The District Attorney for San Francisco, Terence Hallinan, although being pressured to do otherwise by residents, business owners and the City Supervisor, Tony Hall, has decided that 2300 protesters who clogged the streets of downtown San Francisco closing businesses and damaging property while expressing their dismay over operations in Iraq should go free without a penalty. No fines. No punishment. Only 20 people out of the multitudes will be prosecuted. Simple economics dictates that those who broke the law should pay their fines, at least and if nothing else.

While the liberal-left run roughshod over their own "Bethlehem”, dictating what laws should be enforced and enacting others that force their beliefs into homes all through the liberal land-o-plenty, they forget that someone has to pickup the tab for their tolerance and leniency. The civil disruption that was displayed on the day after coalition forces began the extrication of Saddam Hussein’s regime and the liberation of the Iraqi people required a massive law enforcement presence. As the day rolled on so the bill for this presence mounted, in overtime, redistribution of manpower, community resources and mutual aid. Now, we see the District Attorney dismissing in mass those whose police reports were "too general to prosecute” regardless of the fact that law enforcement officials on the scene and making the arrests deemed it appropriate to arrest them in the first place. Dismissed "in the name of justice,” Assistant District Attorney Mike Menesini, said. So, without even a fine they walk free to mull their options. Many will consult with lawyers no doubt in order to file a few dozen more nuisance lawsuits to clog up the system.

At least two things are wrong with this.

First, this sets a precedent that would allow people to openly break the law in mass but have no responsibility for their actions. This is typical of the liberal-left. In their minds we should all be free to do what we want, when we want and do it all in the name of freedom, the freedom from responsibility. How could we, the conservative silent majority, the mainstream middle-American work-for-a-living citizens even think of denying these bastions of superior intellectual thought the right to freely express their feelings on any given subject? How dare we! We should be happy that they take these important issues on so that we can be told how to feel about them. I mean really, who better to know about the complex inner workings of the Iraqi social structure than an espresso brewer from the Starbucks fifteen miles out of San Francisco whose head has so many extra holes in it from all the piercings he mimics a lawn sprinkler every time he takes a shower, which isn’t often. These mainstays of human rights should be above the law, above the common ilk that would demand restitution for having a brick tossed through business’ windows, after all, it was in the name of peace, right?

Second, the bill for this display of civil disobedience is quite real and that means that real money has to be paid to real men and women who really had to police, render medical aid and cleanup after this crowd of intellectuals. This is not a small bill. To have fined these idiots, at the very least, would have helped to pay for the cities response to these actions indignant. At a time when the State of California finds itself in an economic crisis that is threatening to bring conservatives to the helm (say it ain’t so, Gray!) the decision to allow those who have broken the law go free without even a fine to show for it is fiscally irresponsible. It is wrong to let those who break the law do so without a price and instead exact that very same price from the law-abiding citizens of the state in the form of taxes. Those who break the law, even those intellectuals who grace the halls of the local coffee houses, have to display civic responsibility. This time around the price for their poorly executed freedom to speak is in the ballpark of $3.5 million.

The New York Times reported that Bobbie Stein, a lawyer with the National Lawyers Guild - the group representing most of the coffeehouse diplomats, said she had been assured by Mr. Hallinan that the District Attorney’s office would not be pursuing these prosecutions. She stated that she believed Mr. Hallinan "realized that the arrested protesters were prepared to fight every effort to prosecute them, even relatively minor infractions such as jaywalking.” Those are strong words coming from the representative of such intellectual powerhouses as those who were stupid enough to be sucked in by an organization that shared office space with local chapter of the Communist Party. But then, I am sure her rhetoric’s lifespan will be reciprocal to the tip-jar money’s existence at idiot-boy’s Starbucks.

Let’s all do the superiorly intellectual coffeehouse pontificators of the Mecca of Left a favor. We can build a great wall all around us so they don’t have to deal with us anymore. This way they can protest themselves into bankruptcy.

Frank Salvato is a political media consultant and the managing editor for The New Media Journal.us. He is a contributing writer for The Washington Dispatch, GOPUSA, OpinionEditorials, Men’s News Daily, Canada Free Press & AmericanDaily. His pieces are regularly featured in Townhall.com. He has appeared as a guest on The O’Reilly Factor, The Kevin Matthews Radio Show (Chicago) and The Brad Messer Radio Show (San Antonio). His pieces have been recognized by the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention and are occasionally featured in The Washington Times and The London Morning Paper as well as other national and international publications.