When I was a lad, nearly everyone was the establishment. There were a few voices of dissent, of conscience, of leftist agitation, of moral indignation, and everyone else was happy with the way things were. To be an outsider was to be a subversive, to invite opprobrium and suspicion not merely from the authorities but from "decent" society too.
Nowadays, as could be observed in relation to the visit of George W. Bush, everyone's a rebel. Bishops, trade unionists, singer-songwriters, even lawyers take turns manning the barricades of revolution.
Twenty years ago I participated in the protest during the visit of the then US president, Ronald Reagan, when he came here in search of his roots. The mainstream view then was that we couldn't afford to annoy the Yanks. That protest - against US policy in Central America - was a bit of a party pooper, a minority affair confined mainly to youngsters and people who deployed guitars with intent.
I didn't get to impress on Ronald Reagan the dim view I took of his foreign policy, but I did manage to scowl at his wife, Nancy, as their limousine whizzed around Galway's Eyre Square. If looks could kill, Nancy would have died right there. Perhaps Mr Reagan's subsequent longevity can be chalked up to the fact that he was looking the other way.
There is a remarkable parallel between the condescension with which we then contemplated Ronald Reagan and the attitude today in society generally towards George W. Bush. We regarded Ronnie as a simple and ridiculous ham, and dangerous. We viewed his economics with disdain and his analysis of global politics as simplistic. We accused him of imperialist aggression and war crimes. He was, we were sure, the Most Dangerous Man On The Planet. If we had thought of it at the time, we'd have reckoned it a brilliant wheeze to issue a warrant for his arrest.
But Ronnie had the last laugh when he liberated a quarter of the globe from the clammy embrace of communism. His concepts of global politics may have been simple, but they were effective. The world is a lot safer by virtue of his leadership. Just as well we didn't have him arrested.
The parallels between the global situations then and now are as tenuous as those same people make between Iraq and Vietnam. But there is a constant: the exercise of responsibility by those in power, regardless of protests by those spared that burden.
Those who sneer at the alleged simplicity of George W. Bush have adopted an unspoken mantra, in truth far more simplistic than anything the US President might be accused of believing: "What ought to be must be".
When you weigh up the arguments of the protesters, what you gather is that they oppose people being killed. This is an admirable quality, but what it avoids is that human nature does not universally acknowledge what ought to be, and that, sometimes, it is necessary for those charged with responsibility for the safety of others to act with decisiveness and conviction.
And the funny thing is that, the better our leaders serve us in taking on and accomplishing the difficult and unpopular tasks of global housekeeping, the safer we become and, therefore, the more comfortable we feel about attacking the very source of our security. Everyone can be a rebel now because the quality of our past leadership gave us the freedom to attack and insult those now seeking to protect those very freedoms.
Protest is easy. All you need do is knock together a makeshift placard and take to the street. Today you can be certain of provoking the nods of the majority with a pious statement of the banal. Peace is good. Oh yeah. War is bad. Nasty war. Nasty men who make war. Bad, bad, bad.
But the exercise of power in situations where the optimum outcome will be the lesser of evils is a solemn and sacred calling. We are lucky, as I've said before, that we have had as our protectors at this hour men like George W. Bush and Tony Blair, who are prepared to face down not merely the enemy without but the naivety within.
This is the most hopeful week in Iraq for more than 30 years. God and Allah willing, in a matter of months, the Iraqi people will have achieved the freedom and autonomy they deserve. Only a tiny minority of insurgents and malcontents now stand between them and the democracy promised by George W. Bush and Tony Blair.
I'd like to think that all those who rail and protest against Mr Bush, who sneer at his simplicity and malapropisms, are hoping today that their own pessimism will be misplaced and praying that those who seek to frustrate democracy in Iraq will fail.
But I'm not so sure, because such an outcome would mean - and this would never do - that George W. Bush might one day achieve a belated vindication in the manner of his late and illustrious predecessor, Ronald Reagan, RIP.