In the past few weeks, Herman Cain has gone from being an obscure candidate to a bona fide contender for the Republican nomination. Many talking heads attribute his surge to the simplicity and elegance of his “9-9-9” tax proposal and “Chilean Model” for social security reform.

However, Cain has been trumpeting these plans for months and barely moved in the polls, until the Occupy Wall Street movement started to pick up steam in the last month. On October 5, Cain said, “If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself!” Cain represents the traditional American approach of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps which is fueling his rise.

Cain has been catching a lot of flak from the mainstream media for criticizing the Occupy Wall Street movement which consists of unemployed college students, money sucking unions, low skilled workers and an assortment of other leftists who are trying to channel the spirit of Karl Marx who wrote in 1848, “Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.”

By the looks of some of these unwashed hippies, the group should change their slogan to “Deadbeats of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your handouts.” These protesters are complaining about high levels of student debt, a lack of jobs and high corporate profits, and see Wall Street as the source of all their woes.

Well, guess what, deadbeats? It is not Wall Street’s fault that you decided to major in something like women’s stud­ies and take out $200,000 in loans to pay for it instead of majoring in something that would give you marketable skills such as engineering, computer science or econom­ics. It is not Wall Street’s fault that you decided to take out a $700,000 mortgage when you make $7,000 a year. Employment is not a right, it is a privilege. Retirement is not a right, it is a privilege. You were the one who made these stupid decisions, so you are the one who has to suffer the consequences.

To the clowns protesting that their tax dollars were used to fund Wall Street bailouts, most of you make up the 50 percent who free ride by paying no federal income taxes. If you want to be a leech, you have every right to be. However, you should sit there and suck off the 50 percent of hardworking Americans who pay taxes and shut up like a good leech instead of bashing the people who allow you to live your lazy and unproductive lifestyle. Herman Cain is rising to the top of the polls because he is the antithesis of the leeches who are protesting. Mr. Cain comes from a very humble back­ground. You could even say that he is part of the 99 percent that the Occupy Wall Street loons claim to identify with. His father worked three jobs as a chauffeur, barber and janitor. Mr. Cain paid his way through college and instead of majoring in something useless such as sociology, he pursued a degree in mathematics and then a master’s degree in computer science.

Herman Cain did not look for a government handout or begrudge the success of the rich. He stayed focused, worked hard and rose to the top of the corporate ladder when he became CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. The Herman Cain experience is refreshing to the millions of Americans who followed the same path to get their slice of the American Dream, and for this is he has seen a 20 percent jump in the polls.

Now, many will say that this view is coldhearted and that the Herman Cain story would not be possible in today’s America due to income inequality. This is utterly false. The Ameri­can Dream is alive and well today. However, many of our own citizens choose not to pursue it. The thousands of immigrants who come to this country every year with nothing in their pockets but who work hard and flourish are the true Americans among us. How can someone come to this country with nothing in his pockets and succeed, but our own citizens, who have been given every advantage in the world, cannot?

I feel bad for the people who live in third world countries and have to live in gutters. I feel bad for the millions of children in Africa who are forced to watch their parents die of AIDS. However, I do not, and will not have sympathy for lazy Americans who have been given every advantage in the world but choose instead to be unproductive members of society. In the words of Marie Antoinette, “Let them eat cake.”

Contact Kyle Gavin at [email protected].