TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

There was an Occupy Bakersfield demonstration at Truxtun and Chester on Nov. 17. It was nothing like Occupy Wall Street or Occupy Oakland. It was an orderly crowd expressing discontent in a civil manner.

I have to say I have lots of affinity for many of Occupy Bakersfield's complaints. One sign said, "Banks No; Credit Unions Yes." Utilizing member owned and operated cooperative credit unions over global investor-owned profit-driven banks seems like a great idea to promote.

But credit unions are not a complete answer simply because they cannot competitively serve all the needs of people who use financial services. A more realistic approach might be, "Credit Unions Yes; Banks If You Have To."

Another sign read, "End Legal Corruption." I'm not sure exactly what "legal corruption" means. It seems like the protesters were mainly upset at really big businesses gaming the system.

But legal corruption isn't limited to business. We need to be sure we always actively resist corruption in business and government through legal and political processes.

In particular, we should shun the collusion of politicians and businesses that allows them to enrich each other. Some of us may coincidentally be swept up in the tide of growing wealth, but the situation is patently corrupt.

One sign was emblazoned with four great contemporary buzzwords: healthcare, jobs, education and pensions. I'm for all four! Let's be honest though. From the individual's perspective three consume wealth and only one builds wealth.

The controversy isn't over whether as a society we should embrace and foster healthcare, jobs, education and pensions -- it is how we should do it.

No one argues that improvements in healthcare and education aren't necessary. But is greater government control the right approach? Government delivery of education has provided us with a wealth of data that can help us answer that question. And it's not encouraging.

In regard to jobs and eventually retirement, what role should government play? The mere fact that we regularly hear "insolvency" and "Social Security" in the same sentence leads me to believe more government is not necessarily better.

As we've seen over the past three years simple government intervention is not enough to kindle job growth. An infusion of money by the government from outside the economy doesn't have the same impact circulation of money within the economy does.

It's no surprise that on many issues Occupy and the Tea Party would agree on the problem. But as their names suggest the solutions reside in vastly different political approaches.

By calling the demonstrations "occupations," the Occupy movement has revealed its character.

Occupation implies conquest and control of a weaker group by a more powerful one.

Occupation rarely brings with it peace, prosperity and security. It almost always brings abuse of the occupied, instability and an impotent puppet regime incapable of serving its citizens.

Occupation as a means of protest is always disruptive and contemns others' rights to carry out their daily activities or to utilize their property.

Occupy holds many ideas that are out on the social and political fringes. Therefore, our representative government does not embrace them.

So Occupy demands a response by bullying the civil society. As we have seen recently, irresolute politicians failed to protect the people at large as they attempted to manage the protests. Failing leadership, they exacerbated the bedlam of the occupations.

Occupy promotes a progressive philosophy of social democracy by creating a populist narrative of our current distress. The Tea Party approaches the same problems from a conservative point of view invoking the promises and political structure of the Constitution.

The Tea Party is for jobs and education just like the original tea partiers were for consuming tea. The greater issue in 1773 was whether the colonists would choose to resist the sneaky, overreaching monarchy or trade their principles for cheaper tea.

Today the question is: Will we yield individual liberty in order to establish more government programs for healthcare, education, jobs and pensions?

Occupy embraces the social democracy solution. By setting up a context of class conflict, Occupy is pushing us toward a socialist order within which the government will impose solutions to these issues.

I admire the ability of some of the Occupy demonstrators to capture the essence of our current problems. I want to reiterate that the Bakersfield protests have been orderly and civil. But as a political movement Occupy is a contentious, ideologically constrained opponent of the great American principles that have fostered liberty and prosperity.

Perhaps it is time to form a resistance movement to the populist occupation.

Ric Llewellyn is one of three community columnists whose work appears here every Saturday. These are the opinions of Llewellyn, not necessarily The Californian. You can email him at llewellyn.californian@gmail.com. Next week: Heather Ijames.