I am a rebel.

This is something that has only occurred to me in the last week.

It's not something I do consciously; rather, it's just part of my nature to buck conventions and authority. It has been both a strength and a weakness for me.

In the last five years or so, I have learned to think before I react. I no longer do the opposite of what I'm told, just for spite--I focus on whether it's a good idea or not, not how irritated I am at being told what to do. If I'm doing something I normally wouldn't do just to piss off someone else, that person is controlling me.

Why do I reject this control? After all, it would be easier to go with the flow, right? Let someone else make the tough decisions?

I'm not sure. Maybe it's an innate distrust of others. Somehow, my gut is telling me that's not it, though.

What spurred all this was browsing through a copy of Democracy in America, which I picked up a few weeks ago during the sales tax holiday. This section (vol. 2, ch. 5) is the one that jumped out at me:

When the religion of a people is destroyed, doubt gets hold of the higher powers of the intellect and half paralyzes all the others. Every man accustoms himself to having only confused and changing notions on the subjects most interesting to his fellow creatures and himself. His opinions are ill-defended and easily abandoned; and, in despair of ever solving by himself the hard problems respecting the destiny of man, he ignobly submits to think no more about them.

Such a condition cannot but enervate the soul, relax the springs of the will, and prepare a people for servitude. Not only does it happen in such a case that they allow their freedom to be taken from them; they frequently surrender it themselves. When there is no longer any principle of authority in religion any more than in politics, men are speedily frightened at the aspect of this unbounded independence. The constant agitation of all surrounding things alarms and exhausts them. As everything is at sea in the sphere of the mind, they determine at least that the mechanism of society shall be firm and fixed; and as they cannot resume their ancient belief, they assume a master.

Is this what is happening/has happened to the U.S.? It seems to me that most people are willing to give up freedom for security. It is being asked of us from the Right, to help combat terrorism. During the last administration, it was asked of us by the Left, to combat crime. The general public accepted it then, and they accept it now. And frankly, it makes me sick to my stomach.

But again, why? Why SHOULD they protest? Why would they?

For my own part, I doubt whether man can ever support at the same time complete religious independence and entire political freedom. And I am inclined to think that if faith be wanting in him, he must be subject; and if he be free, he must believe.

I really like that last sentence. It brings to mind a scene in the movie Serenity, which opens Sept. 30 here in the States. It touches on those themes, and goes a bit further to suggest that that belief does not necessarily have to be in God. I won't be more specific, because I don't want to spoil it, so you all make me happy and just plan on seeing the movie, okay?