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"You voluntarily chose not to question. You voluntarily chose to allow someone else to make your decisions. Then you kind of turned off this logical portion of your mind which people use to make everyday decisions. You stopped using it. And eventually you lost the capability of making decisions."
"Question authority," says the vaguely hippie slogan from the 1970s, but for much of America that's still a really, really radical thought. It shouldn't be.
By fourth grade if not sooner, any schoolkid knows that teachers sometimes abuse their authority. Lots of altar boys know long before adolescence, that for some priests dirtiness is next to Godliness. Any black teenager in America knows, some police officers see skin color as an indication of criminal intent.
And so it goes, on and on. Everybody has, at some time or another, been treated unfairly by authorities. By adulthood, we all ought to know that authority needs to be questioned.
And yet, it's almost literally heresy to millions of Americans. They have blind faith in God and government, and to these people God and government are equals, equally infallible, equally unquestionable. Those two concepts are bound together in the familiar cliché, "God and government," and the implication is obvious -- that government, like God, cannot be questioned; that government, like God, has "absolute power."
"Power tends to corrupt," as Lord Acton famously wrote. And you'll remember the second half of that quote: "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
I don't claim to know or define God, for anyone but myself. But government is supposed to be "of the people, for the people, by the people." And it's idiotic to treat people like Gods, and give them God's "absolute power."
It's not blasphemy to disagree with George W. Bush. He's not God. Questioning a needless war doesn't mean you hate the troops. Disagreeing with the President's increasingly nutty policies doesn't mean you hate America. We don't support the American occupation of Iraq, but no, that doesn't mean we're opposed to freedom. We want crooked cops punished, but saying so doesn't mean we owe an apology to every cop who ever lived.
With power comes temptation, and with great power comes great temptation. Isn't that the most obvious truth in the world?
If we the people refuse to question the powerful, the lack of questions just adds to their power. So I can't comprehend the sheer stupidity of people who are offended when authority is questioned.
There's nothing more American than questioning authority. Even traitors can wave a flag, ooh and ahh at the fireworks, and sincerely enjoy a slice of apple pie. Following orders has nothing to do with patriotism. Heck, a well-trained puppy can follow orders.
But questioning authority -- telling authority to go to Hell -- that's how America came to be America. And that's the only thing that will allow America to remain America.
(For most of our readers, this is all very basic stuff. Nothing profound. Sorry, but it's been a very strange week at Unknown News, and we feel a need to cut through the crap and get back to basics. And nothing's more basic to freedom than this: Question authority.) LINK
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It's been years since I've followed Doonesbury, but out of respect for what the strip used to be, I've refrained from pointing out its pointlessness. Doonesbury, after all, used to be funny, politically astute, and G.B. Trudeau used to draw and write his comics from a few notches outside tedious middle-of-the-road political thought.
But everyone knows, Doonesbury became irrelevant in the 1990s. I no longer even glance at Trudeau's strip unless someone suggests that there's something worthwhile in a specific day's edition ... which last happened, I think, circa 1997.
But occasionally, friends let me know when Doonesbury grows particularly stale or moldy, as with yesterday's strip, a wry crack at those wacky "bloggers."
Ah, Gerry, talk about throwing stones from glass houses. On your best day, your 'toons aren't half as clever as the worst on our comics page, and it's been years since you wrote anything a third as insightful as any sub-par entry by the bloggers we follow. You're pretty damn wealthy, Trudeau, and you're famous, and you're nationally syndicated ... and you're irrelevant. LINK
© by the author.
What do you think?
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Questioning authority -- telling authority to go to Hell -- that's how America came to be America.
And that's the only thing that will allow America to remain America.
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I can't afford therapy, but boy do I need it. So as an affordable alternative, I've decided to start pounding my anger into a weekly column here.
Fair warning: My parents were repressed -- using any bad words would get my mouth washed out with soap, literally. I still remember the sickly flavor of DoveTM. So as an adult, vulgarity helps with the healing. If naughty language offends you, beat the rush and get offended now.
This page is for my own good, not yours, so you may not like it, but I don't care.
About the authors
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Helen and Harry Highwater have published Unknown News since 1997. We're a married couple sharing a byline à la Lennon and McCartney, and "I" can be either of us, or both of us. If you're consumed by curiosity, it's safe to assume the more boisterous and aggressive bits come from Helen, and anything ladylike or demure is probably Harry's work.
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