Politics & Power Quote by Edmund S. Muskie

“You have the God-given right to kick the government around” is a politician daring you to treat him like an employee, not a father figure. Muskie’s phrasing fuses two American faiths that often compete: reverence (God-given) and rebellion (kick the government around). That collision is the point. By sanctifying dissent, he reframes civic antagonism not as cynicism or disloyalty but as a kind of moral duty. The line doesn’t ask for trust; it asks for pressure.

The subtext is savvy. Muskie isn’t just blessing protest; he’s inoculating democratic legitimacy against the era’s creeping suspicion. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, faith in institutions was buckling under Vietnam, civil rights clashes, and the growing sense that government spoke in euphemism while citizens paid in bodies and taxes. A mainstream Democrat telling people to “kick” government reads like an attempt to keep dissent inside the system, to steer anger toward accountability rather than nihilism. He’s arguing, implicitly, that the antidote to a flawed state is not withdrawal but engagement: call, vote, sue, march, badger.

The intent is both principled and practical. It flatters the voter’s agency while placing the burden of oversight back on the public: if government misbehaves, you’re partly responsible for letting it. “Don’t hesitate” is the quiet imperative. Muskie’s government is not an altar; it’s a machine that only stays honest when it’s rattled.