I am at the age where I constantly

look back at how my parents were during my youth, and if I am the same

way now. Am I a complete replica of the way they were then?

In some humorous ways the answer

is yes, like when I yell at my kids, "Because I said so," or,

"Don't forget to hang up your poncho every night." In most ways

though, my generation and my parents' generation are completely different.

My parents were strict. My

parents spanked. They had the confidence and resolve to follow through

in all they believed in and threatened us with. To this day, I still fear

being arrested "narc-ed out" by my mom, even though I have never

touched a drug in my life. My parents exuded authority, yet they also

respected it and they always took the side of authority over ours.

Somewhere in the generational

change-of-guard this respect for authority has reversed. Maybe my generation

lost faith in our world when, as youngsters, we witnessed grown adults

wearing plaid bell-bottoms dancing to Abba music. Maybe we can blame Nixon,

or the Vietnam War or the systematic assassinations of our most beloved

leaders, but somewhere, somehow we have become this jaded age that trusts

no one.

Every situation I am in, where

there is authority, I question it. Rarely do I trust my government to

protect me. I don't trust my bank to care about my money more than they

care about their own. I think the police are about machismo, I think the

IRS is a dictatorship. "My people," as my generation will be

one day known, seem to all feel this way.

It seems anyone from the age

30-45 weaves tales of paranoid conspiracy concerning every man-made tenet

from the "Reader's Digest Sweepstakes" to the outcome of "Survivor."

And now that I think of it, our generation was maybe too young and impressionable

to properly digest the true significance when we discovered that Bobby

Ewing "dreamed" that whole season of "Dallas."

Yet worse, what about the generation

to come? Can they be more jaded than the jaded? The number one song in

all the country last year, "Jaded," came from Aerosmith, passing

the baton of distrust and indifference to a whole nation of youngsters

eager to defy and decry authority. I would have hope for them if I just

wasn't so ... jaded.

Will they have any choice but

to thus reject the even more important doctrines of our heritage, like

the importance of owning a good barbecue grill or our God-given responsibility

to water our lawns?

Next thing you know they won't

believe in professional wrestling

We need to respect authority

again, even just for the sake of the children. So "my people,"

what will we do? Should we start by filing the 1040EZ form and quit writing

off the systematic dumping of our old clothes as contributions? Should

we stop making faces at the police as they walk away from our car after

ticketing us? Do we restore the age-old tradition of eating dinner at

the dinner table and telling our kids to respect their teachers BEFORE

we begin our nightly family quarrel?

Mostly, our disrespect of authority

is arrogance. None of us can believe than anyone else out there could

do as good a job as we could. Everyone is inferior. But this is how we

misunderstand authority. The good we gain from authority is not based

upon that authority's perfection. It's based on our willingness to see

ourselves as the part of a greater body. And when we do we'll simply feel

better about ourselves. We will have a lot less stress, a few less places

to lay blame and a whole lot more cookouts.

[Visit Billy Murphy on the

Internet at www.ebilly.net.]