Homeless freeloaders upset those who want to freeload off ‘the rich’

At Occupy Wall Street, protesters have been saying that those with more money should be required to “share” with them. But after weeks of homeless freeloaders “sharing” in the free meals prepared by the protesters, the socialist utopia is already a bit shaky.

Volunteers have been preparing three excellent meals every day for the protesters and word has gotten around among the homeless and professional bums that the way to get a good free meal is to go to Zuccotti Park. So the volunteer cooks got angry and demanded that something be done to keep “those sorts of people” from taking all the food. The irony of the situation seems to have escaped them.

After taking their complaints to the “general assembly” of the protest, the kitchen staff decided to serve nothing but bland and unappealing food for three days — during which time they would provide directions to local soup kitchens in order to get rid of the poor undesirables who are trying to help themselves to food from the community pot.

Socialist systems never work for long. Everything has a cost. When no price is charged, the incentive structure is destroyed. Why provide compensatory value when you can take without giving? That will always be human nature. Homeless people will take from the Occupy Wall Street protesters simply because they want the food. The Occupy protesters will take from “the rich” if they can, simply because others have more than they do. In both cases — the homeless and the protesters — the people doing the taking feel justified in what they’re doing, simply because they feel that “the system” has somehow let them down.

The problem with the protesters is that they’re completely misunderstanding the problems with the system. They point to symptoms and see causes. What’s worse, the cure they prescribe is the pure, unadulterated version of the poison that’s corrupted the economy this far. If faux socialism will get us this far down the path toward ruin, imagine what the real thing can do.

Remember the scene in “Atlas Shrugged” when John Galt walks out of the Twentieth Century Motor Co. after he sees the system that the socialists set up to compensate workers? What the Occupy protesters want is just like what the moochers in the story wanted. The response from us should be the same as what Galt did. It’s time to refuse to produce things for the moochers to steal.