But I don't see your point.

"Question" and "not-fear" aren't synonyms, either. Both modern positions evolved from "question" into something else.

Not fearing authority is empowering, and fear of authority is crippling. One of the greatest gifts the Founders tried to give us was to liberate us from fear of the government by explicitly inverting the power relationship. It's a shame to see conservatives throwing away the Founder's gift and reverting to the old serf-mentality of fear of Authority.

I'll admit that the gift can be a burden, because it means accepting responsibility for what the government does. And perhaps fear of government is a way of evading responsibility. But that doesn't work in a democracy. Even when you lose the vote, you're still responsible for the outcome.

Americans have no recourse to the old English dodge "To the Queen! May she always be right, but my country, right or wrong." We are the kings and queens of our own country, and we have only ourselves to blame when our country is wrong.