“Discontent is the want of self-reliance”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Preceding the upcoming anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination, the networks have served up their latest Kennedy bios and conspiracy docu-dramas. Yet, its was more than that tragic event which forever marked Kennedy’s murder as a defining moment in American history.
Less than forty-eight hours after those fateful shots rang out, Americans watched in horror as his accused assassin was gunned down before a national television audience. During the ensuing days, while the world paid tribute to the former president … the conspiracy theories began to unfold. Neither the pronouncements of our national leaders nor the subsequent Warren Commission report calmed doubters who were, and remain, convinced of a cover-up.
Those suspicions became a catalyst, prompting mainstream America to openly questioning its government’s credibility … a mindset all too familiar among the nation’s many disenfranchised minorities. Thus, it was public skepticism to ensuing events which declared America’s postwar innocence to have perished along with the young president.
Never again would the federal government be guaranteed the unconditional acceptance of its policies, statements and actions!
Eighteen months later, the Johnson Administration manufactured and then marketed the Tonkin Gulf Incident as righteous justification for a massive military commitment in Vietnam. After a brief, initial flurry of patriotic fervor, conflicting data and the mounting flow of body bags from southeast Asia provoked a few people to do the unthinkable … openly question their government’s foreign policy in time of war.
This intellectual rebellion was spawned by many factors, with rapidly evolving communications technologies heading the list. No longer could the world’s realities be ignored or suppressed. Suddenly, the horrors of a distant war intruded into our kitchens and living rooms on a nightly basis.
Concurrently, honed on their experiences in the civil rights crusade, social activists found a kindred challenge in the antiwar movement. The emerging phenomenon of talk radio also played a key role, permitting “everyday” citizens to participate directly in the growing antiwar debate. Finally, the public’s deep-seated suspicions concerning the JFK assassination remained high.
During the 1970s and 1980s, public cynicism toward our civic institutions flourished. It was reinforced by a series of high profile national scandals including Watergate; continuous revelations of Congressional corruption and misdeeds; Iran-Contra; a realization their government had ceased to live by the same standards it imposed on the citizens it purported to served; and the steady erosion of constitutionally guaranteed liberties to due process, equal protection, personal privacy and property.
Yet, despite a broad distrust of, and discontent with government, America is not now on the brink of a rebellion, peaceful or otherwise. Election year rhetoric to the contrary most of the same scoundrels we damn on a day-to-day basis are routinely returned to office if they seek reelection.
This national schizophrenia is exacerbated by a public divided on the nature and role of government in our society. Some opt for a smaller, cheaper and less intrusive government. Preaching the gospel of individual responsibility and accountability, they view any erosion of liberty as unacceptable.
Others believe government is the answer, and look to its institutions to provide for and protect them. They are inclined to give a little freedom to gain a perceived measure of order and security. For a third group, those directly or indirectly on the government payroll, growth in government, irrespective of the social costs, is simply a matter of good business and personal survival.
Regretfully, our elected representatives and government bureaucrats continue to do little to rebuild trust in public institutions, which remain aloof, unaccountable and often removed from the “people” for whom they work. Instead, the trend has been toward the perpetuation of the power, privileges and tenure enjoyed by those in government service.
They forget, once before in America an entrenched regime lost sight of such ideals and ignored the fact “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed“.
