John Stossel: Questioning Authority
 

Did anyone see the John Stossel show this past week on the Fox Business Network (FBN)? The topic was "Questioning Authority." It started out with clips from past "Candid Camera" episodes in which apparent authority figures told people to do absurd things.

The first was an episode apparently produced in mid-2001 (pre-9/11), in which Peter Funt, claiming to be an airport security guard, told airline passengers his scanner for passengers was not working, so the passengers would need to lie down on a moving belt and pass through the baggage scanner instead. Eleven out of 12 people did it!

The second clip was a guy standing on a road at the Texas border (perhaps Texas-Okla.?) telling people Texas was "closed" for the day and they had to turn around. Although some people argued with him, not one person (out of a hundred or more who encountered the obstacle) attempted to drive past him. They all either backed up or turned around!

Peter Funt was on the show and talked about these and other episodes showing how willingly people simply deferred to any appearance of authority. He was quite disturbed by it. He was optimistic that people's submissive attitudes were finally starting to change, now that people were finally getting fed up with what was going on at airports. He mentioned shoes, though, and how absurd it is that people go along with all the nonsense about taking off shoes.

Anyway, interesting show. Included a short clip from the Milgram experiment.

Old news - still sad - but old news.

We have know this empirically since at least the early 60's with Stanley Milgram's experiments and his subsequent book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.

OP - thanks for this tip - sounds interesting. I found a link describing the show but no clips. I guess they just finished re-airing it, so maybe they will have something online later this week:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/st...ty-fbn-10pm-et

http://usaguns.net/patriots/stossel.php

Whole show

The Los Angeles jury, comprised of five men and seven women, found "Candid Camera" and Peter Funt liable for negligence, false imprisonment and intentional misrepresentation, but cleared them of claims of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The jury awarded Zenlick a total of $300,000 in punitive damages, with Peter Funt and the show ordered to pay $150,000 each.

And it seems only 6 rubes fell for it:
http://power-of-attorneys.com/candid_camera.htm

By this logic, each airline passenger should be able to collect $150,000 from TSA and and equal amount from the pizza box brigade member who put 'em through the CancerPorn scanner.

Careful how quickly you climb on a Stossel bandwagon. I watched him on ABC and he is a total corporate tool. Which is why the Murdoch network grabbed him. His "libertrarianism" is mostly about pulling the teeth of all watchdogs that get in the way of corporate crime.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/Organic/stossellies.cfm

That was an interesting show, thank you for the link.

I watched the show when it was broadcast but was not terribly impressed. They showed how gullible most people are but didn't really take on how abusive the "security people can be. They attacked the wrong villain, it seemed to me.

Bruce

Let Stossel do a show about people questioning a banker, insurance adjuster, Supreme Court justice, or military officer. Then I might be impressed. He chooses his targets carefully to support his favorite myths about American politics.