Even if the weather is chilly and the tourists are gone, downtown Coeur d'Alene could be pretty interesting tomorrow.

The "Occupy Wall Street" phenomenon that has swept into some of our nation's largest cities will be whisked into downtown Coeur d'Alene from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday. Our feelings on this foray into public demonstration are mixed.

First, the initial site of the planned gathering was on the Hagadone Corp. lawn. Hagadone Corp. owns this newspaper, The Coeur d'Alene Resort and numerous other entities. When told that the Hagadone Corp. headquarters is private property, the event organizer, a 17-year-old North Idaho College student, immediately decided to shift the location elsewhere in the downtown area because "We really don't want to get into trouble over this" and "The point of this is to peacefully protest the way that our country is being run." That's a good call, and not just because we feel defensive about our corporate headquarters being targeted. It's a good call because it shows the real intent of the local movement: To protest what they perceive as corporate greed but in a respectful, law-abiding manner.

On the larger issue in Occupy's crosshairs - that the wealthiest Americans aren't paying their fair share - we have already addressed that perception as more fiction than fact. As we noted in a recent editorial based on IRS data and other reputable sources, the overwhelming preponderance of American millionaires shells out significantly more taxes, both as a percentage of their wages earned and in actual dollars, than do non-millionaires. The drum we did not beat because we felt it had already been beaten mercilessly is the fact that some 47 percent of non-millionaires pay no income taxes at all on their wages. In other words, the wealthiest sliver of Americans is toting much of the tax load for almost half of the rest of the nation. We would thus agree that it isn't fair, but our conclusion would be opposite that of the Occupy supporters.

Finally, as ardent advocates of the Constitution, we respect the manner in which this group of young people - the majority say they're high school and college students - intend to express their opinion. Disagree with them as we do on several levels, we honor their right to peaceably assemble. If this engages them as active American citizens, democracy will only grow stronger.