So sorry to hear that TLP has ended. I particularly enjoyed your writing which is so even and calming. I have shared your posts many times. You and your cowriters have made a valuable contribution. Here’s hoping Ken Martin and the other Democratic powers that be have gotten the message. I enjoyed your music reviews and dog pics too. All the best.
Great article. Just one point: trust is always a two-way street. Citizens have to pay taxes, abide by the law and (ideally) vote in return. Or, that's how it works in my country. I'm not American. Oh and another point: there can be technically valid reasons for not trusting official stats, such as how they were collected and what they're actually measuring. Distrust isn't always undesirable or irrational.
Love this. The next thing is to design institutions with incentives that reinforce it. Demanding moral heroism isn't a strategy. It is morally justified, but doesn't deliver. This is about systems, not just the people in the chairs.
How could the American electorate re-elect a President after a New York court had convicted him on 34 felony counts? That's easy. They do not trust the courts of New York. Why should they?
A short while back a bunch of my buddies, and me, were sitting around a fire sipping Scotch and smoking cigars. Dems, Rs, and unaffiliates. A guy said, "raise your hand if you think everyone in government is totally corrupt." All hands went up. I once knew a senator (a school was named after her). I think she was honest, but NOTHING she did was because it was the right thing to do. It was all horsetrading and power plays. I assume that nothing I read or hear about politics is true or doesn't have a hidden agenda. Just the way it is.
The condition you describe is real, but its cause may not lie where you have placed it.
You treat the loss of trust as a failure of performance. Agencies must operate more effectively, information must be more reliable, and leadership must better support those who carry out the functions of government. If these improvements are made, you suggest, confidence may be restored.
This assumes that trust follows competence.
Yet the difficulty appears deeper. A free government was not designed to be trusted in the manner of a well-managed enterprise. It was designed to be limited, divided, and subject to restraint. Confidence, in such a system, does not arise from the excellence of its operations, but from the assurance that no single authority may act without opposition.
When that condition weakens, trust declines for reasons that improved management cannot resolve.
You note that certain agencies retain public confidence. Those concerned with parks or scientific exploration are not generally entrusted with directing the daily conduct of citizens. Their functions are narrow, their authority limited, and their contact with the public seldom involves compulsion or controversy. They are therefore judged by their results alone.
Other institutions operate under different conditions. They interpret, enforce, and administer rules that bear directly upon the lives of those they govern. Their authority is exercised through discretion, and their decisions often produce unequal effects. In such cases, trust is not lost merely because outcomes are imperfect, but because the basis upon which those outcomes are determined is no longer clearly bounded.
The difficulty is therefore not simply that government performs poorly, but that its operations have expanded beyond the conditions under which public confidence can be sustained. Where authority is broad, continuous, and discretionary, disagreement becomes inevitable, and trust gives way to suspicion, not because the system has failed, but because it asks to be relied upon in a manner inconsistent with its design.
Your remedy seeks to restore trust by improving administration. Yet it may be asked whether trust, once extended beyond the proper limits of a free government, can be repaired by better execution alone.
A system that requires constant confidence in the judgment of those who operate it will, in time, encounter divisions that no degree of competence can overcome. For citizens do not merely differ in their evaluation of results, but in their expectations of what authority ought to decide at all.
The question, then, is not only how government may perform more effectively, but whether it has assumed responsibilities that render agreement about its performance impossible.
If so, the restoration of trust would depend less upon refinement of its operations than upon a reconsideration of its scope.
For confidence is most stable where authority is limited, and most fragile where it is expected to resolve the full range of human concerns.
Functions like that tend to be limited in scope, concrete in purpose, and judged by outcomes that are relatively easy to observe. Under those conditions, confidence can form and persist without requiring broad agreement about larger questions.
The difficulty arises as the scope of authority expands into areas where outcomes are less clear, or where citizens differ not only in their evaluation of results, but in their expectations of what should be decided at all.
In that sense, the contrast you are pointing to may not be accidental, but characteristic of the difference in the kind of responsibility being exercised.
According to the 2023 OECD Trust in Government Poll by World Population Review "The United States is well-known for many of its citizens being distrustful of the national government. The estimates largely support this notion. Americans have 30.93% trust in their government, according to the latest data – quite a drop from the 46.5% in 2020."
Your belief is incorrect; many see the federal government as a corrupt leviathan which has gone far beyond its constitutional powers. We want to see the government reduced back to the night watchman state the founders envisioned.
What would you think of someone who said, ‘I would like to have a cat, provided it barked'? Yet your statement that you favor an FDA provided it behaves as you believe desirable is precisely equivalent. The biological laws that specify the characteristics of cats are no more rigid than the political laws that specify thebehavior of governmental agencies once they are established.
The error of supposing that the behavior of social organisms can be shaped at will is widespread. It is the fundamental error of most so-called reformers. It explains why they so often believe that the fault lies in the man, not the “system,” that the way to solve problems is to “throw the rascals out” and put well-meaning people in charge. It explains why their reforms, when ostensibly achieved, so often go astray.
One big problem is that when it comes to science/public health the only statement that is “ truly neutral facts and advice” is generally: We don’t know, but here is our best guess
Even limited positive polling is rather impressive considering recent fraud revelations, following the EV and Covid debacles.
Read a few days ago, just 2 people in NYC were able to scam Medicaid out of more than $350 million dollars, since 2021. They have been billing Medicaid for thousands of treatments that were either never required or administered. They kicked back small payments to people who claimed to be patients. Moreover, they sometimes billed for people who were not US residents. Some "patients" had never set foot in the US.
NYC has a Medicaid program that allows relatives to be paid up to $60K annually for eldercare. It has basically been run on the honor system. It appears, often, numerous relatives care for the same Senior, who may or may not dwell in the US. US Taxpayers are not only financing 6 relatives caring full time for the same elderly Bangladeshi woman, the services are being provided long distance, because she is a life long Bangladesh resident.
The scope and magnitude of the omnipresent fraud and incompetence is truly unimaginable, seemingly everywhere government dollars flow.
Billions were spent on electric schools buses under Biden. They replaced perfectly functioning, safe, gas powered school buses. Fewer than 1/2 of the EV buses are now on the road. Some were never delivered due to bankruptcies, and those that actually appeared, often will not function on a regular basis. Of course the Great EV School Bus Heist is minor compared to the tens of billions lost by US auto producers forced to produced EVs, few wished to purchase.
We will never know the true scope of Covid theft, because so many trillions went out the door, with no safeguards, it is literally impossible to determine where the money went.
Who knew death and taxes, were joined by incalculable government waste and fraud, as life's only inescapable certainties?
So sorry to hear that TLP has ended. I particularly enjoyed your writing which is so even and calming. I have shared your posts many times. You and your cowriters have made a valuable contribution. Here’s hoping Ken Martin and the other Democratic powers that be have gotten the message. I enjoyed your music reviews and dog pics too. All the best.
When half the country loathes the other half, do you expect anything else?
Great article. Just one point: trust is always a two-way street. Citizens have to pay taxes, abide by the law and (ideally) vote in return. Or, that's how it works in my country. I'm not American. Oh and another point: there can be technically valid reasons for not trusting official stats, such as how they were collected and what they're actually measuring. Distrust isn't always undesirable or irrational.
Love this. The next thing is to design institutions with incentives that reinforce it. Demanding moral heroism isn't a strategy. It is morally justified, but doesn't deliver. This is about systems, not just the people in the chairs.
How could the American electorate re-elect a President after a New York court had convicted him on 34 felony counts? That's easy. They do not trust the courts of New York. Why should they?
President Harry S. Truman, once said, “That There Isn’t A Dime’s Difference Between the Republicans and the Democrats!
Our UniParty Representatives are still enriching themselves and their families and our National Debt is now over $ 40 Trillion
President Harry S. Truman, once said, “That There Isn’t A Dime’s Difference Between the Republicans and the Democrats!
Our UniParty Representatives are still enriching themselves and their families our National Debt is now over $ 40 Trillion Dollars!
The Runaway Train is still barreling down the tracks to oblivion!
"...the work of the public sector and government agencies is often grueling, underpaid..." everyone raise your hands if you believe this.
Not raising mine.
A short while back a bunch of my buddies, and me, were sitting around a fire sipping Scotch and smoking cigars. Dems, Rs, and unaffiliates. A guy said, "raise your hand if you think everyone in government is totally corrupt." All hands went up. I once knew a senator (a school was named after her). I think she was honest, but NOTHING she did was because it was the right thing to do. It was all horsetrading and power plays. I assume that nothing I read or hear about politics is true or doesn't have a hidden agenda. Just the way it is.
So few trust the government because the government has failed to serve them.
Sir,
The condition you describe is real, but its cause may not lie where you have placed it.
You treat the loss of trust as a failure of performance. Agencies must operate more effectively, information must be more reliable, and leadership must better support those who carry out the functions of government. If these improvements are made, you suggest, confidence may be restored.
This assumes that trust follows competence.
Yet the difficulty appears deeper. A free government was not designed to be trusted in the manner of a well-managed enterprise. It was designed to be limited, divided, and subject to restraint. Confidence, in such a system, does not arise from the excellence of its operations, but from the assurance that no single authority may act without opposition.
When that condition weakens, trust declines for reasons that improved management cannot resolve.
You note that certain agencies retain public confidence. Those concerned with parks or scientific exploration are not generally entrusted with directing the daily conduct of citizens. Their functions are narrow, their authority limited, and their contact with the public seldom involves compulsion or controversy. They are therefore judged by their results alone.
Other institutions operate under different conditions. They interpret, enforce, and administer rules that bear directly upon the lives of those they govern. Their authority is exercised through discretion, and their decisions often produce unequal effects. In such cases, trust is not lost merely because outcomes are imperfect, but because the basis upon which those outcomes are determined is no longer clearly bounded.
The difficulty is therefore not simply that government performs poorly, but that its operations have expanded beyond the conditions under which public confidence can be sustained. Where authority is broad, continuous, and discretionary, disagreement becomes inevitable, and trust gives way to suspicion, not because the system has failed, but because it asks to be relied upon in a manner inconsistent with its design.
Your remedy seeks to restore trust by improving administration. Yet it may be asked whether trust, once extended beyond the proper limits of a free government, can be repaired by better execution alone.
A system that requires constant confidence in the judgment of those who operate it will, in time, encounter divisions that no degree of competence can overcome. For citizens do not merely differ in their evaluation of results, but in their expectations of what authority ought to decide at all.
The question, then, is not only how government may perform more effectively, but whether it has assumed responsibilities that render agreement about its performance impossible.
If so, the restoration of trust would depend less upon refinement of its operations than upon a reconsideration of its scope.
For confidence is most stable where authority is limited, and most fragile where it is expected to resolve the full range of human concerns.
— CIVIS AMERICANUS
In Oregon, the only trustworthy arm of government is DFW. Department of Fish and Wildlife. Efficient, polite, and very helpful.
That is a useful example.
Functions like that tend to be limited in scope, concrete in purpose, and judged by outcomes that are relatively easy to observe. Under those conditions, confidence can form and persist without requiring broad agreement about larger questions.
The difficulty arises as the scope of authority expands into areas where outcomes are less clear, or where citizens differ not only in their evaluation of results, but in their expectations of what should be decided at all.
In that sense, the contrast you are pointing to may not be accidental, but characteristic of the difference in the kind of responsibility being exercised.
According to the 2023 OECD Trust in Government Poll by World Population Review "The United States is well-known for many of its citizens being distrustful of the national government. The estimates largely support this notion. Americans have 30.93% trust in their government, according to the latest data – quite a drop from the 46.5% in 2020."
Your belief is incorrect; many see the federal government as a corrupt leviathan which has gone far beyond its constitutional powers. We want to see the government reduced back to the night watchman state the founders envisioned.
This is a classic, “how to reshape a government agency to our liking.” Excerpt from-
BARKING CATS - Milton Friedman, Newsweek, 19Feb73,
What would you think of someone who said, ‘I would like to have a cat, provided it barked'? Yet your statement that you favor an FDA provided it behaves as you believe desirable is precisely equivalent. The biological laws that specify the characteristics of cats are no more rigid than the political laws that specify thebehavior of governmental agencies once they are established.
The error of supposing that the behavior of social organisms can be shaped at will is widespread. It is the fundamental error of most so-called reformers. It explains why they so often believe that the fault lies in the man, not the “system,” that the way to solve problems is to “throw the rascals out” and put well-meaning people in charge. It explains why their reforms, when ostensibly achieved, so often go astray.
https://miltonfriedman.hoover.org/internal/media/dispatcher/214107/full
One big problem is that when it comes to science/public health the only statement that is “ truly neutral facts and advice” is generally: We don’t know, but here is our best guess
Even limited positive polling is rather impressive considering recent fraud revelations, following the EV and Covid debacles.
Read a few days ago, just 2 people in NYC were able to scam Medicaid out of more than $350 million dollars, since 2021. They have been billing Medicaid for thousands of treatments that were either never required or administered. They kicked back small payments to people who claimed to be patients. Moreover, they sometimes billed for people who were not US residents. Some "patients" had never set foot in the US.
NYC has a Medicaid program that allows relatives to be paid up to $60K annually for eldercare. It has basically been run on the honor system. It appears, often, numerous relatives care for the same Senior, who may or may not dwell in the US. US Taxpayers are not only financing 6 relatives caring full time for the same elderly Bangladeshi woman, the services are being provided long distance, because she is a life long Bangladesh resident.
The scope and magnitude of the omnipresent fraud and incompetence is truly unimaginable, seemingly everywhere government dollars flow.
Billions were spent on electric schools buses under Biden. They replaced perfectly functioning, safe, gas powered school buses. Fewer than 1/2 of the EV buses are now on the road. Some were never delivered due to bankruptcies, and those that actually appeared, often will not function on a regular basis. Of course the Great EV School Bus Heist is minor compared to the tens of billions lost by US auto producers forced to produced EVs, few wished to purchase.
We will never know the true scope of Covid theft, because so many trillions went out the door, with no safeguards, it is literally impossible to determine where the money went.
Who knew death and taxes, were joined by incalculable government waste and fraud, as life's only inescapable certainties?