Don’t Believe the Government Phone Case
Something strange has happened to the spirit of rebellion over the past few decades. The modern run-of-the-mill “rebel” no longer rebels at all. Instead they latch to their preferred political party with all the tenacity a puppy reserves for its mother’s teat, and then lobs accusations of conspiracy (or any of the dreaded -isms) at anyone who would dare speak ill of mommy.
We can’t fathom why anyone would trust their government. We don’t know which country you’re from. Let’s assume it’s the U.S., land of the $1.50 hot dog and soda combo, where the politicians lie with such blasé regularity that their press conferences aren’t even worth watching anymore. Which part of the American experience compels people to buy anything these rats say? Haven’t the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan War and the lockdowns taught them anything?
Perhaps not. Historic precedent isn’t worth a hill of beans when very few people know their history. Sure, America may have stowed its own citizens in concentration camps and dropped bombs on them and sent them off to die in jungles before, but what is “before” to anyone who’s only dimly aware of what happened yesterday?
It is okay to trust the government on occasion. When your postman tells you it’s $3.50 to ship cookies to Ozark, you can assume he’s on the straight and narrow. But for anything larger than that – like, for example, when a career politician insists that the only way to stop the looming, vague and invisible threat is to make yourself poorer and less free – it’s always safe to trust him just as much as you’d trust a drunken oil tanker captain around your favorite length of Alaskan coastline.
