By Primo Encarnación y Hachecristo

Those of us of a certain age remember well the counter-culture caveat “Question Authority.” The concept is in no way new: it is the basis of empiricism and baby-daddy to the Enlightenment. But in modern political terms, the toppling of the most powerful nutcase in the world, Richard Nixon, horrified the authoritarians in America and, since then, they have whispered soothingly to the “silent majority” to stay silent. “Relax. We got this,” they coo. “Vote for us, and you’ll never have to think hard again.”

Or, really, start thinking in the first place.

Authoritarians leapt for joy when it turned out that all the authority questioners a.k.a. liberals were wrong, Wrong. WRONG! and owed a collective apology to everyone who knew right off the bat that Freddie Gray was a criminal who committed suicide in the paddy wagon, just to make the authorities look bad.

Hannity’s rage-gasm as the pro-authoritarian leak made its way into the lazy mainstream media is only the most egregious example of someone who is just fine leaving the thinking to his “betters,” so long as that thinking agrees with his prejudices. A rumor from authorities reprinted by the “liberal” media as “news” (as opposed to, you know, “fact”) is precisely the confirmation his bias needed to fully justify disconnecting his brain lo, these many years ago.

Confirmation bias – it’s mothers’ milk to the right wing nutjobs. Without it, not a one of them could get elected, and President Gore and his liberal Congress would have solved global warming a decade and a half ago.

When the WaPo leak came out, we liberals knew exactly how many holes there were in that particular story about suicide by paddy wagon. We questioned the motives of the leaker. We questioned the rigor of the reporter. We questioned the veracity of the witness account. We questioned the details of the leak. We questioned the plausibility of that wound happening in that manner.

We questioned authority.

And we were right to do so. The leaker’s beneficiaries are now defendants. The witness claims that was not what he heard, saw or said. The details of the leak were wrong. But the reporter, and Sean Hannity, still have jobs and fame and honor, as do so many other people who have lied us into war, lied us into climate catastrophe, lied us into insolvency, lied about Obamacare, lied about immigration, lied about poverty, lied, lied, lied, lied, lied and then lied some more.

But the comfort of non-logic, the peace of letting someone else do the thinking, the satisfaction of confirmation bias, the appeal to authority, so long as that authority tells us what we want to hear, has brought this country to the brink of madness and death.

Question authority. It’s our only chance.