Life, Liberty and the pursuit of property: Delectable quotes from the philosophers of the Olympian's online comments pages

author : Sergei Holmes

by Sergei Holmes

This section is intended to bring up a troubling issue that came about from the port protests. Despite the vast array of testimonials and eyewitness knowledge of injury to humans, the focus rested from a critical portion of the population concerning the threat to property. The feelings of a window and the rights of a trashbin were selected by some as higher than any petty human grievances. This collection of quotes from books, articles and the online comment board from the Olympian website is meant to shed light on the history of our nation’s sanctity to property and how it affects our psyche.

It is warned that some of these online comments from the port events might trigger traumatizing events that happened to those affected by the violence of the police and counter-protesters and should be read with caution. Also, with this in consideration, a lot of extremely disturbing online comments advocating murder of protesters were not even considered for this article.

Private property couldn’t exist without a society that honors and protects it.

Jonathan Rowe, Tomales Bay Institute

These people just want to cause trouble, damage property, cause inconveniences and expenses for citizens, risk injuries to our police force and cause the TAXPAYERS of this city to pay more for police protection.

Hank Dolan, Olympia, letter to the editor, The Olympian, 11/19

Cost of Iraq war to taxpaying citizens of Olympia, WA as of 10/24/2007: $22,700,000

National Priorities Project

No country in the world has a more lively or concerned feeling for property than the United States and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward those doctrines which threaten to impair in any way at all the manner in which property is owned. I have often noticed that theories which are by their nature revolutionary, in that they can be realized only by a complete and sometimes sudden upheaval in the rights of property or the status of persons, are infinitely less to people’s liking in the United States than in the great monarchies of Europe. If they are promoted by a few men, they are rejected with an instinctive horror by the mass of the population.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

And stop illegally blocking our streets before you antagonize the rest of us into mobilized action to make clear that this town does not belong to you! It belongs to all of us.

Oly Native, 11.10.07 - comment on The Olympian website.

Of all the persistent qualities in American history, the values attached to property retain the most power...Disrespect for federal authority did not lead to disrespect for property; on this count, the West was not so wild...If forest fires represented nature beyond management, the loyalty to private property is its corollary in human nature.”

Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest

If you are against the actions of our country, I ask that you get involved by being a registered voter, joining a civic organization, volunteering in your community or running for political office. Throwing rocks, blocking streets and screaming insults is a childish and expensive example of expressing yourself.

Kenyon Lyle, Elma, The Olympian, letter to the editor, 11/19

We were raised to organize our adolescent lives in pursuit of external approval: church awards, athletic scholarships, and college admissions. More than any generation in history, we’ve been signed up, roped in, and overscheduled. When we get to college, many of us rush to join clubs in an attempt to recreate this safe feeling of sanctioned activity, of organized energies, of potential approval by authorities. Our innate passions and spontaneous actions have essentially been bred out of us.

Courtney Martin, “The Problem With Youth Activism”, The American Prospect 11/20/2007

It is ILLEGAL to block the flow of traffic like that. Okay, so they didn’t have enough police, but they do (sic) a clear picture of many of the offenders. Go thru (sic) the picture and identify as many as possible and arrest them. Period!

J | 11.10.07 - 9:14 am Comment on the Olympian website

Fourth, if you want to protest, do it the right way, have facts and do this orderly and follow the laws of the state and the city.

Wayne Jackson, Olympia, 11/20, The Olympian, letter to the editor

Most of our criminal code consists in offenses against property. People are sent to jail because they have committed a crime against property. It is of very little consequence whether one hundred people more or less go to jail who ought not to go — you must protect property, because in this world property is of more importance than anything else.

How is it done? These people who have property fix it so they can protect what they have...Most all of the crimes for which we are punished are property crimes. There are a few personal crimes, like murder — but they are very few. The crimes committed are mostly against property. If this punishment is right the criminals must have a lot of property.

Clarence Darrow, 1902

Private property created crime.

Jenny Holzer, Truisms

I am tired of the port protesters whining that their rights are being trampled when they are trampling on the rights of other citizens to run their businesses...They are falling into a mob mentality that I liken to domestic terrorism. The police did a great job. No one would be getting sprayed if they listened to the officers. Yes you can protest, No you can’t block a public road. It is not your right to break the law.

Without our military they wouldn’t be enjoying the freedoms they have.”

Glenn Richardson, Olympia,The Olympian, letter to the editor, 11/19

PMR should be classified as a domestic terrorist group, since you are the ones sponsoring these protests with the close watchful eye of “uncle TJ”, if you were truly what you’re proclaiming peaceful then you would cease all activities and turn over to the police the names of the anarchists. Protesting is fine this anarchy isn’t. (sic) it is domestic terrorism

Robert | 11.15.07 Comment on the Olympian website

With overwhelming bipartisan support, Rep. Jane Harman’s “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act” passed the House 404–6 late last month and now rests in Sen. Joe Lieberman’s Homeland Security Committee. Swift Senate passage appears certain. Not since the “Patriot Act” of 2001 has any bill so threatened our constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Ralph E. Shaffer and R. William Robinson “Here Come the Thought Police”, The Baltimore Sun 11/19/2007

This whole “Non-Violant” (sic) protesting is a bunch of crap. From what I see here, dumpsters and magazine bins being thrown into the streets, bank windoes (sic) being broken out, police cars windows getting broken out is what normal people call “violant” (sic) protesting!

They really do have a whacked out and distorted view of reality. Actually...maybe they are legally blind because they just didn’t see what the rest of the community sees!! Criminal Activity! I guarantee that if I were to walk down town and bust out the window and disobey an order from the cops, you can bet your sweet ass that I would be tazed, pepper sprayed and whatever “non-lethal” means used to arrest me for BREAKING THE LAW!

This is getting old | 11.15.07 - 4:37 pm Comment on the Olympian website

It’s true on the home front: Part of the power of the police at protests is that each and every police officer (and each and every protester) knows that while one or two unruly protesters may throw a couple of rocks or bottles that bounce off cops’ body armor, if need be the police could, and more importantly would, destroy every last protester.

Derrick Jensen, Endgame Vol. 2, Resistance

The second truck driver who was blocked, Darin Davenport of Tacoma, said he was angry that the protesters were keeping him from doing his job and returning to his wife and children.

“I have kids, too; I need to get home,” he said. “My father was military, so I support the military. It doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere. I’m not going to run anybody over, but I’d like to get home.”

“Protesters stop military transport, delay work” The Olympian 11/10/2007

As capital, the value of the worker varies according to supply and demand, and his physical existence, his life, was and is considered as a supply of goods, similar to any other goods. The worker produces capital and capital produces him. Thus he produces himself, and man as a worker, as a commodity, is the product of the whole process. Man is simply a worker, and as a worker his human qualities only exist for the sake of capital which is alien to him. Since labor and capital are alien to each other, and thus related only in an external and accidental manner, this alien character must appear in human reality. As soon as it occurs to capital—either necessarily or voluntarily—not to exist any longer for the worker, he no longer exists for himself; he has no work, no wage, and since he exists only as a worker and not as a human being, he may as well let himself be buried, starve, etc...The existence of capital is his existence, his life, since it determines the content of his life independently of him.

Karl Marx, Marx’s Concept of Man

These people should be jailed for disrupting these peoples work...They are just doing their jobs. If you don’t like what’s happening go vote (sic) don’t bother people trying to do their jobs.

Jim Bob | 11.10.07 - 9:34 am Comment on the Olympian website

We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.

...The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.”

Albert Einstein, “Why Socialism?” Monthly Review May 1949

Sergei Holmes is a pseudonym for a member of Port Militarization Resistance. He can be reached for his identity at almostbamboozled@yahoo.com