Drawing the line

That managers at Goldman Sachs are scared by a statue that criticizes greed is not surprising. What is disturbing is the presence of Boston police. BPD support for a corporation that participates in the destruction of the middle-class is sad.

But then they are just following orders.

Only who is actually their boss? The public? We who vote into office mayors and city councilors? We who pay the majority of taxes via our property taxes? Or the few highly paid managers of Goldman Sachs, et al., who have no interest nor care for the welfare of the average person? Looking at this photo is appears that the bosses are the overpaid financiers who are - slowly - destroying the foundation of our economy, its middle class.

But then once the Tea Party takes over we all can go to our "happy camps" and drink the special tea that will leave us feeling perfectly happy and content.

-absolutely agree with the comment above in theory, upon further reflection, it falls apart completely.
According to just the picture, it seems the police are blocking the protesters standing in the picture from actually trespassing in the building. Now, if the police just let protesters enter buildings willy-nilly and place whatever they wanted, well, chaos and anarchy would soon follow. While I don't necessarily look down upon chaos and anarchy, we just can't be a civilized society without order. There are plenty of cases where the police have performed complete 'clusterfu&*s, but let's give them the benefit-of-the-doubt and see that they're simply blocking the entrance and allowing protesters to keep their statues and make their statement in a civilized way.
Of course that brings us to the idea that I agree with completely and that is that Goldman Sachs in no way deserves any type of civilized treatment, that's for sure.

The BPD "protecting" Goldman Sachs against the hordes of peaceniks is comical. Defending the BPD as they waste their resources by showing preference to wealthy folks who probably don't even live in Boston is sad.

Delivering the statue of Ghandi hardly qualifies as an attempt of violence against anyone at Goldman Sachs. Dealing with unpleasant situations is why buildings have security. If the folks had attempted to force (i.e., actually use violence - doubtful unless they are closet Tea Partiers) then the BPD presence would be appropriate. Barring actual violence BPD was not needed.

Perhaps the BPD were present to prevent possible violence? If that is the case then the BPD really needs to improve their deployment in the city since apparently they are failing to prevent violence where violence is a probability.

Resources of Boston police are limited. Should they offer unneeded psuedo-protection for people who hire their own security or should the BPD resources be where they are needed to prevent violence?

Folks at Goldman Sachs will do whatever they can get away with. Goldman Sachs is in the business of making customers richer. They are not a social service agency; they are not a philanthropic institution. Their nature and job is to make the most money they can in any way they can accomplish that goal. Making and accumulating money is the nature of their existence. If they have to add security to protect them from what amounts to a moral finger pointing then they should pay for it.

But where the limited of public resources are concerned, such as police, it is the job of the police - our employees - to distribute those resources in ways that benefit the majority of us the most. Wasting those resources protecting people against what amounts to an act of embarrassment embarrasses us the people who pay their salaries.