We're not talking about the loss of faith in big institutions such as the government, the church or Wall Street, which fluctuates with events. For four decades, a gut-level ingredient of democracy - trust in the other fellow - has been quietly draining away.For the rest of the article trust the AP
These days, only one-third of Americans say most people can be trusted. Half felt that way in 1972, when the General Social Survey first asked the question.
Forty years later, a record high of nearly two-thirds say "you can't be too careful" in dealing with people.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
"In God we trust, maybe, but not each other"
"(AP) - You can take our word for it. Americans don't trust each other anymore."
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35 comments:
Diversity, a cornucopia of mistrust.
Diversity is part of it. But there's also a sense of the end of the social contract. Republicans radiate hatred for the lower classes, and Democrats hate the middle class. Hell, it's part and parcel of their permanent political campaigns. That right there is going to sow a lot of mistrust.
The title should be "Americans wise up".
People *aren't* trustworthy. If people were trustworthy things like communism would actually work.
Revenant, there are levels of trust. And a society with low levels of trust tends to be one with more corruption, more lawyering, more fraud, more feuds, etc. It's no way to run a Republic.
Trooper has a post that offers some of the reason for the mistrust.
Yeah, Lem, but crime has been falling for most of the time the mistrust has been rising.
What? I trust. That's why I lock my doors, and my car, and my phone, and have a password on everything I access on the internet, and my dog has a microchip and I comment online using my own name, and I have theft insurance, and insurance against frivolous ambulance chasers, and why I always say exactly what I'm thinking and post it on line forever. It's why I'm not even afraid to post a hot video video of me doing this.
It's all about the trust.
It's probably been a damned long time since you saw someone do that, but what can I say, I'm sick and that's just how I roll.
Republicans radiate hatred for the lower classes.
Republicans, like them or not,
are the only party looking out for the tax payer. This gets misconstrued by democrats and their media butt shovelers as "hatred for the poor".
And a society with low levels of trust tends to be one with more corruption, more lawyering, more fraud, more feuds, etc. It's no way to run a Republic.
Correlation isn't causation.
According to the article its been a a decline in trust among white American boomers. Diversity plays a large part, also the decline in religion, and also people "wising up" - you don't see as many easy marks running around thinking everyone is just like their Uncle Fred and Aunt May.
And a fragmented diverse society full of liberals will always be low on trust.
In God they don't trust.
Rickrolld ... awsome!
I get Rickrolld every damn time. I know -I deserve it.
I'm expecting sexy dudes in undies... and all we ever get around here is minxy gals with large ta tas.
I mistrust this survey.
Fake
In God they don't trust.
Um, rc... "people aren't trustworthy" is kind of a core tenet of Christian philosophy. Human beings are inherently flawed and sinful -- thus the emphasis on grace, not works.
It is left-wing thinking that holds that an Earthly paradise of well-behaved human beings is possible. I'll give Christians this much: most of you have better sense than that. :)
If true, I think it has a lot to do with the diffusion of news today which is by nature predominantly negative. Most people probably think crime is worse now than ever in their lives despite the fact that the truth is exactly the opposite.
How many people, even including those of us who know the stats, go through the day with a mindset that things are terrible, people can't be trusted and it's getting worse.
It's simply not, but if you counted the negative reinforcing inputs you read, see, and hear daily, I bet it's a multiple higher than it was in the past. This is one bad effect of the internet. It's a magnifier, a big top show, and bad news is in the center ring 24/7.
This gets misconstrued by democrats and their media butt shovelers as "hatred for the poor".
April, when I was solidly middle class, it was clear the Dems hated my guts. They thought I was making too much, that I wasn't paying my fair share, that I was too white, too straight, too male, too married.
Since I lost my job and we've been reduced to working class poor, it has become equally apparent that the Republicans and Tea Partiers hate our guts. We're freeloaders, grifters, we don't pay our fair share (ironically, it's the same goddamned language the other goddamned side uses), we're only in it for the welfare and the free phones, etc. This became evident after Romney's 47% comment leaked, and the response that engendered.
But guess what... Not everyone that is poor is getting anything. We pay taxes (property, sales, FICA, and a smidgen of income), we don't get welfare, not even SNAP, we pay our bills. And yet, all I hear is how poor people are nothing but freeloaders and we're robbing you people blind.
Well, fuck you. I'm tired of hearing it, and don't plan on voting for you assholes anymore either. I've reached the point where the Republicans and Tea Partiers look no better than the Democrats and leftists look. You're all in it solely for yourselves, have no interest in building a better country for anyone other than yourselves, and just want to loot the carcass for your own benefit.
We're tax payers, and you guys have nothing but vitriol and contempt for us. Don't expect our votes in the future, because we're no longer inclined to contribute to our own abuse. Good luck winning the elections when you keep pissing on the growing numbers of working class poor. Just more absentee voters that the edutchers of the world will wonder where we went when we don't show up at the polls to vote for the party that kicks us in the groin every chance it gets.
What I'm trying to say is we need more puppies saving kittens from coyotes.
Icepick, you have a choice. You can support those who expect more from you, or those who expect less, and then you can meet that expectation for yourself and your family.
If you choose those who expect less from you, they will help you accomplish just that.
If you want to accomplish more, and contribute more, then the choice is pretty obvious. Just because the one who expects more, is honest about that and says so, is no reason to abandon what is still the best approach for you. Do you really want us to lie and say we don't want you to accomplish more just so you will like us? That's the other guys that do that.
Here's a stupid analogy:
If you are swimming to the lifeboat with a shark hot on your heals, do you want the people in the boat yelling "swim faster" or "relax, you'll make it."?
Romney's statement about the 47% is the core issue. It's the challenge of our time. A society with one half receiving more than they contribute cannot survive. The most irresponsible thing we can do is pretend that's not true and not a problem. I think we should simply reduce the debit side of the ledger. A lot of that 47% should still get more than they contribute. They need it, can't help it, already gave, or will someday, but many don't deserve it, never tried, and never will as long as they don't have to. I really believe that all we need to do is refuse them, free them, give them no alternative but success. Success is simply doing your best. Is that really too much to ask to save a nation?
And let's not forget that many who get more than they contribute are quite rich. I doubt that the executives at Solyndra will ever break even.
Icepick, you have a choice. You can support those who expect more from you, or those who expect less, and then you can meet that expectation for yourself and your family.
Uh, no. There aren't enough jobs to go around. There simply aren't. Forget good paying jobs, or jobs that offer any promise, there just aren't enough. That's why millions of people have dropped out of the workforce, and the UE-3 rate is still over 7%. (It would be over 10% for several years running if not for a change in the way household survey answers were scored in 1994.)
So it just doesn't matter any more what I want, or what I do, or what I try. Once you've been out of work for six months your chances of getting a job get very low. Once you've been out of work for over a year, they're pretty much zero. I've been out of work for almost six years. No one is ever going to hire me for anything again.
And here's what you offer me as my voting choices. The party that is happy I'm poor because they know poor people are far more likely to vote for them, and has no interest at all in my life ever imrpoving. Or the party that tells me I'm a free laoder and should fuck off and die, and I don't deserve anything anyway, because otherwise I wouldn't be poor.
You Republicans aren't offering me the idea that you want an improved economy which will want my services and offer me the chance to better myself. You are telling me that you want to import forty million Mexicans to insure that I can't get a job and that my wife's wages get pushed even lower. That's your party, that's what you are supportiong, and that's what yuou are voting for. Saying that's not really what you believe in is bullshit, because THAT IS WHAT YOU SUPPORT every goddamned day. You guys are telling me that I'm a freeloader, ane that you hate my guts. That's what I get from you fine Republicans, conservatives and Tea Partiers every day. Not a message of hope, but a message of open hate.
So why should I support you? You guyws really are no better than the Dems anymore, you're just in your own little tribe. Both of you want nothing but to rape what's left of the country hoping to get a piece of the carcass for yourselves. Not a goddamned Democrat, Republican, progressive, or conservative in the country qwants anything other than for theuir tribe to win and screw everyuone else in the process. Fuck the lot of you - all you Republicans are just like the Democrats, looters looking to rape the couintry for your own goddamned enrichment, and to Hell with everyone not in your tribe. Not a goddamned one of you ever jmkentions what is good for the country, only what is good for yourselves.
Obama in 2012: Poor people are great, because they'll vote for me! I want more poor people!
Romney in 2012: Poor people won't vote for me, so fuck them. Let's demoralize the bastards so they won't vote at all! And let's import more poor people!
Those were my choices, and those are my choices. Not much difference, really. I voted for Romney anyway. I won't bother voting for any Republican ever again.
Signed,
I-4 Corridor Voter
It could be worse:
Orlando per capita income = $25,864
Town where I work = $22,105
Median cost of home in Orlando = $154,000
Town I work in = $371,000
Unemployment rate 7.4% both cities
The I-4 corridor has voted for Obama 53% / 46% in the last two elections.
The I-4 corridor has voted for Obama 53% / 46% in the last two elections.
And before that it voted for Bush in two elections. We're the swing part of the swing state. And next time around it will be 53% / (46% - 2 votes).
That's a great way to win elections.
Our institutions have spent 40 years convincing Americans someone else is doing something to keep them down, how could we possibly be surprised the campaign resulted in less trust? Even if you think those pushing this idea are wrong you have to understand it as an effort to justify taking, which still results in less trust.
Ice- Did you have a job when GWB was president? Was life better then? I'm not judging you. I don't disagree entirely that the political class(on all sides), by nature, is out of touch... Nothing new.
But I would say that letting the demos control everything by default because you want to drop out - I promise you your situation, everyone's situation will only worsen.
We are headed toward Venezuela.
The democrats are amazing with their message control.
ps - the 47% comment was accurate. The takers (and no You are not one of them) are out-numbering the makers and when that becomes overwhelmingly permanent, then say hello to one-party dictatorship. Soon.
On the subject of "trust" in people I may be weird. I've really never thought about it much. My "system" if you will is to give everyone I meet a 50% trust rating...and let them show me how it should be higher or lower. In some cases I seem the fool, and in others prescient.
That's okay...the person I must trust most is me, and just getting there took some time. When I had to deal with several different indigenous peoples in far away places, much of the time all of us armed to the teeth, it served me well...the appearance of giving trust to earn trust seemed to work. Most of the time anyway...and I have no doubt it is part of what kept me alive, a fortunate outcome I am not sure I have overcome the guilt thereof. Even today these many years later, I do the same thing...everyone gets 50% to start with under normal circumstances.
I do not think I am like the racist Obama, who seems to believe he can: "... just looking at faces, I could tell there were some folks who are here not because they were born here ..." in a speech this week.
I don't care what a stranger's face implies or what color they are or what "inclination" they might have...everyone gets 50% up front. Period.
You are telling me that you want to import forty million Mexicans to insure that I can't get a job and that my wife's wages get pushed even lower
In retrospect, "unskilled labor" wasn't a smart career choice.
Those were my choices, and those are my choices. Not much difference, really.
The problem isn't that neither politician offered you good career opportunities. The problem is that you expect politicians to offer you career opportunities.
Cheap immigrant labor has been a huge "problem" in the United States for centuries. Your situation is not new. The only American ancestors you have who didn't face the "problem" of cheap immigrant labor are the ones who WERE the cheap immigrant labor.
The New Republican slogan: Open borders baby - because I'm all right Jack, screw you.
Or: Its all about the Benjamin's.
I wonder if the open borders types would be against any kind of immigration? It doesn't seem so. Nigeria's population is exploding, so what if 20 million "hard working" Nigerians decided to move here, would the "immigration is always good" types oppose it? I don't think so. What about 50 million Chinese or 10 million Egyptians? I don't think so.
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