No thankfulness for the Occupy Wall Street crowd

By Ron HartI think Thanksgiving is the best holiday. Not only for its commercial value (tourists from Pamplona, Spain flock here for the Black Friday door-opening of a Walmart and the ensuing "running of the cows" just so they can brag to friends back home they survived it), but for its premise of being thankful.

Ever since I was promoted from the children's table to the adult table at age 40 (mostly because I fought with the 12-year-olds), I have valued Thanksgiving dinner. And I am proud to say that I no longer fight with children, even if they start it.

I am also proud that we do well together as a family - in short doses - as long as there is plenty of booze around and football on TV. We Hart males are even willing to watch the Detroit Lions just to avoid any family interaction.

The fact that there are family tensions, liquor, a readily accessible carving knife and no physical injuries to date at my family's holiday events shows our abiding love for each other. Either that, or a strong respect for the legal system, cell phone video cameras and the rules of evidence.

Thanksgiving is about family, so we all really need to thank our parents first. If your parents never had children, chances are good that you don't, either. Depending entirely on which day you ask me, I am proud to say that I have two kids, but three total (you know who you are). My kid count is according to their mothers, court documents, and several DNA tests (all hotly contested by the kids).

For some reason they do like to get together on Thanksgiving, mainly because my mother cooks. It is an antiquated custom of the members of her generation, like threshing their own wheat and spending only the money they had.

My mom is proud when she sees the Occupy Wall Street crowd, specifically because none of her kids is there in lower Manhattan's Assault and Battery Park and involved in it. Like most mothers her age, she is not caught up in the politics of OWS. She is only concerned that they have sweaters and are getting enough to eat.

The least thankful of all Americans are the Occupy Wall Street-ers who have skirmished with police. Last week, New York cops elevated their arsenal from pepper spray (protesters had developed immunity to it because being sprayed with mace is how most of their dates ended) to cops on horseback. They were led by Mayor Bloomberg riding a German shepherd and were armed with guns, clubs and water cannons in order to remove the protesters from their Obamaville encampments. I am not a military historian, but I think the NYPD's strengths will match up well against the protesters' hacky sack throwing and STD infections. It could be a bloodbath - or, even worse for the protesters, an actual bath.

We did not become the least popular country in the world just by bombing other countries. If we have learned anything from the French, it is that to be really disliked we have to muster up some arrogance, too. Our poorest 99 percent OWS crowds get to protest and live in New York City (where an acre of land costs $90 million) for free. Our police protect them and we pay to clean up after them. They want to be given what others have earned and, as we feel when confronted with a poorly written college social studies paper, we have no idea what they are saying.

We have a great and bountiful country. Let's call the OWS hate for the rest of us what it really is: envy. If we are going to redistribute anything in this country, it should be the work ethic of the 53 percent who pay all the taxes so these intellectually incoherent layabouts can "occupy" our parks and waste our police force's time and who show themselves to be entirely -- unthankful.

2011 Benjamin Franklin Award Winner!

Ron Hart TO GO

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Ron in a recent appearance on Fox28 (WPGX) program NewsView - with Lee Sullivan