Trust first? No.

Last week I was listening to Mike Slater on the SiriusXM Patriot channel, hosting the Breitbart News Daily morning show.  He has done a good job since taking over the hosting job in recent weeks.  But he was talking about something that while true on the surface, wasn't as simple as his thoughts on it. To be fair he said he wanted to take a deeper dive into it in the future, likely knowing he was only scratching the surface.  What he said was that America needed to regain trust.

What he meant by trust was a world (or country) where your word was your bond, your handshake was your bond. He argued America needed to get back to the point where people trusted each other, people trusted the police, people trusted their government.  All true, and very commendable as a goal.  Americans need to trust their government at a minimum, it's the only way to have a functioning society. Here's the problem; trust requires honor.

Honor is a foundational principle. Trust follows honor, not the reverse. Ronald Reagan once said about the Soviet Union during nuclear disarmament negotiations.  It's actually a Russian proverb ironically.  The concept of trust but verify makes sense.  You can trust the person with whom you have an agreement, and they may have honor and stick to it.  They may not have honor. Or worse still they may have honor but the lack of verification creates the opportunity for them to take advantage of your trust.  What started out as honor may be tempted into greed or abuse of your trust.  Verifying removes the opportunity, or at least mitigates it. 

America's motto is "In God we trust." That's about the sum of it.  It doesn't say 'in the federal government we trust', or 'in everybody we trust'. That's because we can't. Trust but verify.  Today Mike Slater was talking about illegal immigration and buoys that effectively prevent people from crossing the river into America. That isn't even trust, but it certainly is a variation of verify; they are trying to verify that the border is secure, obviating the need for trust. We do not trust illegal immigrants to immigrate legally, clearly.  Trust is merely an outcome - an end-state that is derived from honor in all parties.  That is why, with the exception of God, trust is a dangerous thing if it is a foundation rather than a result of something more foundational.

Trust, two ways - government and people

Quality takes time.

Trust is essential in relationships but it is absolutely essential when it comes to how we expect government to operate. People need to trust that government will act in their best interest, and do so effectively.  Political differences come down how much people trust their government and consequently, how much they want the government to govern and how much they want the government to stay out of way.  Conservatives do not trust government to do things more effectively than the free market, liberals on the other hand trust government more implicitly and believe that it will act in the best interest of the public more effectively than the 'invisible hand'.

Liberals complain about sinister big business and yet put trust in a government far bigger than any single business.  Government is bureaucracy. All those departments trying to justify their existence have to find problems.  It's a recipe for sinister, self-serving decisions.  Big government even if it is not sinister, is still a recipe for inefficiency.

A defining example of  government "efficiency" is Obamacare.  It was  more than 2000 pages put together in a matter of months by cobbling together pieces of ideas from practically everywhere. Consistency, critical re-evaluation and working together (not to mention bipartisanship) were not part of the effort.  In retrospect, it's the paper tiger of legislation.  It was all sizzle and no steak.  It was hollow and left to it's own devices, it will collapse under it's own weight.  There's no way something like that hodgepodge could go wrong, right?  

For odd juxtapositional comparison, consider the best-selling album Rumours. Five (unfortunately) drug-infused musicians who were constantly at each other's throats but were nevertheless talented, spent a year putting the album together.  Eleven songs, approximately 45 minutes of music that are brilliant.  It took longer to produce than Obamacare and was considerably less detailed though far more eloquent.

Government does not deserve the trust it has been bestowed by the left today (president Trump aside).  On the other hand, government owes the public more trust than it has offered in recent history. Dodd-Frank, FATCA, the EPA regulating farmers' dust, the IRS and its predatory investigations of Tea Party groups  - it is all based on the premise that people cannot be trusted to do things for the greater good and must be forced to do so.  That's fundamentally sad, and largely wrong. In Canada, with a much more left-leaning government than America, citizens  donate to charity at a much lower rate than their American counterparts.  That comes down to two factors: (i) higher taxes and therefore lower disposable income to provide donations and (2) less tax benefit for donating because the government would rather have the money than provide the deduction.

Give people the freedom to help others, spice it with tax incentives and you will have a lot of charity happening.  Americans are more generous than Canadians not because they are fundamentally better people - people are people - but because the system encourages it to be so. And why does the system encourage it?  Because their is more trust.  Not enough trust, but more than elsewhere.  You give that away as an American, at your peril.

A new message - Restoring trust in government

That has to be the message that the Republican party must adapt for 2014, 2016 and perhaps beyond.

The Democrat party is the party of big government.  The Republican party is supposed to have been the party of limited government. They haven't been entirely successful at that message, and worse still at explaining why limited government is in the best interest of people of all creeds and ethnicities.  They have failed to fully capitalize on the notion that the party of big government has become the party of Big Brother.

Just trust me and you'll be okay, alright? Uh, I think I'll pass on that.

The flaws of big intrusive government are staring America in the face.  Heck, they are slapping America in the face. Big government invites fascism but people just aren't getting it.  

Still if the message is not getting through we have two things we can change - the messenger or the message. Since there is no Ronald Reagan on the horizon who can cut through the morass of biased liberal media, and take the case to the American people in a straightforward and engaging manner.  What's worse, is that conservatives can't even agree on who the messenger should be.  That leaves the message.  And the message needs a face lift.

We conservatives can all agree that government is an out of control behemoth.  But how we take that message to 'centrist' voters can be done far more effectively by simply tweaking how we say it.  And now is an extremely opportune time to do it. With the scandals tripping over each other for headlines - IRS favoritism, NSA telephone and email eavesdropping on everyone, the deaths and cover up of government ineptitude in Benghazi and the Fast and Furious debacles, and the government's snooping and potential persecution of news agencies and individuals - there is no better time to plant the seeds of a new message.

The message needed is simple.

We must restore America's trust in government.

That's pretty simple.  It appeals (or should) across party lines.  It doesn't say we need to reduce the size of government, but it does not preclude it. It acknowledges that mistakes have been made but does not need to affix blame.  It's forward looking and has a ring to it that hints of change (and hope). It implies that bipartisanship is needed but does not mandate it.

The same points could be made for other messages, certainly, but it allows a lot of flexibility while not being so vague as hope and change as to not address any specific problem.  Conservatives know restoring trust in government means that bureaucratic departments must be answerable to a watchdog and ultimately the

American people. Liberals on the other hand would be grateful for the transparency that Obama promised but has steadfastly avoided.

As a political point, the message is simple, memorable and not even something Obama could argue against except by saying there is no need to restore trust in government I/we are already trustworthy.  Really? That's a head-in-the-sand response and not one likely to carry any weight with most voters but particularly younger voters who seem to have a libertarian bent to their liberalism or conservatism.  Further on the political front it makes a great foil to Hillary Clinton and where "what does it matter" defense of the administration's bungling and cover-up on the September 11th Benghazi attack.

Carpe Diem GOP, carpe diem.