In God We Trust
Albert Einstein said: “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.”
Hemmingway is quoted as: “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
As of April 2024, Pew Research showed 22% of Americans say they trust the government in Washington to do what is right “just about always,” (2%) or “most of the time” (21%).
So how do we and the rest of the population get to the sad commentary where 80% of us don’t trust the federal government.
There are a plethora of examples of “antics” by national elected representatives that one can trace back to the 1960’s that have resulted in the public’s lack of trust in the federal government. Frankly, the trust number has been below 30% since a year after 9-11.
For our purposes today we need go back no further than the most recent antic to raise the debt ceiling – which itself is asinine. (See SPIDER Blog Sept. 29. 2024.) This bill passed Congress 12/20/24.
Without the involvement and forums to speak out for people like Elon Musk, the Congress would have passed a major spending spree of mostly ‘pork’ while supposedly just raising the debt ceiling.
Representatives and Senators have gotten used to being ‘heroes’ in raising the debt ceiling and saving the government from ‘shutting down,’ that they put things into the debt ceiling exercise that would not have been included in the appropriations debates and compromises.
The American public became aware of the scam because it was publicly exposed, and Congress backed off and basically passed a clean bill.
But the point is, without that public exposure, business as usual would have been the order of the day. With it, trust just took another hit.
I’ll go a little further. I listen to some people who say we should expect exaggeration and hyperbole during political campaigns. It goes with the territory.
I totally reject that supposed acceptance of giving anyone a license to deliberately wander from the truth, dependent on the setting and circumstance.
When candidates and elected and appointed leaders tell us “The border is secure” when over two million immigrants per year are entering the country illegally it’s not ‘misinformation,’ it’s a bald-faced lie.
If you lie, you earn no trust. You earn incredulity and distrust. If you’re the government, you additionally evoke anger.
When the self-appointed opinion leaders – those who consider themselves elite and once removed from the common folk – tell us we just don’t understand how good the economy is, they’re in effect repeating the famous Marie Antonette quote: “Let them eat cake.” We all know what happened to that queen.
Trust.
“President Biden is energetic and pugnacious” were words to describe him at work in the White House. Everyone who saw and heard him in public knew it wasn’t true, and that his staff and cabinet were trying to deceive us about his obvious cognitive decline. During and after his 2024 debate with Donald Trump, Biden’s staff and Democratic Party leaders knew the jig was up.
Trust.
“The economy has never been better,” “The inflation is transitory,” “Inflation is coming down” were themes from the litanies of arguments made by the current administration for us not to believe what we just paid for a dozen eggs.
“Unemployment is the lowest in history” was supposed to make us think that everyone who wants a job can easily get one. They failed to note that there are 1.1 million fewer native-born Americans with jobs from just a year ago – continuing the trend. So many people have dropped out of the labor force – that is, looking for work – as more and more jobs have been filled by illegal immigrants who are willing to accept lower wages.
Trust.
One final note. When Congress creates and allows federal agencies and bureaucrats to make far-reaching regulations that affect the lives of everyday Americans, it starts a spiral of mistrust.
Without regular approval of regulations by Congress, the executive branch can impact and control all phases of our economy, health, savings, and safety. That’s too much power in one branch of our government. Can we trust our Congress to provide oversight to departments and agencies? To not do the Pontious Pilate hand washing and do what’s right and needed by the country?
Can we elect a government that we can trust?
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Have a great and prosperous week.
Hug somebody.
References:
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/06/24/public-trust-in-government-1958-2024/
SPIDER Bytes
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Ever heard of quantum teleportation? If not, we’ll hear more about it. While it would still be categorized as experimental, it’s being done. It’s a method for transmitting information instantaneously over vast distances, offering transformative possibilities for computing, communication, and cryptography. it involves transmitting quantum states—essentially the fundamental properties of particles like electrons or photons—without physical movement of the particles themselves. If that sounds wild or deep, it’s both. “Beam we up, Scotty” science fiction will be somewhere in our grandchildren’s future.
The Social Security Administration is launching a plan to provide “stimulus checks” of up to $500 for legal immigrants, and for illegals who have children. How do we feel about such ‘compassion’ by a federal agency which exists to primarily pay out earned benefits to retirees – and is projected to go broke in 10 years?
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In the present winter season our 49th state, Alaska, has less than 4 hours of sunlight/day. You think residents there would like to be dependent on solar power to generate their electricity? Oh, I forgot, the wind might be blowing.
In 2018 NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe which reached 3.8 million miles away in 2021 when starting its orbit in the sun’s corona. It has sent tons of data info from our star in the last couple of years. It’s amazing it has survived this long. This stuff is fascinating to me.
