Opinion: The Politics of Trust – Restoring confidence in institutions

Nancy Churchill believes we-the-people are going to have to courageously work every day to share the truth and for the right to speak freely and be honest

Nancy Churchill
Dangerous Rhetoric

Children’s fables like “The Emperor Has No Clothes” and “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” teach the importance of honesty in maintaining society. We used to talk about “Honest Abe” and George Washington’s cherry tree.

Unfortunately, as we wandered away from our religious faiths and became more secular, the qualities of faith, honesty and truth lost their importance. As we supposedly became more sophisticated, we turned away from such old-fashioned values. Our training in public school, society, and media worked hard to teach us to have faith in new gods: Science and Experts and Government.

So it was a bit of a shock when Donald Trump, candidate, started claiming “Fake News!” It seemed like a publicity stunt. Years later, in hindsight, we understand that whatever the mainstream media is telling us is mostly likely a lie designed to manipulate, control, and gather greater power.

We’ve discovered through Elon Musk and the Twitter Files that most social media platforms are controlled by government agencies and officials. We’ve learned that Randi Weingarten really did work to shut down schools during the COVID crisis. We saw with our own eyes news accounts that tried to convince us that massive, destructive riots were “mostly peaceful protests.”

The FBI did lie about the Hunter Biden laptop to interfere with an election and protect a weak and corrupt candidate. Pfizer did lie about test results and vaccination data in order to get approval. The Washington. D.C. court system (to name just one) did establish a two tier-system of justice with one standard for politically approved BLM rioters, and a different standard for politically disdained Trump supporters attending a rally. Today, public officials accustomed to the blind faith of the public or their constituents seem strangely unaware as to the reason why the people they serve seem angry, combative, and uncooperative. Public health officials wring their hands over the slow adoption of the most current COVID shots, even though the shots have clearly NOT been “safe and effective.” Many of those running these institutions look at each other and wonder “Why?” It’s astonishing, but I’ve come to realize they really don’t understand. After all, they believe they’re doing the “right” thing for the “right” reasons. Well, here’s what we call “a clue.”

The public has lost faith in you because you’re lying, that’s why. Trump was right and Musk is correct. Our news outlets lie, the FBI lies, the union leaders lie, many politicians lie, scientists lie, big corporations lie. Our president lies about kickbacks and corruption, his staff lies, his cabinet members all lie, and they ALL wonder why the people don’t trust the government any more. It’s a very easy problem to solve: Stop lying.

Here’s a few rules to live by if public officials, bureaucrats, and businesses are sincere about restoring public confidence in their institutions.

1) Tell the truth, or at least don’t lie. Jordan Peterson covers this rule in detail in his book, “12 Rules for Life.” It’s a good rule, and society would be stronger if we all agreed to honor this.

2) Do not censor or ignore those you disagree with. Our country was founded on the right to free speech. The free exchange of ideas strengthens our society, even when it might reduce the power of a given person, bureaucracy, institution, or business.

3) Do not demonize or degrade those you disagree with. If an idea is wrong, that will become apparent during an open and honest debate. Treat everyone with respect, and strive to find areas of mutual agreement, rather than working to divide community members against each other.

4) Seek truth by keeping an open mind—keep telling yourself “He may be right; I may be wrong.” If discovering the truth is the paramount goal, then we’ll all eventually come into closer agreement as we try out and experiment with ideas in order to discard bad ideas and adopt good ideas. This is how science is supposed to work.

5) Publicly own your mistakes. None of us are perfect, and we all make mistakes. We may believe something that later turns out to be based on a lie. If you can, apologize publicly. A sincere apology is one of the quickest ways to earning the future trust of your peers and constituents.

6) Honor the sovereignty of the individual. Our nation was founded by people of religious faith who believed in the value of each individual. We need to work to protect our God-given and constitutionally protected civil liberties.

7) Resist calls for conformity based on “the good of the community,” because that’s the call to communism, a failed and deadly ideology. “Save our democracy” is the code that progressives use to manipulate the public in their endless quest for central management of our society by an elite expert class. It’s not a “democracy,” it’s a republic. That means that “save our democracy” is a lie, too.

Remember, honesty is still the best policy. But we-the-people are going to have to courageously work every day to share the truth and for the right to speak freely and be honest. Our society and the survival of civilization will depend on these efforts.

Tell the truth, or at least don’t lie.

Nancy Churchill is the state committeewoman for the Ferry County Republican Party. She may be reached at DangerousRhetoric@pm.me. The opinions expressed in Dangerous Rhetoric are her own.

Nancy Churchill believes we-the-people are going to have to courageously work every day to share the truth and for the right to speak freely and be honest

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