Mayor Bloomberg last night ordered a long-overdue fumigation of the festering mess at Zuccotti Park — and while the zealots likely will be winging about the decision for months, it remains that the two-month-long demonstration had long since devolved from a principled sit-down into a carnival of contempt both for the law and for common decency.
The action followed crackdowns on Occupy sites around the country — and may well have been prompted by promises of a substantial escalation of the demonstration this Thursday.
Threats to disrupt rush-hour subway service appeared on fliers around Lower Manhattan at the weekend.
Just who was responsible for them wasn’t clear — but even the possibility of such a challenge to public safety had to be taken seriously, given the irresponsible acting out that has accompanied the Zucotti Park demonstration from the outset.
And, a possible subway shutdown notwithstanding, the demonstrators overweening disregard for their neighbors — residential and commercial alike — simply could no longer be tolerated.
Public urination and defecation was a public-health problem from the beginning.
All-night drumming, disruption of local business and sporadic forays out of the park to shut down traffic and such were a 24/7 presence.
Then came the crime.
Reports of rape, sexual abuse and garden-variety assault were fixtures.
Drug-dealing, common theft and fistfights between demonstrators were commonplace, too.
So, enough.
Again, such anti-social behavior was not unique to New York City.
Occupy sites across the nation reported similar crimes — rape and assault among them — and at least four demonstrators were reported dead under suspicious circumstances.
At least one was a gunshot victim.
Thus it’s not surprising that mayors around the country have ordered house-cleanings not dissimilar to what Bloomberg undertook last night.
No doubt they, too, will be met by the usual platoons of civil-liberties lawyers and hand-wringing enablers in the nation’s newsrooms.
But the fact is that no right — the First Amendment included — is absolute.
The “occupiers” of Zuccotti Park and their counterparts elsewhere have had plenty of opportunity to get their points across.
To argue, as some have, that there can be no time limits on freedom of speech is specious nonsense.
Others have rights, too, and it is not unreasonable that they be respected.
Mayor Bloomberg did that last night.
Good for him.