Shortly after World War II, Milton Mayer went to Germany to live with and get to know a number of very ordinary German people. He wanted to find out what it was like, for them, to live under tyranny. The universal responses of his hosts were reflected in the title of Mayer's important book, "They Thought They Were Free."
This same mindset has infected the minds of most Americans, particularly over the question of the propriety of the government spying on the telephone communications of millions upon millions of Americans. Nowhere was this docility more evident than on a Faux News program in which a number of knowldgeable stock market investors - regulars on this weekly program - weighed in on these surveillance activities. With one notable exception, they found nothing objectionable in what the NSA was doing. The usual barber-shop bromides were in abundance: "I'd rather have my government listening in on my phone calls than to be hit by another 9/11," etc. The message of Mayer's book resonates in the brain-cases of most Americans.
The one solid exception to this chorus of the existentially obedient was the actor, Wayne Rogers (he was one of the regulars on the old TV program "M*A*S*H") who went to the mat with the others on this issue. One of the women on the show argued - as though she was making an intelligent point rather than confirming the state of her self-imposed bondage - that the government already interferes with people's privacy in so many other ways. Rogers reminded her that this reflected just how much power the government has over people's lives. When one of the other twits announced that a "New York Times" poll showed overwhelming support, among Americans, for the NSA eavesdropping, Rogers beautifully respnded: "you not only believe the NSA, but also the New York Times?"
I wonder how many of these successful marketplace investors rely upon government pronouncements and public opinion polls in making their investment decisions.
