If you are a leftist and Oakland is tired of you, it is most definitely time to go home.

Megan McArdle writes:

Remember all the paranoia about the "violent undertone" at tea party protests? Some of the things happening at a few of these protests is starting to seem like more than an undertone. I would far rather have my neighbor stand outside his house with a gun, then have him lob fireworks at my house, or get a bunch of his friends to cordon off my house so they could "arrest me". The tea party were demonstrating in a combined space and making life a little hot for legislators. These people are roaming around in mobs, damaging property and repeatedly clashing with the police. And no, I'm afraid I don't think that this is because the police are biased against left wing protesters; I think it's because the tea partiers stayed within the law.


Perhaps I am overreacting, but the events in Oakland seem to suggest that some faction of that group, at least, is not trying to work change within the system; they're trying to take over bits of it by force. Camping in a public park is a harmless extension of one's public rights. Barricading ports, shutting down streets, breaking into buildings, and setting bonfires . . . these are not.

I think that goes too far for most people. It certainly does for me. And the latest poll from Quinnipiac seems to indicate that the growing public disorder is costing them the high levels of support they once enjoyed. A few weeks ago, a Time poll showed that Occupy Wall Street had about twice as much public support as the tea party. Now their unfavorables are higher than their favorables, and both are only a few points better than the tea partiers. Among independents, they're indistinguishable.