7 July 2005 - trust

James Madison said, “The citizens of the U.S. are responsible for the greatest trust ever confided to a political society,” but already by the start of the 20th century the government was trust busting. Reagan paid lip service—”trust but verify”—yet today’s government trusts only itself, as we can tell by the rate at which they classify otherwise innocent documents. And that’s ironic, because if you can’t mistrust your government, who can you mistrust?