Posted on 06/21/2013 6:05:42 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
People no longer trust their government, their media or much of anything else to do the right thing.
That lack of confidence, which has accelerated in the last decade or so, is a major (and often overlooked) factor in the current political morass in which the country finds itself — deeply divided along partisan lines without anything even close to objective force able to referee us through the mess.
The numbers are stark. In a Gallup poll released earlier this month, only three out of 16 institutions — the military, small business and the police — attracted majority support when people were asked whether they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in them. Many of the institutions most directly tied to politics score the lowest.
Take Congress, which is at its historical nadir when it comes to the public’s confidence.
Newspapers aren’t in all that much better shape. More than one in three people expressed confidence in newspapers in 2000; just 23 percent say the same today.
Ditto TV news, which has dropped from 35 percent confidence in 2003 to a meager 23 percent today.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Was it ever a good idea to “trust” the government and the media?
I wonder if Chief Justice Roberts wonders what happened to confidence in his Court. From Roe to ObamaCare, the answer is obvious to those who support the Constitution that his Court has continued to destroy.
“People no longer trust their government, their media or much of anything else to do the right thing.”
Yep. The division in this country is on purpose. Dividing and marginalizing is what keeps these people in power. It’s amazing how a Senator or Congressman can get in the high 30’s, low 40’s in votes, yet still win the seat. Then be justified to vote against everything a majority of his/her constituents agree with.
I haven’t decided whether I trust this article or not. /s
“Americans don’t believe in much of anything —-...”
For the simple reason that Americans don’t know WHAT to believe?
Lies, disinformation, propaganda and blatant ideology disguised as “news” brought down the USSR as the people could no longer stomach the forced feeding of corruption and filth.
When the baby starts to upchuck the bad food it’s been fed, it can no longer swallow any more.
We, as a nation, are beginning to upchuck.
We have a Congress and a Senate, that is more interested in dying with their boots on, and amassing major amounts of “walking out money”, and a complete disregard for their constituents, because they think “they are the only game in town”.
We have, not, a news media, but an administration information outlet, who are comfortable with their own inflated resume’s, which actually reflect nothing of note, except, a more sellable pancake-makeuped face for the screen, with the same vacuous emptiness between the ears, as a beauty pageant contestant.
We have an elected “leader”, who is so bent on making America into a global joke, but instead, is himself becoming the global joke, of what once was, a nation not to be trifled with.
On the rare occasion that I agree with--or trust--anything printed by the Washington Post (or any of the Federal Government/Democrat Party Propaganda Organs, including the New York Times, the alphabet networks, et al.) I re-evaluate my opinion and occasionally reflect that a clock that's not working is right twice a day;
However--I definitely do not trust the U.S. federal government, the news media, or the U.S. supreme court.
I do trust the military, small business, and the police.
As Thomas Jefferson observed: when the government fears the people, there is liberty; when the people fear the government, there is tyranny.
When the percentage of the population that distrusts the government reaches a critical point, revolution occurs. Just an observation.
Distrust of government? Gee, I hope so. This clown makes it sound like it’s a bad thing. Societies are far healthier when they assume all pols are guilty until proven innocent. There’s simply too many pols and bureaucrats who love to wield unnecessary power to ever trust gov. officials implicitly.
I say start to focus on returning American industry.
Our manufacturing has been outsourced for almost 30 years, continually.
Now China is the number one exporter, on the planet. That is because all the manufacturing done there for all the American retailers, is all done by 51% Chinese owned, 100% Chinese staffed manufacturing plants.
So all the American employees were fired.
Bring back US jobs.
What’s to trust....?
We have a Democrat party bent on degenerating the US into a European-style social democracy, and possibly a Soviet-style state in the future.
We have a news media that mostly is in the tank for said Democrat party, along with the vast majority of the entertainment industry, which is mostly a massive left-wing propaganda machine.
We have a Supreme Court that is largely corrupt- it refuses to defend personal property rights (Kelo) while supporting the most murderous and perverse evils (Roe, and Lawrence) while aiding the Democrats with their socialism (Roberts on Obamacare).
We have a military that is being hobbled by social engineering rubbish such as allowing gays to participate and women in combat, and idiotic rules of engagement designed to do little or nothing against people who are determined to kill our nation. Not to mention some foolish notion of nuclear disarmament.
We have an out of control federal bureaucracy where large agencies such as the IRS and the NSA are spying on citizens without just cause, participating in politics in a way designed to strengthen their own power and one allowed to do so by both political parties on the grounds of “they are keeping us safe” or some other bunk.
We have a Congress that bails out large businesses that should have been allowed to fail, votes for bills that they do not read, scrambles after every piece of corruption, refuses to deal with the festering sore that is our border with Mexico in any sensible way, and grandstands constantly without actually doing anything.
We have a President, who thanks to successful media propaganda, may not even be a citizen, and got elected mostly on sheer novelty, without having any qualifications whatsoever.
We have a feckless Republican party that is little more than slightly less left-wing Democrats, provide little or no real opposition to the left, and mostly seek to secure the futures of a few anointed who believe they can maintain their wealth and position in the emerging socialist system.
Trust? Yeah, sure.
You can always trust the govt and the media to sell you down the river.
Our manufacturing has been outsourced for almost 30 years, continually.
With the current fedgov regulations, industry cannot return. Perhaps *after* the now-inevitable war, a pro-industry environment might return. It damned well better, because the concept of a "service-based economy" is utter bullshit.
Oh, and you can bet that one of the highest priorities that NSA has for its domestic snooping activities is searching for evidence of a secessionist movement.
Well what we have here, is a flex point.
Either we change now, or we perish.
I’m for change. Legal change, but we must bring back American manufacturing.
The point of all this a lot of GOP people miss is, the more people who are employed in jobs, the more people vote Republican.
Why do you suppose the Democrat party keeps growing?
BECAUSE JOBS KEEP GOING ELSEWHERE.
Bring back US job, and see more GOP votes.
Americans used to be fair minded, honest and they trusted their government. It all goes together like one big pie. But when government becomes overpowerful, and stretches into every life choice, it becomes the enemy. We become like the Russians under communism- everything they personally did was undercover, in a black market. Because the worst thing that can happen to you is that you are noticed by an overbearing state.
Stealth is what most Americans use for safety now. That is why the government surveillance scandals are so terrifying.
The secession of a state(s) is the ONLY thing that FedGov™ truly fears. Everything else is BS.
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