America's Victim is Trust

[louis c]

I've been really thinking lately about why this country, the greatest country in the world, has so many citizens with so much distrust of one another. It's deep rooted and systemic.

Let me see if I can explain this. There are too many police who distrust minorities because of stereo-types, which leads to too many needless confrontations.

There are minorities who distrust every cop, which accelerates and worsens confrontations.

There are too many lazy voters who mouth that "all politicians are crooks".

There are too many people who think all union leaders are corrupt.

There are too many people who think that all priests are pedophiles.

You get my point.

I was taught to trust everyone until they give you a good reason to distrust them. That doesn't mean to be naïve'. Common sense still is needed. I wouldn't walk into a high crime area at 2:00 AM to just test the theory. I wouldn't send a $1,000 donation to a televangelist to see if he really could heal me over the TV. But, by and large, I've found this advice to be very helpful in my life.

It seems to me that too many people think the opposite. Be distrustful until the other person proves they can be trusted. And they live by stereo-types, which is distrust on steroids. I believe nothing breeds hate more than generalized stereo-types of any group of people and that hate holds us back as individuals and as a society.

[Odin2005]

1. It's the Media. Scaring the population gets eyeballs...

...Which gets them more ad revenue. The world is actually much safer than a few decades ago, but you wouldn't know it going by the media.