The Science of Conspiracy Theories

In whom do we trust?

In whom do we trust?

Warning! This may offend some people.

A motto on United State's money says: In God we trust. A lot of people accept that motto, but the respect we once had for our institutions has waned to the point of distrust. The reality is that Americans have lost confidence in government, public schools, churches, banks, and television news. You can also include police, the medical profession, and businesses in that list.

Why is this the case? The answer is obvious. The financial collapse of 2008 created the worst recession since the 1930's. Millions of people lost jobs, homes, and their chance for a retirement in that recession, and it has been a slow, painful climb back out of the financial mess. And the bad news is that we're not quite out and it looks like we're heading for a new crisis.

The American government has become a squabbling gang of self-serving politicians that have such disparity of political persuasion they stubbornly refuse to compromise. It has resulted in government shutdowns and threat of default. Most people don't care about these politicians' grandiose political agendas. They just want the government to do what it's supposed to do--govern. It's the main reason that voters are partial to non-establishment candidates. They incorrectly assume that an outsider (someone who has never governed) could fix the morass that has paralyzed the government with inactivity. Some people have even suggested doing away with the constitution and governing by decree. Haven't they studied history to realize that this is not a good idea? Our forefathers fought and died to establish a government for the people and by the people. That's where it should stay, assuming we can get it back to there.

Most Americans are completely disappointed in banking institutions that made risky investments and gave loans to people with shaky financial situations, resulting in foreclosures and a falling stock market. The Federal Reserve labeled some of these financial institutions as being 'Too Large to Fail', and bailed them out using taxpayer money. They also did the same for General Motors and Chrysler, allowing them to file bankruptcy and pass their bankrupted pension funds over to the government and then be bailed out to form new entities, leaving shareowners with worthless stock and the government with new debt. The Federal Reserve then began so-called Quantitative Easing, a euphemistic term for printing money, subsequently making the dollar's value depreciate. Yes, I know that the dollar has subsequently risen in value, but this is only because the European countries fell into their own recessions. It's no wonder that people have lost faith in the government and the banking industry.

I'm not trying to bolster socialist ideas here. Socialism is a failed system. The idea that the government can give all sorts of benefits to people and tax the rich to do it is crazy. Who would want to be taxed at 90%. This would destroy incentive to innovate and improve. We would become like Greece. I'm just trying to point out that the government needs to be fair and equitable. Everyone should have a chance, not just the 1%. Surely, this could be accomplished without slipping into the hell-pit of Socialism.

The problem is that government has gone past what the founding fathers envisioned and has entwined our lives with the complications of over-regulation and unnecessary taxes. We are being bled dry by an ill-advised desire by left-wing visionaries to create a utopia where no one has to work again. The real world doesn't work that way.

The media has misled young people into thinking that life is a lark and that they should expect instant gratification. They have a big disappointment awaiting them. The duplicitous media is only interested in scamming them for money.

Public schools have become useless educational factories that are only interested in turning out mental zombies with a bunch of facts but no real skills. This is another fault of the government that has twisted the goals of education into a factory mentality. Their mantra is: Just get them to pass the core achievement tests and that'll do it. What's even worse is that these school administrators keep asking for higher salaries. Instead of school administrators they're now euphemistically labeled CEO's so that they can justify being paid six and seven figure incomes. I think the public has become disgusted with these shenanigans.

Even the Church has lost respect by allowing the clergy to molest children while telling everyone that they should be chaise and not use birth control. This is a moral travesty of the worst kind because it goes against all of Jesus Christ's teachings. They forgot the Bible and the Ten Commandments and just covered it up. Shame! And, then they wonder why people have left the Church. They blame it on secularism and moral decay. They are the moral decay. It's the old adage: Do as I tell you not as I do. Geez!

We can no longer trust what we see in print and on television. The nightly news has degenerated into tabloid TV, purveying mostly titillating scandals and gory disasters. They have become propaganda mills for the wealthy people that own them, spouting news that is biased by political rhetoric. Each news agency tries to be fist to report anything that would grab the public's attention even if it hasn't been verified. A good example of this was the Centennial Olympic Park bombing incident on July 27, 1996. The media went on to falsely accuse Richard Jewell, a security guard who discovered the bomb and saved lives by warning people, because of unverified rumors even though it was subsequently revealed that Eric Robert Rudolph, a known domestic terrorist, was responsible.

The bottom line is that you can't trust the news to be factual. That's a shame.

We can't even trust the medical industry because it has become a greedy bunch of charlatans that are only interested in gouging the public. They create new, expensive medicines that have a laundry list of side effects and then they pay generic drug manufactures to delay brining out substitutes for their expensive drugs when the patents run out. We now see that Private Equity companies are buying generic drug companies that are not traded on the equity markets and then raising the price of formerly inexpensive drugs to astronomical values. If this isn't bad enough, the cost of medical treatment has risen much higher than inflation because of malpractice insurance premiums going through the roof. This is the fault of lawyers specializing in malpractice who now advertise how much money they can get you. This problem has become so bad that many gynecologists have left the field. The medical system is in disarray and the politicians have no clue as to what to do to fix it. They're idea is to give people money so that they can afford ridiculously priced medical insurance. This only fans the fires of medical malfeasance and inefficiency.

The police have also lost respect because of police brutality and corruption. The corruption is not new. There have many several scandals involving police corruption in large cities like New York. Most of these have to do with drugs or bunko cases in which police take bribes to not arrest offenders caught in the act. The brutality aspect seems to be directed mostly at African Americans. For some reason police seem to be trigger-happy and shoot a supposed attacker many times. How many shots does it take to kill somebody? This is happening even if the offender has a knife. Couldn't they just shoot to wound the offenders instead of pouring so many shots into them? Guns have become a major problem in America. People justify having assault rifles and other military-style weapons often by quoting the second amendment right. This has contributed to the police-shooting problem. We've digressed into the old West mentality.

I can remember a time when most people respected authority, including politicians, clergy, and the police. That sentiment has been reversed in these modern times. Trust must be earned. It shouldn't be assumed. The problem I see is that the politicians running for President appear to be uttering the usual political rhetoric, promising things that are virtually impossible. I don't have much faith or trust in the future. Where is a good leader when you need one?

Thanks for reading.