So far, the only major accomplishment of the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters is that they have finally put an end to their previous initiative, “Occupy Our Mothers’ Basements.”

Oddly enough for such a respectable-looking group — a mixture of adolescents looking for a cause, public sector union members, drug dealers, criminals, teenage runaways, people who have been at every protest since the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, Andrea Dworkin look-alikes, people 95 percent of whose hair is concentrated in their ponytails and other average Democrats — they can’t even explain what they’re protesting.

The protesters either treat inquiries about their purpose as a trick question, or — worse — instantly rattle off a series of insane causes: “No. 1, abolish capitalism; No. 2, because 9/11 was an inside job; No. 3, because Mumia is innocent …”

Curiously, the only point universally agreed upon by the protesters and their admirers in the Democratic Party and the mainstream media is that “Occupy Wall Street” should be compared to the tea party. Yes, that would be the same tea party that has been denounced and slandered by the Democratic Party and the mainstream media for the last three years.

As a refresher: The Democratic National Committee called the tea partiers “angry mobs” and “rabid right-wing extremists.” ABC said they were a “mob.” CNN accused them of “rabble rousing.” Harry Reid called them “evil mongers.” Nancy Pelosi said they were “un-American.” CNN’s Anderson Cooper and every single host on MSNBC called the tea partiers a name that referred to an obscure gay sex act.

But apparently liberals couldn’t even convince themselves that tea partiers were an extremist group unworthy of emulation.

At least they’re embarrassed about what the OWS protesters really are: wingless, bloodsucking and parasitic. This is the flea party, not the tea party.

Contrary to all the blather you always hear about how lawless street protests and civil disobedience are part of the American tradition — “what our troops are fighting for!” — they are not. We are an orderly people with democratic channels at our disposal to change our government.

The very reason we have a constitutional republic is because of a mob uprising. Soon after the American Revolution, Shays’ Rebellion so terrified and angered Americans that they demanded a federal government capable of crushing such mobs.

For nearly 200 years, Americans understood that they lived in a country capable of producing bad politicians and bad policies, but which was subject to change through peaceful, democratic means. There was no need to riot or storm buildings because we didn’t have a king. We had a representative government.

Even when injustice existed, there were constitutional mechanisms to right wrongs.

For nearly a century after the Civil War, congressional Republicans kept introducing bills that implemented the civil rights amendments — only to be blocked by segregationist Democrats. But then, attorney Thurgood Marshall came along and began winning cases before the Supreme Court, redeeming black Americans’ constitutional rights through the judiciary.

As long as a Republican sat in the White House, those victories were enforced. In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock, Ark., to walk black children to school in defiance of the segregationist, Democratic governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus — Bill Clinton’s friend.

This is what our Constitution was designed for: to use the force of the federal government to uphold the law when the states couldn’t (Shays’ Rebellion) or wouldn’t (segregationist Democrats).

If Richard Nixon had won the 1960 election instead of John F. Kennedy — as some say he did — there never would have been a need for Rosa Parks, the Freedom Rides and the rest of the civil disobedience of the civil rights movement.

But as soon as the Democrats got control of the White House, enforcement of the Supreme Court’s civil rights rulings came to a grinding halt. Democrats were free to violate the Court’s rulings without interference from Democratic presidents.

The ingenious system given to us by our founding fathers faltered on the morally corrupt obstructionism of Democrats. They simply refused to abide by the rules — with glee at the state level, and with cowardice at the federal level.

Here, finally, was an appropriate case for nonviolent protest. There hasn’t been another justification for civil disobedience in this country until the Supreme Court invented a “right” to abortion in Roe v. Wade — another act of lawlessness by liberals.

(All this and more is detailed in the smash best-seller, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America !)

Now liberals compare their every riot, every traffic blockage, every Starbucks-window-smashing street protest to the civil rights movement –- which was only necessary because of them. These “Occupy Wall Street” ignoramuses seem to imagine they are blacks living in 1963 Alabama under Democratic governor George Wallace.

To the contrary, the Wall Street protesters have no specific objections and no serious policy proposals in a country that is governed, as Abraham Lincoln put it, “by the people.” They protest because they enjoy creating mayhem, not because any law is being ignored or their rights violated by government officials.

They are not in the tradition of the tea partiers, much less our founding fathers. They are not in the tradition of the civil rights movement or Operation Rescue. They are in the tradition of Shays’ Rebellion, the Weathermen and Charles Manson.

COPYRIGHT 2011 ANN COULTER

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