Theos-Talk Archives (January 1997 Message tl00104)

On Tue, 7 Jan 97 02:22:25 +0000, kymsmith@micron.net wrote:

>Tom wrote in response to Ann:
>
>>This reflects the unrealistic assumption that human beings are >>trustworthy.
>
>This does go back to the conservative theory that people are irrational
>(thereby justifying elitism).  

Your views of liberal and conservative are much different from mine.  My
idea of a liberal is someone who believes that people in government are so
good, and people who are not in government are so helpless without people
in government, that big government is necessary to help people not in
government get by.  My idea of a conservative is someone who believes that
the most important issue in politics is that, since power so easily
corrupts, no one has too much power, preferring as decentralized and
limited a government as possible.  


>There will come a day when it is finally realized that people are inherently
>good. 

That day will not come until people are actually good.  Until then, some
people forcing other people to trust everyone else in collective agreements
will be justifiably resisted.


>People naturally want to trust, and do.  

They also naturally want to try to get something for nothing, and do.


>The belief and acceptance of
>trust is also based on rational thought.  Trustworthiness is established
>when specific criteria have been met, when it is shown that in particular
>circumstances, one can be trusted. 

Ditto for skepticism, when it is shown that one cannot be trusted.


>It is peculiar how conservatives claim the supremacy of the individual, yet,
>go on to declare that trusting one may be your undoing.

Individuals are better equipped to decide whom to trust than is a
bureaucracy.


>>The more that people trust each other, the more profit
>>there is in cheating, since it will not be expected, and the number of
>>cheaters will increase.
>
>This conclusion has been proven wrong by history.  It is when people don't
>trust each other that cheating increases.  

It is when people are too gullible that cheating increases.


>Anxiety that one may not receive
>what one needs is conducive to cheating.  Insecurity, fear, and suspicion
>propel individuals to adopt less than honest conduct to cope and survive.  

It works both ways.  If people were basically trustworthy, they would have
been more likely to have been trusted by those with whom it would have been
profitable to do business, and they wouldn't be insecure.  Collective karma
directly applies to people trusting each other.  How much starvation has
been caused by a few dishonest people forcing skepticism to be everyone's
best choice?


>>The less that people trust each other, the less
>>profit there will be in cheating, and the number of cheaters will decrease.
>
>Again, looking around you will prove this assessment false.  Cheating is
>abundant today, not because people overly trust each other, but because
>people don't trust each other enough.  

Cheating is not caused by people not trusting each other.  People not
trusting each other is caused by cheating.


>>"A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged by reality."
>
>"A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested."

Arrested?  By the very government that he so strongly advocated?