The high school where I teach is all over the media the past few days, but not necessarily in a positive light. The AP Government teacher decided to run a mock trial of George W. Bush for war crimes in Iraq, with students taking both sides of the issue. Somehow this leaked to the media, and an outcry began about his imagined liberal agenda, students not being true Americans, and even treason. The school website has gotten a fair amount of hate mail, and some local politicians, ever anxious to place themselves in a positive light to a willing audience, have denounced both the teacher and the trial.

I grew up in a country in which Americans were encouraged to question our leaders’ actions. Our government has always been considered answerable to the people, not the other way around. Remember the Vietnam War protests? Or Watergate? In both those instances, questioning by the public ultimately improved the government. When did that change? Is it an overreaction to 9/11? Or a result of the current upswing of right-wing conservatism in this country? Would such people as William Jennings Bryan and Martin Luther King, both of whom questioned leadership, now be considered traitors instead of patriots? A month ago Martin Luther King was remembered as a great American. If he were alive today, would he now be considered un-American and perhaps even a traitor?

It is unsettling that behavior which was considered quintessentially American for two hundred years, as well as an important part of our national fiber, has now become un-American instead. If this is true, then America has taken the first steps away from democracy toward totalitarianism, which is very scary indeed.