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Book Report: A Nation of Sheep

Angela M. Richards

William Jessup University

17 October 2019

Book Report: A Nation of Sheep by Andrew Napolitano

The title of Napolitano’s book certainly prompts some interesting thought. I have to

admit that I chose Napolitano’s book over the other option because the title drew me in. As does

the basic premise behind the book: there are two predominant groups of people in the United

States – the sheep and the wolves. In Napolitano’s view, those belonging to the former group

“stay in their herd and follow their shepherd without questioning where he is leading them…

[they] trust that the shepherd looks out for their safety… [and] believe that the shepherd would

never do anything to cause them harm, that he only wants to protect them from the dangers of the

world that lie outside the safety of his herd” (Napolitano 10). Conversely, the latter “do not

aimlessly follow a shepherd” (Napolitano 10). In fact, these wolves howl, “in the darkness of

night…alerting the shepherd to their presence” (Napolitano 10). They are the outspoken ones

fighting for change, questioning authority and the herd mentality. With this distinction made, it

certainly seems more desirable to be a wolf, but Napolitano posits that “the majority of

Americans are sheep” (Napolitano 10). These sheep are the “millions of American citizens

blindly following all levels of the government” (Napolitano 10). On the other end of the

spectrum are the wolves, “the people and groups… that continuously question and challenge the

decisions of the government…. [these] wolves try to ensure that government does not overstep

its constitutional limits and infringe on the American people’s basic freedoms, which are ours by

virtue of being human.” (Napolitano 11). This defense of natural rights is essential to

Napolitano’s argument. The sheep do not seem to care about their natural rights, or perhaps they

do not realize when these rights are being encroached upon but the wolves not only recognize the

importance of natural rights, they fight valiantly for them.

necessary to the continued operation and effectiveness of the government. “Without hesitation,

reticence, or skepticism, many Americans accept the government’s contention that ‘freedom is

not free.’ They believe that the American Dream is in danger and are willing to surrender their

fundamental freedoms to protect it. They are convinced that relinguishing a few rights here and a

few liberties there will help the government to protect us better from evil terrorists” (Napolitano

11). The key here is that the sheep seem to believe that the function of the government is to first

and foremost protect them from terrorism. They are willing to overlook constant surveillance

and oversight and access to personal private information like credit card number, medical

records, and other sensitive data if they believe that somehow, someway the government is able

to effectively detect terrorism and stop it before it can do too much harm.

This whole idea of the American people being either sheep or wolves, and the base

assumptions held be each group remined me of a TV show that ended a few years ago called

Person of Interest. The premise is a little far-fetched – elusive billionaire tech genius builds

machine for the government (unimaginatively named just “The Machine) that uses inputs like

credit card and phone records as well as surveillance camera feeds to predict terrorism and

identify possible actors and locations, but the message is the same as Napolitano’s: the vast

majority of people just don’t seem to care if they perceive that they receive some benefit from

government encroachment on personal rights. In addition to the big events, The Machine can

also predict smaller ones like petty crime or potential murder. In the show’s universe, the

government doesn’t care about these smaller events and ignores the outputs; but the fact remains

that they’re still there, which is why the elusive billionaire assembles a team to be vigilantes and

help prevent the small crimes predicted by The Machine. If something like The Machine exiseted
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in the real world, in the America of today, would our government act the same? Wouldn’t the

fact that the smaller outputs even exist, specially murder predictions, mean that the government

should act because if they have that knowledge and fail to utilize it, the government is depriving

certain citizens of their base right to life? Again, Person of Interest was just a TV show, but it

does bring up some interesting questions about the responsibilities of the government and the

rights of the people especially when considered in context of Napolitano’s argument. The one

outstanding question that I see however, whether in the real world or a made up one, is how

many people know that their rights are being encroached upon and simply don’t care versus how

many are oblivious to this encroachment.

In the chapter titled Vietnam – Alpha, Bravo, Ellsberg, Napolitano highlights the fact that

Ellsberg, faced with top secret information that showed victory in Vietnam was unlikely, or

perhaps even impossible, decided to be a wolf and share the truth through orchestrating the

publication of the Pentagon Papers. Just a year later, the Watergate scandal began and two young

reporters at the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, fought for the American

public to know the truth. Along with their source, Deep Throat – only recently revealed to be

Mark Felt an FBI agent who eventually rose to become the Associate Director, the two reporters

played a major part in the downfall of the Nixon administration. The Nixon tapes themselves are

the only thing that might have done more damage.

The perception that post 9/11 our world became a little more Orwellian, while at first

seems far-fetched, is somewhat more accurate than one might think. The terrorist attacks on

strategic U.S. targets by Al-Queda on that fateful day launched the American Nation, and the

world, into an era of constant conflict. In response to the attacks, then President Bush launched

the war on terror – aiming to strike terrorism around the world and ensure that an attack of that
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magnitude can never happen again. The success of this program is aided by enhance surveillance

– which means that as Orwell claimed in 1984, “Big Brother is always watching” (Napolitano

64, Orwell). In addition to greater surveillance, 9/11 also launched an era of fear-mongering,

racial-profiling, and public panic, the likes of which had never been seen before. From the

terrorist wachlisht to Bush’s Patriot Act, we have been so conditioned to believe that any person

of Middle Eastern descent could be a terrorist that we have a tendency to view all people who so

much as look Middle Eastern as terrorists. As a result, these indivividuals are not only looked

upon with fear and suspicion by society, they are also treated discrimintively by the

govemrnemtn nearly always begin selected for enhanced security screenings. Even I am ashamed

to admit that suspicious thoughts pass through my head whenever I see someone who appears

Middle Eastern waiting to board a flight with me. But the Patriot Act does so much more than

just address terrorism –the argument can be made that it violates our basic 4th amendment right to

protection from unreasonable searching, as well as other constitutional rights, by allowing the

government to search private property without notifying the owner because it is believed “that

providing immediate notification…may have an adverse result” (Napolitano 68). This doesn’t

even begin to touch the other rights that the Patriot Act restricts – potentially including one of the

key tenets of the bill of rights: Freedom of Speech.

In Everyday Life as a Sheep, Napolitano all but condemns the TSA and why should he

not. They’ve proven to be inefficient, ineffective and arbitrary in their judgment at times. Not

only did they fail to detect something like 90% of prohibited items during the last undercover test

of the agency, they also tend to be overly vigilant about questioning items that are always

permitted. Back in 2014, I was flying home from a competition out of Louisville Kentucky and

had a stack of five medals in my bag. Each medal was about 3 inches in diameter and somwehre
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between 1/16th and 1/8th of an inch thick. Save for the layer of fabric between each of them, they

were a solid chunck in my luggage. Not only was I magically selected for enhanced screening,

the TSA agents were joking around with each other about the “teenage terrorist” in their midst. I

was later told that a nearly solid stack of metal of that size did indeed look like a specific type of

explosive, but once I explained what it was and showed them the medals I should have been

released – spoiler: I wasn’t and ended up having to not only go though the millimeter wave

again, but also be patted down. A few years after that, I was flying home from Washington

Regan with a carryon suitcase full of books and was told that my entire bag had to be taken apart

by the TSA agent. Every last book was removed before they were satisfied that there was

nothing harmful there. Just a few months later, a short-lived pilot program was launched at a few

airports around the nation requiring passengers to removed books from their bags in addition to

electronics and liquids because large stacks of paper apparently look like C4 when viewed

through X- ray scanners. Who knew… certainly not me. The TSA’s reputation has gotten so bad

that certain airports have stopped using them all together – SFO has hired a private firm to

perform the same functions as TSA at other airports hoping that their accuracy and effectiveness

would be better than the real thing.

I’m slightly surprised to admit that I enjoyed this book. I don’t know exactly what I was

expecting, but what I read was not it. Each chapter brought a little more to the table and I found

myself engaged with every topic. The chapter headings also add to the charm of this book, from

Vietnam – Alpha, Bravo, Ellsberg, to The Corpse of Habeas, to Look Patriotic: Your

Government is Watching You, I found myself more interested with each passing chapter.