In whom do you trust?

I’ve been doing some thinking about the apparent way people in our great nation think. While I tend to not be too shy about telling people what I think I also believe that it is my duty to allow them to think as they wish. Also to understand what they think and why so I can avoid misrepresenting their positions as much has reasonably possible. In my school program I have a lot of opportunities to hear the ideas of people of different values and views than myself. They are often shared casually as many assume (almost correctly) that everyone in the program is extremely liberal (at some point I should address how that term has mutated into a horrible and deadly cancer, but I’ll save that for another day).

What I find taught in so many ways day in day out is a deep and profound belief that the federal government is going to solve all the problems if only the backwards thinking conservatives would stop getting in the way of progress. So I’m trying to understand were that idea has come from.

Is a total faith in the goodness and kindness of the Federal Government a result of their personal experiences and the history of our nation?

Was it our Governments original tight restrictions on voting rights that inspire their trust?

Maybe the years of slavery in our nation in the South.

Perhaps when the two ruling parties struck a deal that prevented the federal government from enforcing the basic rights of the now “freed” slaves that assures them of their good intent and great ability.

Doubtless the countless treaties that we “renegotiated” with the Natives inspires trust.

Let us not forget our worship based foreign trade policies.

Maybe our providing amnesty to war criminals in exchange for their research is the key event that makes them love the Feds.

Perhaps our locking up every person of Japanese decent we could find in the entire country and selling their homes out from under them provides that big warm fuzzy.

I know our large nuclear arsenal and the assorted tests leading up to its creation just brings smiles to the faces of so many.

Lets not forget our good friends at the FBI and the fine job they did at Ruby Ridge and Waco. Know that a large number of people might come and harass me and my family and kill us really makes we want to go hug the nearest federal employee.

Perhaps having congress now trying to micro manage (in addition to bleed dry) every major corporation in the country makes it all seem just so right.
Maybe it is an understanding of how the FDA only allows us to have safe food and drugs oh yeah and the ones congress says we should have or not have because some company wants to that way.

You know maybe it is the huge national debt that we have which is reaching a point where we can not even afford to make the interest payments that inspires so much trust in the abilities of the Federal Government.

Perhaps it is their ability to provide us with one of the most expensive and least effective school systems in the known world that makes them want to hand over the rest of our lives to their watchful care.

This list could no doubt get a whole lot longer. I think I’ve touched on enough topics from enough different view points to make it clear that the Federal Government has a history of making some really bad calls. They made some really good ones too, but it is too large and too disconnected from the lives of people to be trusted to micro manage them. The feds can and should provide protection and insure that our basic freedoms the ones mentioned in the bill of rights not the ones we wish were there are enforced. Sadly we see way too much time and money being spent doing everything else and the shameful ignoring of those primary responsibilities. If the Bill of Rights were a child the President and Congress would all be in prison serving time for their criminal neglect and abuse.


I’ve hear about this off an on for years I don’t know who wrote it, but I take no credit (except for recognizing that it is a very valuable lesson)

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

Our federal Government has come for the Mormons, the Japanese, the Natives and the Communist. If you doubt any of that please get a history book and cure yourself of your ignorance. One could make a good argument that they have come for the Africans, the Catholics and anyone who works hard and provides for their needs and wants without government subsidy. I don’t know who will be next, but ask yourself if they will come for someone else what is to stop them from coming for you?

In whom do you trust?
If it is in someone or something that changes with the winds of political expediency or whims of personal interest one day you may well find yourself at the mercy of a monster you helped to create.