Recently in Public Order Category

Rudy Giuliani has this article in the City Journal.

Wilson's idea [Broken Windows, with George Kelling] was a revelation and a reversal of the conventional wisdom up to that point. The dominant liberal theories told us that if we provided more social services to the poor, perhaps crime would get better. But Wilson suggested that instead we turn our attention to providing a better and cleaner place to live, raising the expectations of the community by improving the quality of life--and that then crime would decline.

And it did.

Last October, I noted in this post on the occupy movement, "I actually agree with a few of the protestors' positions....   But why does anyone think extended occupation of public spaces is an effective way to achieve anything?"

Today the USA Today editorial page, which I don't often agree with, has this:

When the "Occupy" movement was launched last year, it garnered considerable attention and enthusiasm. Labor unions, in particular, were amazed at how Occupy managed to put Wall Street institutions on the defensive, something the liberals had been trying to do for years.

But with the recent clearing of encampments in Washington, D.C.-- one of the last cities in which they still existed -- a movement that came in with a bang appears to be going out with a whimper. Future political operatives might view it as a case study in how not to organize a lasting movement.

SF Chrontrarian Debra Saunders has this column on the further degeneration of Occupy Oakland:

Occupy Oakland protesters broke into City Hall on Saturday, sprayed graffiti, toppled a historic model of City Hall and children's artwork, stole and then burned an American flag, sprayed graffiti and otherwise trashed the people's building. Police arrested about 400 people. Mayor Jean Quan likened the activists' behavior to "a tantrum," as she complained Occupy activists have been treating the city "like a playground."

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hear from District of Columbia officials and the National Park Service next Tuesday during a subcommittee hearing titled "McPherson Square: Who Made the Decision to Allow Indefinite Camping in the Park?"

Full announcement is here.

Well, if neither rain nor sleet nor pepper spray nor common sense is enough to convince the occupiers that long-term occupation of public places is a bad idea, maybe this will do it.  Annie Gowen writes in the WaPo's Post Now Blog:

The rat population around the two Occupy D.C. camps at McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza has "exploded"since protesters began their vigil in October, according to Mohammad N. Akhter, the director of the District's Department of Health.

Akhter said in an interview Monday that city health inspectors have seen rats running openly through both camps and spotted numerous new burrows and nests underneath hay-stuffed pallets occupiers are using for beds. Both campsites had working kitchens for weeks until last week, but protesters at McPherson Square voluntarily closed down theirs after health inspectors pointed out unsanitary conditions during an informal monitoring visit.

I generally look with disdain on the Black Friday shopping madness and make a point of avoiding it, but this year it did have redeeming social value in, of all places, San Francisco.  Kevin Fagan reports in the Chron:

Bargains and a pretty holiday tree trumped politics Friday night.

Occupy SF activists had hoped to keep shoppers out of downtown San Francisco stores to protest corporate greed, but no matter how hard they yelled, shoppers shoved right on by.

You can defy police, mayors, and assorted other authority figures and sometimes get away with it, but try to stand in the way of Black Friday shoppers, and you just get swatted like a fly.

Just how low can the Occupy [Whatever] movement sink?  CBS New York reports:

Some grade school students were forced to walk a gauntlet of screaming "Occupy Wall Street" protesters just to get to school on Thursday.

It was a wild day in lower Manhattan for most everyone involved, including elementary school children who had to brave the mayhem just to get to class on the other side of Wall Street.

In the middle of thousands of protestors yelling and chanting -- some kicking and screaming - CBS 2's Emily Smith found little school kids trying to get to class. Nervous parents led them through the barriers on Wall Street. The NYPD helped funnel the children, anything to ease their fears while some protestors chanted "follow those kids!"

"These guys are terrorists, yelling at little kids," one father said.

Thanks to James Taranto, WSJ, for the link.

The WSJ notes in an editorial today on the Occupy [Whatever] movement, "And so, one by one, they are being evicted now. In Oakland, Portland, Salt Lake, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, and not least, our two favorites--Occupy Youngstown and Occupy Whitehorse, Yukon (with which, conceivably, there might have been broad sympathy)."

On the front page of the WSJ there is a news story on the New York eviction, but the accompanying picture (apparently not online) is priceless.  An occupier holds a sign saying, "Please help.  Beaten and arrested last night.  Came home to an empty park.  Lost everything.  P.S. I love you." (All caps omitted.)  "Home" you say?  By what right do you make a park your home?  Empty park?  Surely you had to know that it would be cleared eventually.  Lost everything?  Why were you foolish enough to take anything of value there?  Was your goal to confirm that the occupiers are the whining, spoiled brats that many persons of sense have thought they were all along?  Congratulations.  You succeeded.

James Taranto considers Bloomberg's actions "better late than never."  "'Health and safety conditions became intolerable,' the New York Times quotes the mayor as saying--though why it took him two months to figure that out is left unexplained."

Yet there may be value, intended or not, in the delay.  It is suggested in this column by SF Chrontrarian Debra Saunders.

In an epic battle that illuminates how far things have gone, two groups are battling for "ownership" of a Sacramento public park. 

On the one side are our new friends, the Occupy X movement (X being anywhere without the backbone to expel them, which evidently means everywhere).  I can't tell  who exactly is in this movement, but I gather it's an amalgam of so-called students who applied for a boatload of loans and now demand the right to welsh on them; dopers; small time criminals (small time so far, anyway); and  people who think police cars and local homeowners' doorsteps are Porta-Potties.

The surprise is the group now speaking out in opposition.  Although the Occupy X movement got its start opposing "corporate greed" and speaking up for the little guy, the opposition turns out to be.....the little guy. 

Specifically, the group in opposition are a bunch of vagrants (in modern lingo, the "homeless") who had previously had the park to themselves.  Here's the story.

P.S.  Hey Kent, good luck getting to work.

P.P.S.  Our friends at Powerline are doing a fantastic job covering the Occupy X movement around the country.  See their descriptions, e.g., here, here and here.

In case you were wondering, there are persons of sense left in Oakland.  Chip Johnson writes in the SF Chron:

I'm one of the Oakland residents who paid for the renovation of Frank Ogawa Plaza outside Oakland City Hall, and now another group wants to claim it and rename it.

They're trying to be the new bosses, telling me where I need to go, who I need to talk with and what I really need to be doing.

I've had it.

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan doesn't have the chutzpah to say it, so I will: Get off of my lawn.

*                                   *                              *

The collective tantrum known as the "occupy" movement continued its counterproductive activities in Oakland.  Jill Tucker, Carolyn Jones, and Will Kane have this story in the SF Chron.  Here is my favorite part:

About 5 percent of city employees called in to say they would be taking either an unpaid furlough or paid vacation day, officials said. Head Start programs, which remain open, are among the most disrupted of city functions because the ratio of children to teachers is high, officials said.

Right.  To protest corporate greed and the real or imagined predations of the richest 1%, you disrupt an education program for poor children.  That makes a lot of sense.

In New York, Mother Nature has stepped where Mayor Bloomberg lacks the backbone.  Alex Kline reports in New York Magazine:

A couple weeks ago in this post, I asked rhetorically, regarding the occupy [whatever] movement, even one agrees with some of their aims, "why does anyone think extended occupation of public spaces is an effective way to achieve anything?"

Somebody who agrees with the protesters to a much greater degree than I do is the leftist mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan.  Yet apparently she and other city officials have had it with the encampment outside city hall.  Matthai Kuruvila, Justin Berton, and Demian Bulwa report for the SF Chron:

Former Clinton pollster Douglas Schoen has a warning for Democrats about embracing the occupiers:

Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.

At City Journal, an LAPD officer reflects on "what London can learn from Los Angeles--and vice versa."