By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
To Occupy folks: Quit expecting a free ride
Placeholder Image

Editor, Manteca Bulletin,

I believe in freedom of speech, but is it really freedom of speech when it costs $13 million?

Newscasters announced that it has cost this nation $13 million in overtime costs for the police to patrol the Occupy Movements. Does anyone else think, “what a waste of money?” And this doesn’t take into account all the money that small business has lost because people like me have avoided the areas where the occupy people are protesting.

 It doesn’t take into account all the damage the occupy people are doing to the parks and the buildings around the encampments. Or the loss of wages for the people that work in those areas because they cannot get to work, or if they do, there is little to no business.

It makes me sick to think of all that wasted money. It is money that could have been better spent. You see anyone that has a basic knowledge of economics knows that you can only spend money one time and if you spend it to pay the police you cannot turn around and spend it to feed and house the poor and hungry, you cannot use it for more teachers and firefighters. You cannot use it for libraries or to lower the cost of an education. You cannot use it to beautify our cities. And you cannot use it to help our small business to bring in more business to help our economy.

Not only is the Occupy Movement a waste of money, it is also a huge waste of time. How much better off would our country have been if those people had volunteered their time to do real good? If instead of sitting down to protest and demand rights that our forefathers and the rest of us work our tails off for, they put their talents to work to help the poor and elderly? How about if they volunteer to help in a soup kitchen, help clean up a park, help clean an elder’s home, mow grass, paint, read to a child, etc.? Instead they are behaving like spoiled children who did not get their way so they sit down, scream, and pout. How spoiled is that? Instead of having a temper tantrum, how about becoming a productive part of society? Instead of wasting my taxpayer dollars, do something positive. Quit expecting and demanding a free ride. Become productive.

Linda Silverman
Manteca
Nov. 30, 2011