealing and sexual assaults literally intheir back yards. Business owners were forced to accept the fact thatrestrooms for their customers were now deemed through mayoral inactionthe restrooms for the protesters.
And anyone with enough guts to voice his or her outrage at theprotesters' barely discernable message, namely that capitalism is anevil economic system, were quickly shouted down, or as one man who hadthe gall to take photos of the "peaceful" protesters found, smashed inthe face.
On one hand it's good that Mayor Bloomberg finally recognized that OWShad ceased being a protest but a crisis that needed to be dealt with.On the other, you've got to wonder what crazy interpretation of the U.S.Constitution did he rely on to allow it to fester for so long.