History Authoritarians would Like to boss us around if they could To do what they think we should Their boss would say hop to it With us at a loss but to do it Being louder than we are The boss speaks conspiracy Like that guy at the end of the bar Fear spoken here sounds bossy The fearful found their strongman To impose the authority of Those made too afraid to love Though some refuse to get it Those choosing fear come to regret it Seeing it being before Something that was understood Through horror and war as nothing good Fought then ought be now no more Some want it to come to be Then haunting now unbecomingly Triumphalist and glossy Needing us as lesser-than The needy authoritarian Others us familiarly I was taught we fought and died To stop what the last time this was tried Had come because some let it Greedy for authority A fearful earful of othering Rearview-mirror smothering Not to be the boss of me Remembering when some forget it What I got from history Steven Curtis Lance