"Occupy Wall Street" Protesters Evicted from Zucotti Park

COMMENTARY | The "Occupy Wall Street" home base in New York has been evicted from the privately owned Zuccotti Park in an early morning raid by police. The police, acting on an order from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, according to Fox News, cleared the park due to "health and safety conditions" that were deteriorating rapidly during the two-month live-in protest. This comes the day after Occupy groups in California were evicted, and other groups challenged around the country.

The New York police surrounded Zuccotti Park in riot gear, warned the protesters that they needed to leave, and then began rounding up those who refused to comply, including many who chained themselves together. Within hours the National Lawyer's Guild obtained an injunction allowing the protesters to return, but police say that while they will allow a "free speech" area, they will not permit the return of tents. Meanwhile, says The New York Times, many of those evicted that were not arrested proceeded to private property owned by a church, cut holes in a fence with bolt cutters, and once again poured on to private property without permission.

The evictions come after weeks where merchants and citizens around the country have protested the protesters, citing crime, stench, lack of access for others to enjoy the parks and business lost because of blockages caused by the Occupiers.The Occupy movement, while claiming to represent the 99 percent against the 1 percent of rich people, is ostracizing the majority of the average people in the cities they occupy while courting the attentions of ultra-rich celebrities and bankrolling hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. For a group without a leader, it is hard to say who maintains control of these funds and what they are actually being used for, however.

The Tea Party was the original grassroots group of protesters, drawing thousands of like-minded citizens around the country, who were tired of taxation without representation. However, claims Deneen Borelli, unlike the Tea Party protests, which were carried out peacefully, legally and orderly, the Occupiers seem bent on chaos. Though the Tea Party protesters were ridiculed and vilified by the press, they continued to work through the proper channels to elect representatives who understood their focused concerns, and whom are now making their presence felt in Congress. The Occupiers, in contrast, are getting a reputation for occupying private property without permission, have been arrested by the hundreds for disorderly conduct, and are exhibiting increasingly violent behavior such as sexual assaults, robberies and shootings, according to Sunshine State News. Rather than a unified group of average citizens with legitimate concerns, they sometimes appear to be aging hippies staging one last rebellion in memory of their glory days.

Perhaps, as the Occupiers claim, it is a small (statistically speaking) minority causing the problems. If so, the majority needs to find some way to restore their legitimacy. As it is, if the Occupy Wall Street group continues to commit crimes, alienate the surrounding citizenry and act like rebellious children, they will soon go the way of the 60s and the true 99 percent can get down to the business of addressing grievances in our government, balancing our economy and electing leaders that will actually represent the citizens that voted them in to office. Evicting the Occupiers from private property and insisting that they follow the rule of law is a great start to restoring order.