Bowie’s Point:
The Occupy Wall Street movement has undeniably riled relatively dormant rich-poor tensions.
The self-styled Occupiers’ rallying call is that they represent the 99 percent of Americans that have been cheated by the top one percent of Americans. They believe that they are entitled to everything that America has to offer: a college education, a high-paying job, and a house; and that the rich have taken away these things by misusing the financial system. What they do not understand is that they were never promised and never had an unalienable right to those things. America has never been a land of entitlement; it has been a land of opportunity.
Our ancestors did not till the Great Plains, dam the mighty Colorado and create a powerful union from sea to shining sea just so a selected few would feel privileged to have what so many have worked so hard for. We must understand that the promise of America is the opportunity to achieve great things, not the right to. Sadly, even the opportunity to attain the aforementioned list is beginning to close. Americans’ economic freedom, how government can restrict economic relations between individuals, has fallen from first in the world in 1995 to ninth today.
This means that fewer and fewer Americans have the ability to move out of poverty while more and more go into it. While this continues, we risk creating a permanent American underclass that has no hope for themselves or their children of escaping poverty. The solution to this problem is not the higher taxing of the rich, the end of corporate bonuses or the destruction of financial firms like the Occupiers say it is.
Our leaders must forge a plan, based upon the backbone of American success, personal responsibility, that allows for individuals to lead themselves to success. If that plan includes more federal student loans, so be it, if it includes reforming the tax code and the welfare system, so be it, but let us not misconstrue the success of the one percent as a result of wrongdoing by the one percent.
Ferguson’s Counterpoint:
Imagine if every Marshall High School student refused to attend Learn and instead left a class of their choice for an hour. It would not matter why students oppose the new Learn policy but the administration would have to change the policy just because of the size of the protest.
The Occupy Wall Street Movement presents the same possibility of social change simply because of the size of the movement and its spread over the entire country. With its growth comes political influence, as policy makers clamoring for public support will appeal to the protesters. Ultimately, the protests will succeed in causing social change to US domestic policy.
Every successful protest has had numbers on its side, rather than political unity. The Tea Party for example, may have been united in their desire to reduce deficit spending but were divided on the means to do so. Nevertheless, the Tea Party’s ability to gather thousands in support caused a major political upset within the Republican Party. In 2010 alone, 138 Tea Party-supported candidates won seats in Congress.
The Occupy Wall Street movement could have similar affects on the democratic process due to its tremendous size as well as its united opposition against American wealth disparity. The percentage of public support amongst voting adults for the Occupy Wall Street movement has already surpassed that of the Tea Party. Moreover, Nancy Pelosi’s and several other Democratic Congressional representatives have pledged their support to the move indicating that the Occupy movement has already gained significant influence within Congress.
Obviously, the United States is a democracy and as a democracy, it will appeal to majority’s values and demands. As Occupy grows in support domestically and internationally, policy-makers will heed their demands as a means to retain their positions in Congress. This even more true now, as positive opinion of Congress has reached a new low.