Trust

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

If I were to become incredibly rich — okay, this means winning the lottery — there would be an enormous temptation to leave my descendants a trust fund. And I probably would, but I’d make sure that there was something they must do before they got the money. What? I don’t know. Live independently and earn their own money for 10 years, maybe.

I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say they must amass a fortune before letting them inherit. I see the point of that, but my family is weird about making money. We seem to only be able to make it when we don’t need it, but would like it. I suspect this comes from being as neurotic as a shaved cat. If stressed we utterly freeze.

But the point is if you just drop a bunch of cash on someone the moment they become a legal adult, they tend to — not always but tend to — do nothing with their lives. They trust — eh — they’ll be taken care of, and so are. They are likely to become interested in utterly unproductive things, or just — if ADD AF — serially chase different stuff, never doing anything.

Knowing me, if many times when “baby needs shoes” I didn’t have to turn to the one thing I knew how to do, I’d have walked off writing probably after my first three books. For sure after the first six. Now, I know what I do is probably not something for posterity, but if you enjoy my books, you’d never have those, if I’d become incredibly rich via trust fund at … 18 or 22 or even 35. TBF if I’d become very rich at 18, I probably would never have written. Yes, yes, I’d mean to. I mean, I’m driven. But the entire process of making stuff publishable, often resembles scrabbling up a sheer wall by my fingertips. And said wall has been entirely covered in lemon juice. I’d have written a lot of … well, art pieces that not even my husband would want to read. (And he reads some very silly stuff.)

Anyway what does this have to do with a larger point? Well…

Ours is a high trust society. Not just in the sense that we trust each other (and that’s changing. But still high trust compared to the world) and can leave out tools or say rolls of plastic you mean to swathe all over your flowerbeds, or such, but one in which you contract someone to replace your roof and/or paint your house and don’t expect them to run off with the materials, you can hire an accountant and not be immediately scammed, you can hire a stranger and not have him take everything from your store and disappear, you can pay a stranger to clean your house, mind your baby, feed your cat.

Yes, that is changing. And some of us are less trusting than others.

But everything that allows us to live very well indeed by world and historical standards is based on that trust.

Recently a friend told of her husband going back to his native land, and finding that his parents’ house was choked with big bins filled with water. You see, the public utilities are iffy. Having lived very long in America, and this being a rainy clime, he offered to build his parents a rooftop cistern. The response was horror. “Then the neighbors would know we have money for that. We’d be robbed.”

I laughed (while crying) because though we’re from completely different regions, I could see it playing exactly like that with my family back in Portugal. in fact, Portuguese mount satellite dishes in the attic, often. (Seems to work, but yeah.) And the entire house is surrounded with high wall, so no one knows what you have. Only utterly trusted friends are allowed in.

I understand from a friend whose job took her to our ghettos and hoods that the same rules are starting to apply there. But not to the rest of our society yet.

Which is why we can have nice things.

But things are changing and breaking down.

Part of it is the importing of a vast number of people from the third world and not demanding or giving time for acculturation. The other part is the idiocy of not punishing evil.

Why this is is important: I absolutely agree with David yesterday: While you can’t change the whole world — something I learned painfully in 2020, when I spent the year screaming in the desert — you can save/fix/improve your little area.

I don’t know if I’d call it charity, at least not in my case. I just like to do nice things for people if I can. People I like, sure, but also completely strangers. And I prefer it to be anonymous, which isn’t always possible.

It’s part of “I’d like this to happen to me, so I’ll do it for someone else.” (Which means if I ever won the lottery I’d spend a lot of it just doing nice things for strangers, eh.)

It’s not so much charity as a hobby.

BUT I do try to do it. I try to improve and help others’ lives. Self interest? Well, I want to live in the kind of world where that happens, so yeah, I do it for me.

OTOH this is possible, and I can do it, because there’s a certain fundamental stability and trust in society. I can give away money, quietly, because there are ways to do that that don’t JUST enable theft. I can make cute things for friends, because society is prosperous enough I have time and money for materials. I can drive around and see people I love, because we can afford a private car and gas for it. Etc. etc. etc.

All the nice things we have depend on a fund of trust. A fund so vast that though the left is depleting it at a record clip, it’s still there to a higher degree than any other time in history, any other place in the world.

But they’re determined to destroy it. They are themselves indoctrinated paranoids who see only classes, and those classes perpetually at war.

There is no trust in such land.

So they’re convinced it’s all a ruse, and are determined to destroy it, to make us “face the truth” that is actually their nasty delusions and hatred.

Might they succeed? Yeah.

I suspect that they’ll succeed mostly in getting everyone so pissed off at them we stop them. But it’s a race between that and everything falling apart.

Thing is: you can have that happen and rebuild trust. It just takes blood, sweat and tears, and a lot of things none of us want to do, and will never forgive ourselves for doing.

And this is why the crazy paranoid Marxists should stop with their micro-aggressions and their “systemic” (And therefore invisible) oppression before all the trust is gone.

It’s not just that they won’t like us when we’re angry.

They and us, and the rest of the world, like trust fund kids endowed with great wealth, have no idea what losing the underlying fund of trust in US society will mean.

For us, for the Republic, for the world.

Let us hope they never find out.

134 thoughts on “Trust”

  1. I had a rare very civil discussion with some highly educated people recently and the subject of the U.S. public health institutions came up. People were on different sides of the issue, but for a lot of us, it was clear that they had forfeited our trust. So someone asked “what will happen the next time there’s a real epidemic emergency”, and I said “A lot of people will die, because of that lost trust”.

    That has stuck with me. What would you do if you wanted to rebuild trust in the NIH?

    1) Peel off the scab; tell the truth about what was done, admit mistakes
    2) Have some high-profile punishment; firings, prosecutions, etc., if some of those go beyond “mistakes” and in to “malfeasance” (I won’t argue if they do or don’t until after (1)
    3) Promise to do better and very visibly mean it — change policies, demonstrate your openness on other issues before we get to the Next Big One, etc.

    Of course we are still in “try to keep the coverup going” and not doing any of those things.

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    2. Peel off the scab; tell the truth about what was done, admit mistakes

      Never happen. The bureaucrat class is incapable of admitting error. It’s all about blame-shifting. Also, at this point, who is stupid enough to believe them? The people in power are all WEF-ites who want to control you and me, and force us to live as they deem fit. Anything they say is in furtherance of that end, one way or another.

      Have some high-profile punishment; firings, prosecutions, etc., if some of those go beyond “mistakes” and in to “malfeasance” (I won’t argue if they do or don’t until after (1)

      Again, that runs up against what the bureaucratic class is. The entire point of bureaucracy, to those in it, is to diffuse accountability to the point that nobody is punished for anything. Or, at the extreme, if a public demonstration must be made, the member most unfit to the class gets scapegoated, as an example to others within the institution that If You Don’t Fit In, and ANY trouble happens, You’re Next.

      Promise to do better and very visibly mean it — change policies, demonstrate your openness on other issues before we get to the Next Big One, etc.

      This goes with the first one: nobody will believe it.

      I wish I were not so cynical, but it all comes from observing how the world actually works.

      If it were not the way the world worked, we would have Epstein’s client list, among other things.

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      1. As a former bureaucrat, I will say some of us battered ourselves mentally bloody trying to get our jobs done. But it is a system that punishes initiative and elevates conformity.

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          2. Last year of my 3-year commitment to the Advisory Budget Committee for the town. They are sincerely not going to like me when we start voting on each recommended budget. Their recommended budget has a 23% increase over last year. Yeah, talk about robbery. And that’s just the municipal side. The school budget is usually 85% of the total property tax.

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        2. The Iron Law of Bureaucracy: In any bureaucratic organization there are two types of bureaucrats, those dedicated to the goals to which the organization has been set up and those dedicated to the organization itself. The Iron Law states that in every case, the second category will take control, write the procedures, and control promotions within the organization.

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        3. Bureaucracies run on the labor theory of value which is inherently hostile to initiative and competence.

          The person who does the same output in half the time clearly does inferior work because they expended less labor (time) in that kind of system.

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      2. I’m not sure I’d disagree with any of that. My point was simply that there are simple, obvious things one would do if one wished to begin rebuilding institutional trust.

        That they are not being done tells you we haven’t hit bottom yet.

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        1. Well, first thing is the felonious Fauci. And I can’t believe Trump isn’t thoroughly condemning him. On the other hand, Trump fits the bill for not taking responsibility for any screwups; one of his biggest faults. Most of the people in this country still don’t know about government-funded illegal bioweapon research labs we have scattered around the world.

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        3. My gut says that when change comes, it will likely come from outside. Because what’s inside is either 1) entrenched and committed to the corruption endemic to the system or b) powerless to make any positive change.

          Those outside have something to gain. The legitimacy that is already lost, the power that comes with authority (more practically it should be responsibility, but we work with what tools we have), all that stuff.

          The left has been wearing institutions that earned respect through competence in the past like skin suits for decades. That leaves an opening wide enough to sail a carrier group through for competence to replace it, once the last tatters of utility crumble into universal graft, waste, and internecine conflict.

          The outsiders have to get in the hard way. Without legacy respect and trust, they must do it as men have since before the written word.

          Work hard. Keep contracts. Get proper results.

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      4. Also, at this point, who is stupid enough to believe them?

        That is the fundamental promise with lost trust. You never know how deep the lies go and each new lie revealed only makes you expect more. At some point, the liars have to prove a negative to regain trust.

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    3. I note that in the UK there is – in theory – a public inquiry that is supposed to do 1) and possibly lead to 2) regarding the covidiocy. But it appears to be being held following the rules of Yes Minister where the officials running it are deliberately hobbling it to make sure it doesn’t result in anything embarrassing to the bureaucracy

      See https://dailysceptic.org/2023/10/25/the-covid-inquiry-is-an-embarrassment-to-the-english-legal-system/ and links etc from that.

      The problem is that we call all see the tricks now so this inquiry is a complete waste of money and time.

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  2. Good observations – thank you. I’ve noticed that my “trust” factor has contracted over the last few years and I don’t see that improving much except on a case by case basis. However, it still is there and we’ve made a huge step into trusting with a remodel project. The delightful Mrs. was/is concerned with giving the company a large chunk of change to work the project (they’ve been around 30+ years) and I’ve agreed.

    We discussed our concerns with the owners of said company and they have been reassuring and have said/done all the “right” things as well. We’re going ahead and I’ve sent one semi-scary amount in and we’re on our way to spending more by spring. We will see if it all comes out but I’m very optimistic and also “feel” that it will be OK. To me that’s a good sign and helps me hope I’m right and (at least for our area) trust will continue to hold.

    With all that – five years ago I would have stopped to help a person with a stalled car, helped someone with a big package with loading it into their vehicle or let someone use my phone. Not anymore as I’ve gone to willing to only be helpful to family, friends and those I know well enough for a limited and managed amount of trust. Maybe, just maybe in some special or unique situation I would “get involved” but, for the most part, not anymore.

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    1. Amen on the declining trust. We just recently redid our roof to the tune of $17,200 (extra 200, for unseen/extra repair we knew was needed but not how bad). 25% deposit to get on the schedule. A schedule that was 6+ months out. Two years, not quite as bad, but we had a sprinkler system to put in. Tune of $7500, again 25% down to be put on a schedule that was 6+ months out. Both industries where fraud is rampant, especially with the elderly (which we qualify for). We did our due diligence research and wrote the checks. Hardest checks ever to write. I don’t know about most here but writing checks that big for something not completed, is not easy. We lucked out both times getting move up on the schedule (“the next scheduled can’t do this this week are you prepared?” Answer: Hell “Yes! What time will the crew be here?”)

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      1. We are luckier in Flyover Falls. Partly because it’s the only metro (if you squint) area in a 100 mile radius, and a bad actor gets noticed.

        We had the house re-sided and the exterior painted. Got the guy to come out (owner’s son, who is buying the business–note that he’s not been given it) in May. We paid a large check (50%) the first week of June, and the siding portion was done by Independence day. Painting had weather to deal with (Murphy strikes again), but everything was done 2 months from the first check.

        That was the [checks notes] largest contractor-done project (with another slightly behind, done our first winter here), and we’ve had several largish projects done, satisfactorily and on time, once they were able to get started; 2017-18 was overly busy for anybody who did construction around here. (Curious timing there. It’s like something was working in the economy. Hmm.) Even the delayed projects got done reasonably quickly, I had to be flexible on schedule; got a trench dug when the subcontractor was ready, a couple months before I was. [shrugs]

        The second-largest project was done by a neighbor who was a contractor. We’d developed some trust in him and he built our project the first winter we lived here.

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        1. I really haven’t heard of any “bad actors” in the Springfield/Eugene area. It was writing a large deposit for something that was over 6 months out, if we were lucky. Every contractor that gave us a bid gave us the same schedule. But Springfield/Eugene is big enough that the bad actors can operate too easily before moving on, or shutting down, restart under a different name. As far as the required down, I get it. Contractors are more likely to get stiffed than the consumer. Never mind they can put a lien on the property. But then they have to wait until the house sells and that they are high enough to actually get funds our of a sale or finance. Contractors cannot stay in business if that happens to them too often.

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        2. Make that 2017 – 2019. Covidiocy screwed up the rest of it, though I heard of issues for those on both sides of contracts in ’20. Not sure what didn’t go wrong that year.

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      2. Sounds like our recent well issues. Our running water died a week ago Thursday. We called our usual plumber from down in the big city and they quoted us over $24,000 to fix the problem. Complete replacement, basically everything except digging a new well. Our mortgage lady called somebody she knew, some good ol’ boys from the next county down, they came out and fixed it for $300…and let us slide for a few days until some money came in to pay it. That’s high trust.

        We have painting/siding coming up as well (asbestos siding), gutter repair, porch ceiling repair, etc. The joys of a 75-year-old house. Solid as a rock, but stuff breaks.

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      3. Having been related by blood and marriage to LOTS of individual contractors (Masons, stone and brick, Carpenters framing and finish, Tiling, General Contractors) the trust has to go both ways. I think the scamming is part of our transition out of a high trust society too. And the deposit is because 1) if the customer bails there will be a dead spot (less now with a 6 month backlog) , 2) There may be materials the contractor needs to buy, They tend to have VERY small lines of credit (if any) so their cash flow can be very tricky. Usually the big deposit (25-30%) is asked for when the work is about to start with a small (5-10%) amount up front to hold the spot

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        1. Not just scamming, but the active transition to scamming.

          See everything from software to the accelerator on your car being a subscription. If it isn’t cash and carry it’s probably a scam.

          And that is applauded, rewarded by Wall Street and the CC companies (among others).

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        2. trust has to go both ways
          ……………….

          100%

          materials the contractor needs to buy. hey tend to have VERY small lines of credit (if any) so their cash flow can be very tricky.
          ……………………………..

          Yes. Realize this.

          Usually the big deposit (25-30%) is asked for when the work is about to start with a small (5-10%) amount up front to hold the spot.
          ………………..

          It was 10% to be scheduled when we had the roof done in early ’90s. Then 30% when they started (also supposedly a few months out, but got a call only a couple of weeks later, and there were 3 crews! Yea for “can work from home, come on over!”) Even though in 2023 the roof wasn’t quite 30 years old, we definitely had damage (“oh, look deteriorating into the house”, damage) around the skylights. Roof was “close enough” to replacement. This time it was 25% cash upfront just to get on the schedule. Company we went with has the basic roofing material stocked. What they don’t stock are plywood, or 2×4’s, because only new or badly damage roofs need these. They needed a sheet of plywood (part of the $200 extra), and 2×4’s (part of our stash :-) ) to repair the damage.

          if the customer bails there will be a dead spot
          ……………………….

          Don’t know if customers were actually bailing, but got caught by surprise. More likely new construction got behind (?), then the replacement roof customers “weren’t ready”. Especially domino effect for those scheduled way out. Our attitude was “if there is an opening, we’ll make it work” and followed through.

          My sister and BIL are building a vacation home on the SW Washington coast. They delayed building for 3 or 4 years because of not only costs, supply line problems, but scheduling problems. Finally their GC told them to pull the trigger because they wouldn’t have to “wait” at different phases. They’ve gotten dried in very quickly. Not saying the build is going without hitches, but at least not costly delay hitches. (Biggest one was putting in a “hot water recycler”. Plumbing contractor tried to say those were illegal. Sis and BIL “We have one in our home. When did this become ‘illegal’?” They grant it is a power sink, but also a power sink that can be turned off when house is not in use. When it is in use, needed. Sis “won” this “argument”. Also, don’t argue with two retired engineers.)

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    2. Thankfully, we have a contractor company that we’ve used a few times because they’ve been reliable. The first time was for a partial solar setup (we’re in a really good area for that, what with the need for AC.) They were the ONLY company that even mentioned that partial setups were a possibility, with the idea “let’s knock you out of the top tier pricing.” Every other company was trying to hard sell a full system at a price we could not afford.

      And that’s how it’s supposed to work. You have a company that shows their reliability and then you use them again, or recommend them, they build their business, everyone is happy. All these shady groups—I don’t know why they bother. They’re getting less in the long run, but that mindset is inherently short-sighted anyway.

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      1. Yep. Solar installations around here have been doing well (ranchers had to put in massive systems when the Bonneville Power Somethingorother was determined not to be applicable for customers in Southern Oregon. (Spit!) Once those got done, the next concentration was homeowners, and there have been some sketchy operators around.

        Our next door neighbors nearly got suckered into one, with extravagant promises of money savings that made zero sense. (I have my own solar system, designed and built by myself, though engineering and ground-mount foundations were contracted out. Distinct smell of week-old fish with that company’s deal.) Mercifully, they backed out. Haven’t seen many of the companies around lately. I suspect that drew a bunch of the bad actors.

        We’ve used a cabinet company three times (now under new, but local ownership since the original owner died of Suddenly), and a plumbing company several times now. Same as the electrical contractor who could do things I couldn’t. (I can’t install a new service due to regulations, and didn’t know how to pull 300+ feet of cable through conduit. Though I learned…)

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      3. 4-5 years ago we called to get a new AC unit – our was running constantly, and not really cooling the house off. Had three companies come out to give quotes. Company one looked at the unit and told us we needed a new compressor and a bunch of other stuff, but that would cost almost as much a new unit. Company two came out, looked at the unit, and said it was too small for the house – we needed a 4.5 ton, not a 4 ton.

        Company three came out, measured the outside of the house, counted windows, looked at the layout of the inside of the house, then looked at the unit and said it was too big – house our size needed a 3.5 ton. The one we had was cooling the house off too fast, so it wasn’t reducing the humidity, so the house would heat up again.

        We went with company 3, got a discount because they could resell the old unit (to someone with a bigger house), and haven’t had an issue with the AC since. Being in Florida, this is important.

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  3. Conversations on the Internet (more so than in-person conversations) depend on Trust.

    Trust that the person is “who he says that he is”. (Same is true if the person says that she is a she. [Wink])

    Going along with the above, Trust that the person is not a Liar.

    Even if the person isn’t a Liar, there has to be Trust that the person actually knows what he’s talking about. IE The person may believe what he’s talking about, but does what he’s talking about reflect Reality?

    There’s a person elsewhere that I don’t believe that he is a Liar, but his view of the world is twisted and I can’t believe that his words really reflect Reality.

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    1. It hasn’t happened in a long while, but I really hate being called a Liar. It was always online, always something I had personally seen or otherwise witnessed, but it didn’t fit someone else’s narrative, so they’d attack me personally.

      It’s probably something like me no longer visiting the areas where that would happen. Can’t imagine the overall behavior has changed.

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      1. The ‘fun’ one is when someone ascribes to you motives you’ve never had. And when called out on it, doubles down on the accusations. Why, yes, I do remember, and if I seem bitter, well, why the [PHOTON] shouldn’t I be?

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  4. I think trust and goodwill are necessary for a free society. Or even the semi-free one we have today.

    Should that “fund of trust” become bankrupted? Possible societal breakdown with the attempted rise of a dictatorship to try and prevent it. And not the Cincinnatus type of dictatorship. Followed by a paroxysm of violence to shake it off? Maybe.

    Once again, I think back to the conversation Dr. Baldwin had with Friday just before he died concerning sick and dying civilizations.

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    1. Trust is anathema to collectivism and totalitarianism. It isn’t just something they don’t create, trust actively undermines both because you trust your fellow not to be taking what he hasn’t earned and that he won’t report you to the authorities.

      When people are actively undermining trust they are attempting to gain the power to “protect you” from hoarders and betrayers.

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  5. I think trust and goodwill are necessary for a free society. Or even the semi-free one we have today.

    Should that “fund of trust” become bankrupted? Possible societal breakdown with the attempted rise of a dictatorship to try and prevent it. And not the Cincinnatus type of dictatorship. Followed by a paroxysm of violence to shake it off? Maybe.

    Once again, I think back to the conversation Dr. Baldwin had with Friday just before he died concerning sick and dying civilizations.

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  6. We had an “only in America,” moment a month or so ago. We were at a local market, talking with a vknife vendor (very nice Damascus blades, imported from the east coast, not China). The vendor suddenly announced he needed to use the men’s room, got up, and walked off, leaving us with his inventory.
    When he returned, he found my beloved and I trying to sell knives to passers-by. Of course we looked after his stuff until he got back -bought a knife, too.
    Which is how we got to try a chunk of home-smoked steelhead trout. It was part of his lunch.

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    2. Hubby and I were on a cruise. Excursion to a city in Scotland. Stopped at a pub for fish and chips and a beer.

      A woman came in with purse and piles of shopping bags. Ordered 2 white wines and sat at the table next to us.

      A few minutes later she asked us to watch her things while she went the restroom. Two total strangers who weren’t from around here.

      She left her PURSE.

      She offered to buy us a round in thanks. I told her to drop it in the charity jar on the bar, as I hadn’t brought a sharpie to write my name, ship name, and meeting place/time on my arm before getting completely blotto while traveling abroad. 🤪

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  7. We had an “only in America,” moment a month or so ago. We were at a local market, talking with a knife vendor (very nice Damascus blades, imported from the east coast, not China). The vendor suddenly announced he needed to use the men’s room, got up, and walked off, leaving us with his inventory.
    When he returned, he found my beloved and I trying to sell knives to passers-by. Of course we looked after his stuff until he got back -bought a knife, too.
    Which is how we got to try a chunk of home-smoked steelhead trout. It was part of his lunch.

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    1. My Kid has grown up working craft and Renaissance fairs with me, and now exudes “trustworthy vendor” so hard that she has had random Dealer’s Room booths at various cons go “Hey, can you watch this for just a second while I pee/eat?” sight unseen. I love her. :D

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          2. It is exceedingly hard to perform a lobotomy on WP as it clearly has no brain, a situation much like trying to lobotomize the current US top executive branch office holders.

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  9. I know a girl with a trust fund (she’s 24-25 now … the whole family has one, each a separate fund from the others, from some huge lawsuit). I was shocked to learn she went and got a job at Kroger recently (no idea doing what, her ex works there … they get along well … stocking and receiving, and I can see her doing office stuff).
    She has made quips about her mom especially not being able to drag the money out payment to payment and often comes up short, begging some from her, particularly the time she related one such instance saying “Mom, really? Your 17 year old is more responsible with money than her parents?!” seems her dad also cuts it close but doesn’t need to borrow often, if at all, but never has any for her mom when she blows through it.

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  10. Day Job is high trust, but that has been eroded recently. I don’t like it, my colleagues don’t like it, and we suspect that the culture around us has changed for the worse. Two years ago, we had to operate briefly as a low/no trust institution, and no one liked it at all.

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    1. My employer has been actively undermining trust for years. They’re reaping what they sowed with the huge amount of coffee badging their “gift” of only requiring three days for four out of every six weeks in the office has engendered.

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  11. “And this is why the crazy paranoid Marxists should stop with their micro-aggressions and their “systemic” (And therefore invisible) oppression before all the trust is gone.”

    Sarah, they won’t stop. Destroying trust is part of how they think they will grasp power. The Reader doesn’t think they are right, but does think we will need the oncoming unpleasantness to stop them.

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  12. In Puerto Rico the people with houses have tall concrete walls covered in top with glass bottle tops with the jagged edge up.

    They put big nails in boards and line their yards with them. When the grass grows they are hidden and thieves jump onto the nails if they try to cross the yard.

    Less than no trust there. Everyone is a crook and everyone knows it.

    Cities here are close to that, and it’s going to be interesting when no trust city dwellers try to ramble on out to us rural areas.

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    1. …it’s going to be interesting when no trust city dwellers try to ramble on out to us rural areas.

      Honestly, I don’t think that’s going to happen overmuch. They’ll peter out in the suburbs. Rural areas are big and open and empty, and people who are used to stealing from places every ten yards or so won’t like doing it every ten miles.

      The ones who manage to adapt to that? Well, target practice is a thing, at least outside of insane blue states like Cali.

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      1. This probably depends on part of the country it happens.

        In Wyoming where I grew up or West Texas where I went to HS rural is very different from rural New England or even the rural south.

        There is enough to rob along Interstates and numbered US highways and some major state roads for locusts to be able to move along much of the East Coast.

        Cross the Mississippi and that changes.

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      2. In New Orleans after Katrina, local neighborhoods formed militia’s to stop the feral youth from the inner cities. Trust me your little 9 mm is no match for a hunter with a 30-06 or 12 gauge with double ought, you don’t even need an Ar or AK. Not to mention cut shells and other improvised nastiness. They meant it when they put up signs that said “You Loot, We Shoot” and the only thing the cops did was pick up the bodies.

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          1. It should also be pointed out that, despite how TV shows and movies make it look, identification of a specific firearm from rifling marks, or even from firing pin impressions on primers, is far from an exact science. And that’s even if the firearm to be tested is available. In rural areas S^3 is Your Friend.

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    2. Juarez had the glass atop the concrete. Not enough grass for the other one.
      When the cartels were fighting there in ~2009, the army, the federales and the local cops had separate checkpoints in the city, since they did not trust that the other government bodies were not cartel-infiltrated.

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      1. Watching Juarez after I left HS has been sad. In the early 80s it was relatively safe for American HS students to go there and party. I suspect one reason drinking age violations were night too tightly enforced was to keep us on the US side to cut down the driving.

        By the time my mom left in 2012 you didn’t drive downtown out of worry for stray bullets. She taught at Campestre Elementary and every now and then a kid would come in and say “they came and took my dad” and the school employees knew better than to ask questions.

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        1. Visited around a dozen times from 2007-2018. Stayed out on the west side. After ’08 we didn’t go downtown anymore. In 2015 people were out on the street at night again playing soccer – I hadn’t realized that so much social life had just stopped for 5 years.

          One of the reasons I’m disgusted with our border situation is the chaos empowers the worst elements of the ‘discovering mass graves is no longer a noteworthy occurrence” cartels

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    3. The glass on the top of courtyard walls was common in southern Spain when the Reader was there in the 60s. Pretty much every house, no matter how small, had a walled courtyard, and every one had glass bottles set in cement and then broken in place as a deterrent. Spain in the 60s was a pretty low trust society – see Franco.

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  13. One way is to complain. Even if it does no good, you have not gone along with the decay.
    Example: have macular degeneration. Get eye jab every 6 weeks. Jabbed on the 20th. They say we can’t schedule here, someone changed the process, someone will call you monday the 23rd to schedule. No call.

    Called today, 25th. After 20 minutes someone picked up. She did not understand. After multiple wrong dates, finally get an appointment for the right time. Note all the someones.

    Note also, that 20 years ago the diagnosis was you go blind. There is nothing we can do. I appreciate getting my eye jabbed. I appreciate trusting the person who sticks a needle in my eye.

    I called the Medicare number, lodged a complaint. Spoke to someone who said his boss might call. If I was someone who didn’t have my still useful brain, it could have easily fallen through the cracks. My hypothetical someone would go blind, because some cursed bean counters tried to save money, or someone tried to play power games. Do not go easily into that dark night.

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  14. All others pay cash.

    Actually I’m still willing to trust individuals. I get burned occasionally, a bit more often than I did, say 20 years ago. However such is still at a level I can live with and I’d far rather be disappointed once in a while than feel I need always have one hand on my wallet and the other on my double action ten round shillelagh and another hand on my…

    On the other hand, of course my trust in government, banks, media, academia, oligarchies, most so called ‘charities’, corporations, elites, bums (AKA homeless), invaders (AKA migrants), democrats (AKA poor simple gullible fools) and most elected Republicans ((AKA uniparty members) is long long gone.

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    1. “All others pay cash.”

      Something I learned early on when my crazy Uncle Sam relocated me to San Antonio is that this town has a thriving underground cash economy. Cash gets things done cheaper, faster, and more reliably than any of the “name brand, as-seen-on-TV” folks can do it.

      Case in point: a couple years back during the Great Texas Snowpochalypse, we had a pipe in the attic freeze and burst, so off with the indoor running water. Every “official” plumber was booked for weeks, so we looked around, and found Armando the Bandit Plumber (our nickname, not his) on Neighborhood Nextdoor. My wife called him, and he apologized that he was quite busy, and wouldn’t be able to come UNTIL LATER THAT EVENING. At 9:30 that night, he was up in the attic quicker than Santa Claus, and fixed that pipe in about 20 minutes. I paid cash–and a healthy tip–and he’s been our go-to plumber ever since.

      And…when you’re a repeat customer–the guy who pays cash immediately–you invariably get jumped to the head of the line for the next service call, handmade item, music lesson (!), whatever.

      “Cash, don’t leave home without. Don’t stay at home without it, either.”

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      1. Cash also makes it easier to cut Uncle out of the loop. Which I have no moral or ethical qualms about doing, since they waste our taxes far more than people fail to report.

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          1. When Kid was training at Waffle House, she got the briefing from the senior waitress who handled the newbies: “Now look into my eyes. Look HARD. You should always, always report your cash tips so you can pay your taxes accurately.”

            This, while sloooowly shaking her head the entire time.

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          2. always tip cash
            …………………

            What we do. No reason why the CC or management need to know how much the serving staff were rewarded.

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        2. Do checks count as cash? Especially in this situation?

          FYI. Both the roof and the yard sprinkler system were cash (check), only. Both the deposit and the final payment.

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          1. Checks are definitely not cash in that the bank tracks all of them, and they’re subject to audits and investigations. An IOU isn’t exactly trackable/traceable, until or unless you enter it into your accounting books, or try to use it in a legal proceeding. I could definitely see IOUs becoming more important in a barter or black market economy; although for the latter, I’m not sure if they were used in the Soviet Union or not.

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            1. “I could definitely see IOUs becoming more important in a barter or black market economy;”

              Provided the recipient can trust the issuer.

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            2. Coming up with hundreds of dollars cash last minute is a bit difficult, for us. Anything less than max cash machine withdrawal after hours, can do (what would a plumber cost?). Even big checks, like we did with with the roof, is “Here is check. Triggering fund transfers. Should take two days.” When they were ready for the final check the funds were already transferred as we’d triggered the remaining amount transferred on the first day.

              Like with property taxes for November 2023. I know they are coming, just need the amount. Also know I will need a transfer to pay off the monthly CC build up. Combine the two. Needed just after Nov 1. Trigger bank to make both payments on Nov 2. The deposit for the sprinkler system was under the $2k cushion we keep in the regular savings account. Then just have to ensure cushion is rebuilt, but doesn’t require and immediate pull from IRA’s/Roth.

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              1. Been there, done that on the low cash situation. It doesn’t happen overnight, but a little scrimping, saving, and snowball debt reduction can get you into the green. I did it by paying a few bucks extra on my mortgage over about 12 years until I hit that “Omigosh, I paid off the house!” day. But YMMV. Good luck.

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                1. Oh. We aren’t “low” financial. Although we’ve been there and done that, over the last 45 years. We’ve gotten to the point where we do not have to worry about money, as long as we aren’t stupid. We just don’t have readily available cash.

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            1. I still pay many of my big bills by check, just to get a little bit of the float. Which probably doesn’t amount to a buck all year, but hey! it’s nice to say “The check is in the mail” and be telling the truth.

              P.S. to Jimina: tell us some more North Pole stories on your blog. It’s fun to be reminded of my Year at Clear back in the 70’s. (I DO NOT miss the Spring Mud, however.)

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          3. If a check is all you got, it’s still pretty good. Nobody likes a slow pay, and credit card companies are always taking a slice from the proprietor. But cash is King, and warms folks’ greedy little hearts like nothing else. So much so that the phrase “cash discount” often enters the conversation.

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        1. Armando the Bandit Plumber could give the “Brazil” version of Robert DeNiro lessons in dressing down. Armando used to look like he lived in his van and was wearing his entire “I look homeless” wardrobe. Business must be good, though. He’s upgraded the van from Beater to Faded, switched out some his older hoodies, and trimmed his beard and mane. Better, but he still looks like someone you’d avoid in a dark plumbing supply warehouse.

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  15. The individuals whom are seeking to tear down the high trust society seem to assume that even after that destruction, they will continue be trusted because…why? At that point they become like everyone else, presumed falsehood tellers because in a low trust society, everyone except those you directly know are not to be trusted.

    I am sure at that moment there will be a “Who could have foreseen this” moment – but once trust is gone, it is gone.

    Liked by 1 person

    4. Few people consider first order effects, much less second or third order.

      I wonder if part of what makes us ‘odds’ is we keep asking about those, while most people just laser focus on the immediate rewards?

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      1. And some will never connect those effects with their actions, always blaming someone else for the trouble instead of taking a long, hard look in the mirror for who’s voting these [censored] people into office in the first place.

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    5. “…they will continue [to] be trusted because…why?”

      Incorrect assumption as phrased; the word “continue” assumes they are trusted now, and nothing could be further from the truth. They were the first to lose the trust of others, at least of others with at least one eye to see with and even half a brain. And they will not get it back.

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      1. As I understood it, Toirdhealbheach Beucail was talking about what the destructionists currently in power believe, not necessarily reality. In their (echoing) heads, they’re trusted by everyone except for a few inconsequential crackpots who can be readily dismissed.

        Mind you, there are more than a few people who still DO trust them. Not as many as there usta-wuz, but there are still many for whom the start and finish of their “being informed” is the nightly “news” from MiniTru (what the trusters probably know as “mainstream media”).

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  16. “everyone except those you directly know are not to be trusted.”

    I don’t trust some of them either.

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  17. There must be a formula somewhere that tells us what (high) proportion of people have to behave at a certain level of civilization for that society to perform at that level of civilization. The formula would also tell us how long the society will remain quasi-stable at that high level once the proportion of civilized people drops below the threshold.

    All that seems somehow important right now.

    (Yes, I’m thinking of this in terms of formulas. I’m an Analog writer. Deal with it.)

    Republica restituendae
    et
    Hamas delenda est.
    (Even if it’s becoming clear that it won’t be.)

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    1. The Reader is always suspect of any idea to mix math and sociology. He does think RAH left us a pretty good guide though.

      “A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.” RAH, Friday

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      1. Seems to me that RAH did not note that in many cases, said loss of politeness may be a fully deserved reaction to wrongs that haven’t quite met the criteria for a lethal response.

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          1. Yeah, the premise of the book/trilogy/series, was that social predictions were mathematically possible and accurate. But unknown conditions (i.e. The Mule) could throw those predictions off. But in my opinion, Asimov made a bad consistency error in his later books by failing to include/mention his race of telepaths who developed as another developing unknown condition, and their merger with robots.

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  18. “Let us hope they never find out.”

    Amen.

    So all we can do is be nice to the people around us and pray that the Lord blesses America with repentance and forgiveness. We won’t vote ourselves out of this and it’s doubtful we can shoot our way out.

    Psalms 16, 23, and 91 make good prayers.

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  19. When the tree cut out house in half, friends and a few near-strangers at church helped us in huge and unexpected ways. The insurance, contractors, etc. mostly did not. We decided there was a lesson in that.

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    1. @ AFFA > “We decided there was a lesson in that.”

      It’s in David’s guest post Improving the World on 10/24.

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  22. Our hostess said

    And this is why the crazy paranoid Marxists should stop with their micro-aggressions and their “systemic” (And therefore invisible) oppression before all the trust is gone.

    I hate to say this but at some level they WANT a low trust environment. They want people afraid of other people and dependent on the government. That way the brahmandarins get more control. The poor folk in the cities (and elsewhere) are covetous of the middle class folk in the suburbs and exurbs. The middle class out in the suburbs (where constrained by blue attitudes of self dependence) depend on police and other services. A society that helps and trusts is far harder to control than one that fears and covets.

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  24. Speaking of societal trust, John Ringo gave an interesting discourse on trust in society in “The Last Centurion;” loaning your neighbor your lawn mower to the mini-Dunkirk on 9/11.

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    1. Thanks. I was going to mention Last Centurion; the theme is through a good bit of the story. The tale of the young lady in…Georgia?…is a further illustration, as is the way neighbors reacted to the deaths around them.

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  25. We haven’t got to the ‘I’ll trust them when they are dead stage’ but it is coming.
    No they aren’t going to like what happens when we hit that stage. Most likely most of those on the left will be dead and a vast majority of all those illegals will flee rather than fight for the Marxist democrats.

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  26. “a vast majority of all those illegals will flee rather than fight for the Marxist democrats.”

    But they WILL fight for the spoils and booty, which will come from everyone, including the Marxist democrats.

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