Reliance Restraint
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Who should you trust the least, a politician, a used car salesman or Satan?
(yes, I know, the differences are vague on the surface, but as always I’ll go deeper into a philosophical subject than you are otherwise prepared)
Of the three Satan is most trust worthy. Aside from a brief cameo in Eden, Satan is what he is. Like any garden variety redneck, you pretty much know what you are getting with Scratch. Used car scammers are trustworthy in as much as you know where they work, and fear of baseball bat retribution keeps them more-or-less honest.
Politicians? You can trust them as far a you can throw a used Buick.
Trust is tricky. The odds of anyone being both honest and reliable can buckle under the superior force of human frailty. Selfish interests get the better of everyone eventually, though most folks outgrow it. Perpetual children (a.k.a. politicians) practice deceit to get what they cannot get honestly, and thus no trust of politicos can exist. One or another statesman might well be honest, but why risk reliance when badgering, belittling and abuse are better tools for keeping them as close to conscientious as can be managed.
Of course, we can trust them not to be trustworthy.
The essence of trust revolves around the paired concepts of reliability and integrity, the latter word encompassing our mutual visions of virtue. Not only must the object of trust be relied upon to do something, his/her/its actions must be within the scope of what we consider to be honorable, just and decent. You can rely on Satan’s actions to be consistent, but his chewing on your bones while butt-bumping your mama likely is not within your definition of ethical behavior.
A politician would commit the same heinous acts, but would first promise not to.
Over the last four and a half million years of human evolution, people have devised various ways of enforcing trust. In civilized societies and San Francisco, the process is normally left to the tort courts, where people debate which person lacked either integrity or reliability in modes of contract. This occurs between former business partners and former spouses, though the latter source provides more scandalous amusement (“Your honor, she asked me to do her sister. Honestly!”) It occasionally occurs between citizens and their government though appealing to the government (i.e., the courts) with claims of violation of trust by the government (i.e., legislative or executive branches) is a stacked deck.
Bazookas work better, though tar and feather are not completely out of vogue.
People also enforce trust without the benefit of intermediaries like courts. Despite being illegal, dueling is not unheard of in the modern South, though gentlemanly demands for satisfaction have largely fallen to more common protocols. Nationally, wives have been known to bobbit unfaithful husbands, lawyers are occasionally used for target practice, and discourtesies often enough encourage corrective reaction from flying fists. For most people civil discourse or social outcasting is sufficient. Every breech of trust can be corrected in small and large ways (such as changing a former boyfriend’s online dating profile password to ‘dumbass’).
Politicians and judges are another matter. Having been granted temporary power, they have means for justifying their deceptions. Combined they can eradicate the most fundamental form of trust between the people and their government: The Constitution. Such great power requires those elected and appointed to be trustworthy, to have and maintain reliability and integrity. This is reflected through adherence to the express written will of the people in their constitution. Yet over the decades of American existence, judges redefined The People’s will and politicians found ways of further violating public trust.
Hell, we’d be better off with Satan sitting on the Supreme Court than Sotomayor.
This brings us to the disquieting direction in which America is heading. When people can compromise, or at worst have an allegedly disinterested third party mediate, then trust can be enforced without assault or onslaught. If you can talk-down a drunken bully, the two of you might well knock back a beer once mutual tension subsides. Trying to settle with Satan just means you are his next penile piñata. Such is the nature of man and government. When government behaves with integrity – when it obeys – then trust reigns, or at least the judicial branch will enforce the trust. When Uncle Sam becomes Uncle Satan and abandons integrity and reliability, then few other corrective actions are open aside from blunt trauma.
A scorned wife will never again trust a philandering husband, but frying pan therapy might keep him from doing it again. The People are one government indiscretion away from pummeling politicians and jack-hammering judges. I don’t advocate savagery to extract satisfaction, but I can’t say I wouldn’t crack a smile if it occurred to my congressman. People maintain the ultimate power and direct correction would be an obvious outcome for the current state of the untrustworthy state.
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