Critical Mass

"Next to the right to create, the right to criticize is the richest gift that liberty of thought and speech can offer." -- Vladimir Nabokov

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ... " -- U.S. Constitution, First Amendment

"If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen." -- President Harry Truman

   The sudden barrage of negative comment aimed at current government actions can be very annoying to someone who has spent a lifetime getting his own way.
   The problem, of course, is that this certain someone is no longer a private citizen accustomed to success in bullying others to conform to his wishes or be fired.
   "My way or the highway" may work well in a monolithic corporate boardroom, but a newcomer to the White House Oval Office has a term limit as well as an outside, independent group of overseers -- Congress -- whose duty it is to monitor the chief executive and remove him for cause when appropriate.
   Many in the current Congress have decided to follow the leader,  go where he goes and do what he says no matter what.
   Others, however, have decided not to go along with what the bully demands. Couple that with the likelihood of losing a re-election bid, and several dozen Republicans are "retiring" from government service.
   But a bigger problem arises when the Bully in Chief attacks anyone who expresses any disagreement, no matter how small, with what he says and does.
   America was founded on the right to criticize. Disagreement with the policies of a faraway monarch and his parliamentary partners led to an independence movement more than 200 years ago.
   Since then, Americans have cherished the right to criticize, and have exercised that right against government and its leaders ever since.
   May it always be so.
   Recent events in Washington, however, lead to the conclusion that this president and his cronies in Congress would stifle any and all criticism in the name of "national unity." This is ironic, since much of the disunity is fomented by those same few who demand personal allegiance and are unable to cope with the idea that criticism and disagreement is a basic human right, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
   Therefore, the louder the demand for obedience in the name of loyalty, even louder must be the chorus of protest in the name of freedom.