CNN has an interesting article about the UC Berkeley protesters angry about campus expansion plans, who have been living in the branches of a threatened oak grove for the last eighteen months.
The best bit comes at the end:
Protesters howled, flung excrement and shook tree branches as campus-hired arborists cut supply lines and removed gear.
But by late this week, campus police were conducting delicate negotiations with tree-sitters, offering to provide food and water if protesters would lower their waste on a daily basis in the interest of hygiene.
Campus officials ended up giving up the water without concessions; protesters declined to yield their urine.
If someone were in my house “protesting” my wanting to demolish it, I would give them exactly five minutes to get the hell out and then I would give the signal to the bulldozers to move in and knock down the house. Where in the world do people think they have the right to tell property owners what they can or cannot do with their own property? As I have always said, California is a bowl of granola: what ain’t fruits and nuts is flakes! Cut it off from the rest of the lower 48 and set it adrift!
Joshua, I agree with your sentiments; indeed, an absolute right to do whatever you want with your own property is a recurring theme in my posts. However, as you would probably agree, UC Berkeley isn’t private property. It is a public university, funded at least partly by taxpayer money, so the analogy isn’t wholly appropriate. Note that I am not supporting or denouncing the protesters, but merely pointing out why the house analogy doesn’t exactly apply here.
Living in the Bay Area as I do now it’s amusing to me to see the lengths some people will go to in order to get some attention. It’s pathetically stupid looking when they get shown in the media and their so self involved that they just can’t see how their hurting their own cause.
I mean one of them renamed herself “Dumpster Muffin”…. nuff said!