Too Much Credit

I think I've mentioned in a previous blog, in the context of coaching and having disagreements with referees, that I feel I often have too much respect for rules and people in positions of authority.

This is, I think, a bad habit, something I've done for as long as I can remember. Whereas up until probably my early 20's I would have said that authority ought to be respected absolutely, I now think that, though authority should still be respected, when that authority has proven itself to be incompetent or malicious, then it deserves to be questioned and challenged.

This is tricky, of course, because people in authority, by definition, have authority, and they can use it against you if you choose to rock the boat. There are consequences for questioning authority, sometimes serious ones.

I think that many of us Americans have too healthy a respect for authority. We assume that the people in positions of power have our best interests at heart. We assume that they will do the right thing, and so we don't monitor them very closely. Or, maybe we assume that if they do something *really* egregious then the press will let us know. But I don't think that many of the people in power are worried about what's in our best interest. They can't possibly really know what is in our best interest because they do not share a lot in common with us - they are generally extremely rich and privileged people, a truly elite group that is nothing like a representative slice of who we are as Americans, even though they are our "representatives." And we give them too much credit. We believe that if we put them in office they'll do what's right.

And by "we" I mean the half or so of us who actually vote. The other folks, the nonvoters, don't even participate, which is worse than giving our "leaders" too much credit - it's giving them a blank check. So the end result is that we end up with a government composed of elitists who are elected by a little more than half of less than half of the people - that is to say, at best, 1/4 of us.

And as for counting on the press, well, maybe they'll let us know as long as no blondes are missing or have been kidnapped or have committed suicide or have shaved their heads.