{"id":29208,"date":"2017-12-28T11:23:57","date_gmt":"2017-12-28T16:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29208"},"modified":"2017-12-28T11:23:57","modified_gmt":"2017-12-28T16:23:57","slug":"if-you-dont-trust-people-then-you-shouldnt-trust-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=29208","title":{"rendered":"If You Don\u2019t Trust People, Then You Shouldn\u2019t Trust Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If You Don\u2019t Trust People, Then You Shouldn\u2019t Trust Politics<\/a><\/h3>\n
If people can\u2019t be trusted to make their own decisions, why would those same people be trusted to make decisions for the rest of us?<\/strong><\/div>\n
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\u201cOrdinary people can\u2019t be trusted to make the right decisions about what\u2019s best for themselves and others. That\u2019s why we need government to decide for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd who will we trust to decide who these government officials are?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOrdinary people, of course. It\u2019s only fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

I hope you see the irony here.<\/p>\n

I also hope you see the irony\u00a0in expressing mistrust in human nature while also expressing faith in the idea that human nature will somehow become trustworthy\u00a0when those humans work for the government. If people can\u2019t be trusted to make their own decisions, why would those same people be trusted to make decisions for the rest of us? This line of thinking has never made sense to me, and I hope it starts to make a little less sense to you.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s one of my favorite clips where the economist\u00a0Milton Friedman addresses this fallacy<\/a>\u00a0in response to Phil Donahue\u2019s concerns about capitalistic greed:<\/p>\n