While I have tried to be sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street (and about everywhere else) movement, the problem I have with it is fundamental in nature. No, it is not the anti-capitalism that seems to underlie it or even the fact that Obama and Michael Moore are trying to get allied with it.

No, the fundamental problem as I see it is that the vast majority of people on that movement have no idea at all as to what a free society might be. They have no reference point at all, none. Since the Progressive Era of 100 years ago, virtually ALL education, both government and private, has undertaken to destroy the idea of all the aspects of liberty and especially the fundamental point that the State is oppressive and needs to be restrained. Instead, people are taught — and seem to believe — that an all-powerful state will make them free.

Instead, the vast majority of people in the Occupy movements believe that the problem they face is that there is too much private property and private enterprise. Forget their aversion to “crony capitalism;” they don’t want ANY kind of capitalism.

Instead, the call for taxpayers to pay ALL of their college education expenses, for more subsidies in life, and for the immediate end of the use of oil, coal, and natural gas. This hardly is the stuff of a “freedom movement.” Instead, it is a movement that, as Anthony Gregory correctly pointed out, EMPOWERS the ruling classes.

If anyone can correct me, that is fine. I’m always anxious to learn, but given that the vast majority of people in the Occupy crowds have not a mental clue as to the aspects of liberty and, yes, private property, I don’t see anything good coming from these people in the long run.