Saturday's paper included a piece called "Land of the paranoid," which you can find here. It was all about how right-wing commentators have been raising the prospect of violent resistance to a government which will attempt to take away our guns, vaccinate our children or make us buy energy efficient light bulbs.
My first reaction was that it all sounded absurd. However, it did make me think back to high school. During those years, many of my favorite books were by authors such as Ayn Rand, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The idea of the brave individual fighting back against the totalitarian machine appealed to me in those years. High school struck me as a fascist system where creativity was stifled and conformity was demanded.
I outgrew those fears in college. Once I was in a more open environment, my fear of authority mellowed to a healthy skepticism. Years later, the Berlin Wall fell and it became apparent that authoritarian regimes were not all powerful.
When I listen to the current rants, I have to laugh. Their fears seem so petty. In the books of my youth, Big Brother could make you disappear for thought crimes or banish you to the Gulag Archipelago. Barack Obama, on the other hand, can make you buy health insurance. Last year, I read Letters to Freya, a story of German resistance to Hitler. That was a story of true evil and true opposition to evil. The current fears about President Obama pale in comparison. Oppressive, totalitarian regimes exist in many corners of the world today, places like Iran, Myanmar and China. Painting the current American president as a threat to liberty cheapens the suffering of those who have no freedom.
On the other hand, if you would like a smile, listen to these high school students singing about George Orwell's 1984 to the tune of Bowling for Soup's 1985.
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