The chains of dependency crush the will and spirit of the people. Generational welfare can cause the obediance the author speaks of.

Because Republicans in congress can´t seem to message very well.
Heard them saying how they feel they better pass something so the people see they´re trying. Ugh..

"We are spending over $1 trillion we don´t have, we are borrowing it from the Chinese and others, so where is all this money being spent? And if we´re spending 25% more than we did during Clinton-era why isn´t the economy doing better?"

Put the idea out that it´s being wasted and we´re over-spending for no good reason.
Let the Democrats explain.

Over 50% of the population will only graduate from high school, but few jobs will hire with only HS education much less a HS education and 25 years of experience in X field.

Many adults are in a state of arrested adolescence. They flee from responsibility and whine, pout, and bully others who won´t coddle them. Obama offers them excuses and just enough handouts to life through another election cycle.

"They Live"

Obama lovers are a cult, rational thinking and analysis are foreign to his following.

Interesting that two pillars of the old (as opposed to post-sixties) liberal intellectual establishment are cited to back up the primary argument of this article. Fromm´s and Lippmann´s observations go far to explain the chuckleheaded complacency and conformity of early 21st century Weimar America.

But like the citizens of Weimar Germany, contemporary Americans are happily deluding themselves, and willingly allow the Iron Triangle of the Government-Media-Foreign Financial complex to form their thoughts for them.

Last week there was an article posted regarding the power of the 31-year old single woman...and their government "daddy". It goes hand-in-glove with this piece. It´s not the Obamaphone dead beats, it´s the Sandra Flukes of our country demanding daddy protect her and her sisters from the real world for the sake of another Coach handbag.

Most people are born to obey.

And it´s a good thing, or we´d always be arguing endlessly about everything.

Freedom is the freedom of discussion for those who either want to lead, or are capable of it, or in rare cases, both.

It is a blessing for those who follow to choose who to follow. But for that matter, the idea of Democracy is that the people follow - themselves! Everybody leads, a little. Everybody follows, mostly.

That way you get the best from everybody.

At least that´s the idea.

Heck, I´d say MOST people are prone to obey. Look at the example of Jews in Nazi Germany peacefully marching off to the camps, and the run of the mill German supporting the war machine.

The author here at one point lauds the courage "to err, to sin," etc. but this is beside the point.

I am reminded of the life of Franz Jaegerstatter, the only person (that we know of) in Austria who refused to be conscripoted into the German Army, and was beheaded for it on August 9, 1943 at Berlin-Brandenberg Prison.

Though not a well-educated man, he had read the Papal Encyclical "Mit Brennender Sorge" ("With Burning Anxiety") and knew that the Pope condemned Nazism as a racist, pagan system; he also, frankly, feared hell: feared the eternal consequences of cooperating with such a system.

The really laudable virtues are the love of God, the healthy hatred of lies, and the courage NOT to sin.

I suggest a study of the liberal DNC plantation culture and Kool-aid addiction of the far left would probably provide intense data reconstruction of the lobotomized segment of American culture. They do account for 52% of the last election.
When you know someone is incompetent (4 years observation)and you tell everyone that he is incompetent but you still vote for and elect him to public office you must be the very center of a study grouping for zombie like obediance.

I agree that most people are prone to obey, not just some. The problem is in two main areas - first the dumbing-down of the population and second, the loss of moral fiber. Both make followers easily led rather than being able to make an intelligent choice of whom or what to follow, and both make the quality of available leadership very poor.

Lemmings

Some people are leaders and some are followers. Some need to be told what to do because they don´t have one original thought. Public schools have dumbed down not one, but two generations.

The days of being a good person and obey the laws of the land are over because it´s not in our best interest to be obedient to radicals.