Published May 1994
I reprint this not for its intrinsic merit but because it stirs up so many memories. The first paragraph originally appeared in my final draft of a response to Lew Rockwell's paleo-manifesto. It was excised at the last moment because the publisher thought it a bit convoluted, hard to follow. So I pulled it from the laid out version and I wrote a different paragraph of almost the exact same length. Unfortunately, later in that piece I referenced the "who are you" challenge and wound up striking an unintended truculent note. Oh, well. (The friend, mentioned below, was none other than L.A. Rollins.)
Years ago at a political convention, a friend approached me and pointed to my political button, which was adorned with the slogan "Question Authority." "Who are you," he demanded, "to tell me to question authority." Well, I can play egoistic one-upmanship as well as the next guy, so I responded: "This is not a command but a statement. I am the Question Authority!"
I was reminded of this exchange when Bill Clinton responded to pressure to come clean on the Whitewater scandal by saying, "People should not be able to raise questions and erode people's moral authority in this country." In other words, he wants to strip Americans of their rights as citizens - and me, the Question Authority, of my livelihood.
I call the question.
Copyright 1994, Liberty Publishing.