Photo by Martin Austermuhle.

Earlier today, a new protest group showed up at Freedom Plaza in downtown Washington. They brought signs and tents, and they’re here to stay through early March.

But the new folks aren’t exactly a reinforcement for Occupy Washington D.C., as the four-month-old protest group at the park on Pennsylvania Avenue is known. (Distinguishing itself from Occupy D.C., which demonstrates at McPherson Square.)

Rather, this is the work of the National Center for Public Policy Research, a right-wing think tank that, after months of watching the protests at McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza, decided to jump into the fray. Oddly enough, though, the first day of what the organization says will be a five-week demonstration, was one largely filled with bits of agreement rather than fiery rhetorical clashes. The National Center people did bring with them a smattering of kiddie-sized tents, a reference to the tents Occupy members slept in for several months before the National Park Service began enforcing a long-standing ban on camping at Freedom Plaza.

“We’re both against bailouts, both against crony capitalism,” said David Almasi, the National Center’s executive director. “We tend not to agree on the size of government. It seemed like today we agreed to disagree.”

Judging from some of the signs Almasi’s people hoisted, there are wide differences between the National Center and Occupy on, say, the proposed construction of an oil pipeline from Alberta to Houston that was the target of a thousands-strong march near the White House last November in which Occupy was a major contingent.

Though Almasi described a mellow scene today, the press release announcing the National Center’s counter-protest was a bit more bellicose, with a quote from the group’s chairwoman, Amy Ridenour, calling Occupy “fundamentally undemocratic.” Ridenour’s statement continued:

They want the public to agree to whatever it is they want, even though they can’t or won’t articulate it, or else they’ll commit crimes, infest cities with rats, cost police overtime and refuse to go away. Blackmail, essentially. We are standing up for liberty and free speech within the law. We’ll make our point, go home to beds we paid for ourselves every night, pick up our own trash, follow the law and be content that in a democratic republic such as our own, voters make the ultimate decisions, not a bunch of blackmailers

Almasi clarified some of this argument, saying one of the things his boss referred to was the that the Occupy group at Freedom Plaza was granted a protest permit without going through the formal application process.

“They were given an opportunity to get a permit without going through the same legal process as the rest of us,” Almasi said. The National Center submitted its application in December for a protest site on the eastern side of Freedom Plaza. “We wanted opposing viewpoints,” Almasi said.

The permitting issue aside, Almasi said the conservative demonstrators his group plans to bring down about lunchtime ever day will probably talk more about a “non-regulatory agenda that will create jobs.” Street theater is a possibility, he said. So, expect brief one-acts on the perils of the Environmental Protection Agency or the 2010 health care reform law, perhaps.

Still, while Occupy Occupy D.C., as it’s called, may borrow plain-old Occupy’s knack for creative protests, it won’t be aping every tactic from the income-inequality movement.

“We’re not planning on blocking any streets or sleeping in any tents,” Almasi said.