Don't know why, but this just hit me as I whipped up my morning coffee.
There's a kind of ying-yang of rule-following and rule-breaking etched into the American soul. We have deep traditions and ingraned respect for both the straight-shooter and the outlaw. There's a good and bad side to both these traditions. Allow me to break it down:
You have good rule-breakers, from the original Revolutionary roots of the nation through Thereau and the latter-day heroes of civil disobedience. You have the essentially healthy mistrust of authority. You have the honesty of the outlaw, those who understand that living by your own law requires a higher standard. Clearly, this is where my heart lies.
And then you have the bad rule-breakers: criminals, thugs, and abusers of power. You have Sen. George McCarthy and a host of lesser figures (like Dick Cheney) who build their position in life by breaking the rules and breaking others down in doing so. These people are few and far between, but they're really destructive.
On the flip side, you have the good rule-followers. You've got a whole mess of right-thinking preachers, FDR, an honest sherrif, and all the other the collected stars of Law and Order. You've got the constitution and it's fans, Young Ralph Nader, and even some members of the Press. These folks are the bedrock of a stable society.
Finally, you have the bad rule-followers. These folks are the worst in my opinion. They break down into two sub-camps: people who are blindly authoritarian (the loyal base for the Daddy State) and people who use legalistic means to achieve what are ultimately immoral ends. For instance -- just gonna throw this out there -- using the Supreme Court to stop people from counting votes.
The problem we face right now is we have a bunch of bad people in positions of power, and a bunch of reflexively pro-authority people all around them. It's like when Nixon won by thundering on that the US was a country of Law and Order, while simultaniously ordering the illegal/inhumane bombing of Cambodia and using the FBI to compile damaging information about those he deemed his "enemies" here in the US. That he eventually went down for a botched burglery is tragicomic.
At some point soon there should be a backlash. I for one can't wait.
