i feel nobody has authority over me - i do as i please, when and where i want. however, i am aware of my personal and social morality and boundaries around what is acceptable (to me!)...and the consequences which will occur if i choose to ignore them. this, of course includes illegal behaviour, things which others may judge me by (and stop me doing something i want - not that i care what anyone else thinks!) or something else which i felt would be unacceptable.
i pretty much do as i please: i work because i wish to have a certain standard of living, for example, so i have to consider what is acceptable practice, conduct and qualities to continue my employment, however, i would also be quite happy sitting on my arse on disability benefits (been there before!) which requires significantly less effort, but is not all hearts and roses and brings problems of it's own along for the ride. i am very much my own person in my relationship and again do as i please - mr kicker does also; but of course we work at our relationship, love and respect one another and know what is acceptable within our marriage.
for me, this question seems to ultimately filter down to: do i respect and defer to authority? the answer to this is no - i don't respect anyone who doesn't respect me, themselves or others to a certain degree. plenty of people i have met in positions of 'authority' are there for the wrong reasons - police or mental health nurses who do the job for the power trip; teachers who make pupils lives a misery because they don't fit their ideal of a submissive or traditionally bright pupil; and 'jobsworths' - the scum of the earth!
i certainly don't 'just' respect authority because it is there and that is how others feel. i respect those who reciprocate with others around them; have a decent moral compass; and are good human beings. a good example of this is my working relationship with doctors who i work with (i'm a psych nurse). i am probably the only staff member who doesn't run around after them (to get patients, paperwork or other stuff they may not know about). some seem to think that nurses were put on this earth to organise their own workload; fetch and carry; or are inferior to them in some way - my response is joe bloggs is in such and such a room, which is down there....or the meds cards are where they always have been (i.e. the clinic!)...or you're sat in my chair and the other computers are next door. some really don't like it, attempt to coerce me to do stuff or are actually silly enough to try and make me - and they get told fairly quickly where to get off.
i also greet people on an equal footing regardless of who they are (the matron, a cleaner, or the bigwig boss - you never know when someone may be useful to you and everybody is equal in my eyes!) by saying 'hello john, how are things?' instead of 'good morning professor' and 5 Easy-Steps-to-Promotion like some of my colleagues, which i think is very demeaning. and anyway, they call me by my first name, so what's the big deal? the decent doctors are those who don't expect preferential treatment and, like myself, treat others as they would like to be dealt with.
lastly, anything written in the bible (particularly that of the op) should be taken with a pinch of salt - some of the other stuff it comes out with and is 'used' by christians to judge others; justify questionable values and behaviour (which is sometimes, frankly, disgusting; and is terribly out of date - it just doesn't have a place in our multicultural, diverse world with all of it's modern complexities. people can have good, decent morals, behaviour and opinions without someone telling them what to do or is carried out because they are afraid of being ostracised by others around them (in their own 'righteous' cultural setting, remember) - religion and it's 'teachings' is certainly one of the reasons that i have in not respecting authority and accepting things blindly...it is abused by those who preach it to others x