Latest / The Junto Podcast / E21: High-Trust Society? Can America Rebuild Faith in Institutions?

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E21: High-Trust Society? Can America Rebuild Faith in Institutions? · The Junto Podcast

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Music.
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Hello, America. Welcome to the Junto Podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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I am your host, Edgar Mills. Thanks for joining us.
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Music.
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Hello, America. Welcome to episode 21 of the Junto Podcast, entitled High Trust Society.
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Well, the topic is high-trust society. Speaking of a high-trust society,
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let me just share with you again, all the good people out there.
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I have undertaken a new endeavor called the Help a Homie Fund.
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And that is givesingo.com backslash helpahomie.
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And I'm doing that in order to be a high-trust individual.
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One, I want you to trust me with your money. And two, I want to be able to distribute
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that money to ground-level people who have an urgent need, whatever that need is.
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I'm going to be very discerning with that, and I'm going to enlist the aid of
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people wiser than I am, possibly kinder than I am, and all those things.
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But I just want you guys to understand that this is an ongoing campaign and
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truly aim to get that helpful little bit of emergency money to the people who need it most.
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And we're talking diapers, formula, car repair, I'm short on my rent,
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things like that for people who are genuinely out there trying to keep their
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head above water, but it's just too much.
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So anyway, that was just a little shameless plug. Help a Homie Fund on Give,
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Send, Go. Please consider that.
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All right, today we're talking about a thing that I've mentioned this.
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I think I mentioned this one or two episodes ago.
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Just briefly, we didn't discuss it. I just said the term.
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Are we, is America a high-trust society?
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I don't know. I consider the foundation of any thriving community or even thriving
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relationships, even individual relationships,
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institutional relationships, any relationship, I believe, requires trust. Yeah, it requires it.
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If there's no trust, the relationship is very shallow and difficult.
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Yeah, because you can't invest in someone you don't trust.
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You can't invest your emotions and you can't certainly be a business partner
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or romantic partner with someone that you don't trust.
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But we're going to expand on that in the broader sense of societal trust.
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Is America a high trust society? Has it ever been a high trust society?
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Some people argue no on that.
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Here's one little small example for you to think about.
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And it's a very common sight in the Nordic countries, Sweden,
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Finland, Norway, Denmark, places like that,
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to see in the middle of the city, right,
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whatever the capital, major metropolitan area, people will ride their bikes
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and leave their bikes unlocked in public spaces when they go in to a restaurant or cafe or whatnot.
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Now, imagine riding your bike in downtown Atlanta on Marietta Street and you're
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going to run into a restaurant to grab a sandwich.
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It would take a matter of seconds. The door wouldn't be closed behind you good
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as you were going into the establishment before that bike would be gone.
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So currently I'd say, yeah, we're probably not a high-trust society.
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Just based on that one small example.
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So let's define it a little more specifically.
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A high-trust society is one where individuals generally expect honesty and fairness from others.
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And we kind of expect that from others around here, but we also have a realistic
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streak in us in America that we suspect that we're not going to get that from everybody.
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But in a high-trust society, people expect that, and it's common practice,
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whether it be individual acquaintances, whether it be strangers on the street,
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or be it institutions, whatever institution, commercial or governmental.
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And they expect this based on sort of common moral standards and shared values,
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folks. Common moral standards and shared values.
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And this expectation encourages kind of healthy cooperation amongst the masses.
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And that trust and that heavy cooperation reduces the sort of the need for constant vigilance.
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I'm always preaching constant vigilance. It reduces suspicion in your fellow man.
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And then furthermore, it reduces the need for oppressive regulation and governmental
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oversight in their attempt to make everyone safe and whatnot.
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Trust in personal relationships and organizations is based on a consensus of
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ethical norms, ethical behavior and conduct,
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and efficient social and economic interactions.
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If we make a deal together to lease land, for instance, and we shake hands on it, then that's it.
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We should be able to go on that work.
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This necessarily, in a high-trust society, means that there's lower crime rates.
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There has to be lower crime rates.
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Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to trust what's going on around us.
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And it also depends, a key component is minimal political corruption.
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I say again, minimal political corruption.
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And then in those high-trust societies, you see people who are very innovative
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because they have freedom to be innovative.
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And you see strong grassroots communities and strong social networks because,
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again, these people have some common values, some common values.
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Ethical, moral fibers that are kind of similar. Maybe not exactly the same, but similar.
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And then on the other hand, low-trust society is just widespread mistrust,
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right? You don't trust anyone.
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Social and economic suspicion, right? You can't even trust some of the organizations you go to.
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And I'll make a very small example about auto shops who are kind of shady and
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overcharging you or not fixing the thing that they said they would fix and things
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like that, just little stuff.
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Nevermind the big corruption, governmental corruption.
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Low trust societies have, generally speaking, a lot of crime and corruption.
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And based on that crime and corruption, then you
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got your governments to feel like there needs to be regulations and
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overbearing security systems and and then
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these these contracts that are friggin
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look like the dictionary they're so
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thick with legalese to try
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to protect you from every possible point of
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exploitation but really the the politicians are actually the ones doing the
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exploit mostly and and what does that do What is all the need for all those
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detailed contracts and policies to protect you for your safety, right?
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That leads to massive bureaucratic inefficiencies. And we see that,
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folks. We just see it so often.
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And those things divide a nation. They stagnate progress.
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They kill innovation, those kind of things. That's what you get in a low-trust society.
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Now, I've got a lot of examples of a lot of things here, and I'm not going to read them all.
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Folks, this topic, I posted a blog just today, and I wrote a more eloquent paper on this.
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But these are, I'm just, I have my notes here that I originally started with.
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And these are what I'm going for with the pod here.
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So Denmark, for instance, and I am directly comparing Nordic countries as a group to the U.S.
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The public trust in Denmark, based on surveys, is at 74%.
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Folks, I don't know if America's ever been at 74%, to be honest with you.
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We've been divided since the beginning.
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We have been divided since the beginning.
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Even our founding fathers were at odds on whether or not we should go to war with England.
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And that's good. There's nothing wrong with that. Healthy debate.
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There's nothing wrong with disagreeing and having a healthy debate.
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But honestly, I don't think we've been a high-trust society since about 1794.
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The Whiskey Rebellion being one of the first violent protests against taxation.
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Yeah. If you don't know about it, look it up.
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1794. So when did the Constitution get ratified? Was it 1789?
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So it took five years for the government to start just sticking it to you.
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And that was George Washington, folks. He led that charge.
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Yeah. And that was up in Pennsylvania.
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Yep. Because, oh, George Washington wanted to tax them booze that the boys were making up there.
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They wanted to tax them so they could continue to fund the army that,
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guess what, wasn't meant to be a standing army at all, was it?
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So back to, sorry, back to Denmark, 74% public trust. Now, what does that tell us?
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Well, I think Denmark has fairly transparent government.
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I think they have fairly harmonious society.
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Those folks will, they will leave their baby in a stroller just outside the
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door of a shop to run in and grab a cup of coffee and come out and sit out on the patio. Yeah.
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No fear that somebody's going to grab their baby and run off and sell them to a sex trafficker.
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Bicycles unchained because they value each other's property.
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Yeah, that's it. It's crazy. Let's look at Norway.
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Norway is somewhere in the neighborhood, 73% public trust.
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And in Norway, they have sort of efficient government management of their resource.
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They have a sort of an oil-based sovereign wealth fund.
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And because the people trust their government, and their government earns their
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trust by managing things well and efficiently with little to no corruption.
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There's always probably going to be a little corruption there,
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greasing the skids here and there.
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But generally speaking, it's a very transparent government.
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And what's a couple of low trust examples? Now, I'm not going to bang on America
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continually here, but let's look at South America. Brazil.
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Brazil is sitting at 3% public trust.
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And why is that? Well, there was a big scandal down there a while back.
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It was called the Odebrecht bribery case. And that was like a housing and sort
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of building scandal that just drove up the cost of homes and stuff like that
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and basically just stifled any development.
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And I think that eventually came to light and they went to court and all that stuff.
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And then Columbia, let's use Columbia as an example, about 4%.
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Now, these are among the lowest in the world, folks.
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Influenced, and these numbers are influenced by, if you guys know anything about
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Columbia, the FARC insurgency down there, and criminal cartels.
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And now everybody knows from the movies, right?
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Columbia and the criminal cartels. But because there's no legit,
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well, there's a legitimate form of government, no doubt, but that government has zero control.
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And arguably, the cartels own most of the government.
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So that just fuels crime. It fuels public, regular people down there,
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they're suspicious of not only criminals, but police.
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And they depend on police and military to enforce whatever laws do exist.
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But you have corrupt police and military who bend the laws to their will.
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Very low public trust. Very unsafe spot. Brazil's pretty freaking unsafe, folks.
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High crime, violence. Yeah, it's madness.
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So how, in the context of high trust environments, right, high trust societies,
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we are free to be critical thinkers.
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Yeah, we're not just in survival mode.
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Now we're free to think critically, to objectively analyze stuff,
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to assess the evidence that we see before us, and furthermore,
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have a fair amount of trust that the evidence before us is legitimate evidence
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and not false fake news or misinformation or propaganda.
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So this lets us form logical, well-informed conclusions, folks.
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High trust requires that people are critically thinking.
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And they're not just in it to win it. They're not just for themselves.
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They're not just ripping off who can be ripped off or anything like that.
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Open data sharing. Respectful debates.
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Individual and collective problem solving without suspicion.
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Without me thinking that guy's trying to get over on me. Because that just drains.
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Well, one, it drains your energy.
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Just when you're in survival mode or constant jockeying, trying to outmaneuver.
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Someone who's supposed to be an ally.
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And that stuff crushes innovation. So focus shifts instead of always constantly having to be on guard.
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To thorough and efficient solutions, folks.
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As opposed to suspending. and constant defensive measures.
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It takes a lot of energy to defend against various onslaughts of misinformation
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or some shyster trying to get over on you with false information and lies.
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High trust. Given what we know now about the pandemic, do we think that we were getting,
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honest information from all the big agencies that we could then objectively
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scrutinize the information they were putting out and then verify with honest
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details to figure out real solutions. Did we think that happened?
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I don't think that happened. Or what about in the.
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This is an interesting sort of example, but you know,
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what about in your workplace and there's maybe outdated processes or no processes
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at all, or just inefficient, you know,
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and now you got teams and a high trust society, your teams can,
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can make assumptions and question assumptions directly, you know, directly.
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And the boss doesn't shut you down, right? The boss listens to what you have
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to say and takes it all in.
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That's, that's high trust, but it's very important.
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This high trust also depends on that. You speak honestly with each other and
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you cut through the noise, right?
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You cut through the subterfuge or, or in city plan, let's, let's use Atlanta
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traffic for an example. Holy shit.
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That's a challenge, man. Atlanta traffic is out of control.
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And what's the answer? Do the things we get out of the mayor's office,
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do we think they're legitimate?
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Do we think the proposed solutions, like expanding MARTA, for instance, is that the answer?
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Are we getting fair debate on that?
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Do the stakeholders have an opportunity to look at the raw data and look at
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the options on the table without worrying about corruption and fraud creeping in,
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without contracts going to specific companies based on nepotism or favors that are owed?
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And then that contract just drags on and drags on and drags on, sucking money away.
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Do we, do we think that could happen in Atlanta or do you think they're,
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they're doing everything on the table?
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Everything's out open, transparent, and they're, and they're acting in good
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faith. Is that what you believe? No, I don't.
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In low trust societies, mistrust is, it's an obstacle to objective analysis, folks.
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When there's mistrust, you're, you're clouded, you're clear thinking, it becomes clouded.
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And then self-interested people, self-interested organizations that aren't concerned
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about everyone's well-being, just theirs,
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then they start trying to maneuver on the other factions, the weaker in their
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eyes probably, the unconnected factions, right?
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The people who don't have quite as much pocket change, quite as much clout.
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So they start getting maneuvered on by these big monsters.
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And that's not just business, folks. That's not just business.
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That's shady and it creates low trust. That's what it does.
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So let's look here in America, modern America, folks, the country I love dearly,
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the country that I spent 25 years serving,
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And let's look at a couple of examples of sort of a breach of trust here in America.
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Now, America, once upon a time, grounded in classical liberal values,
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was considered a high trust nation.
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Now, understand this, people.
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Speaking generally about public
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trust and the apparatus, the government in general and with each other.
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Now, I understand that in the civil rights movement, there was probably a large
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level of distrust from one side of that to the other side of that.
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We're talking about in general terms here at one
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point in the 60s government trust
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was at 77 that's that's almost up there
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with friggin that's higher than it was with denmark yeah
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in the 60s now we know the 60s was a wild time the late the mid to late 60s
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prior to prior to vietnam coming along well i mean vietnam was a thing even
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before but the war the actual war so in 2024 the last time this was measured it was 22.
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I think that warrants a little examination, a little retrospection.
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There's a lot you can attribute to the,
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that mistrust, the proliferation of information, right?
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Right, wrong, or otherwise, the information is all out there now.
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So depending on what side you come down on, depending on which fringe that you're
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a part of, all the other information looks like misinformation. Yeah.
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Depending on which fringe you're a part of, all the other information looks
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like misinformation or looks like indoctrination.
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But if we can get to the truth and the more correct information,
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objectively true information that we learn, and then the more we can trust,
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we can figure out who to put our trust in.
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But now let's look at some examples of the government of the United States of America.
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And first, I'll hit a big one first, right? I'm going to swing straight for the fences right away.
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Many of you probably have heard of MKUltra, Project MKUltra.
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Now, all my research says that that went on from 1953 to about 1973.
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20 years that went on. And what was that?
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What was MKUltra? If you don't know, if you're listening to this and you're
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not a conspiracy theorist, because that's not conspiracies, folks.
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This is out there. This is information, validated information.
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CIA was given LSD and other drugs to unwitting American citizens for mind control research.
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Yeah. You ever heard of informed consent?
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Nah, CIA don't know what that means. That caused psychological trauma,
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vast mental health issues, death,
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and suicides among many of these human beings that were a part of that.
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Unwittingly or not CIA what's next what's next on the list and look folks I'm
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an American I'm a patriot I love America I'm not just trying to run her down
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I'm just throwing it out there on the table.
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Has the government done before? And knowing that, does that inform us on what
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we think the government may or may not be doing today?
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From 1940s into the 1970s, now the research on this is less specific on start-stop points, right?
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This wasn't just a single project.
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They injected of plutonium and exposed patients to radiation without consent
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to do what? Just to see the effects. What would happen?
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People got cancer. People got organ damage. People died.
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Yeah, let's back up to Vietnam. And you guys have heard of Agent Orange, right?
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Chemical or biological warfare they were using over there. Our own boys were
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coming back, dying of cancer.
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VA was denying in treatment, not acknowledging that. Yeah.
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Let's go back to 1950, U.S. Navy, Operation Sea Spray.
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Now, check this out. They released bacteria over San Francisco to simulate biological warfare.
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People got sick. People got pneumonia-like illnesses, and a few died.
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There wasn't mass deaths on that. That was a smaller sort of experience,
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but a lot of people got pneumonia, like you
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know a covid like a pneumonia like a
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flu like symptoms from that
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yeah bacteria over san francisco what to what i guess in 1950 right they were
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obviously fighting the red scare back then that was gold war just a little after
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world war ii not yet i don't think not yet involved in Korea, maybe.
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I guess they were going to see what the effects of somebody tried biological
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warfare on us on the West Coast, I guess.
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1950s to the 1970s, this was a U.S. government-funded project called Willowbrook Hepatitis Studies.
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They deliberately infected disabled children with hepatitis so that they could do vaccine research.
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And it's justified means, right? That's the communist way
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that's the leftist way oh well
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these poor children are disabled anyway let's give
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them hepatitis and then see which vaccines work which don't how are we going
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to find out they don't work yeah these kids got liver damaged they got sick
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they got they suffered from all kind of bizarre shit due to that willow brook
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hepatitis studies all right that's just some Weird, you know,
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weird, chemically, you know, stuff. What else?
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We still, to this day, there's contested results around the 2020 elections.
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They've been disputed on both sides of the aisle. There's compelling arguments on both of those.
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People who participated in January 6th rallies there, some of them are still in jail, by the way.
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One of the weakest riots ever to have existed, right? And there's looting and
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riots going on for every other thing.
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But this January 6th, oh, well, it was the Capitol. Well, the only person that
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died during that was a former Air Force lady who got shot by Capitol Police.
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And she was unarmed, by the way. There wasn't even contention whether or not she was unarmed. Yeah.
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And then, like, campaign finance stuff.
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Yeah. Citizens United versus FEC, which basically allowed for unlimited independent
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expenditures by corporations and unions to give to candidates.
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Well, what does that mean? That just means the wealthy have more buying power
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on the politicians. That's what that means.
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So that just created deeper and deeper and deeper partisan divisions,
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folks, and just erodes, erodes, erodes confidence in our institution.
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And I'll stand by it that the institution, the foundation of the institution
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is rock solid. What about healthcare?
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Well, what about inflated insurance billing?
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In what world, in what universe does like a baby aspirin cost, you know, $1,000.
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So there's mass fraud in the medical industry and the pharmaceutical industry.
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Or then these pharmaceutical companies simply.
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Or outright lying about risks of their product.
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Purdue Pharma downplayed the OxyContin's addiction risk, right?
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And then just a whole generation was addicted to OxyContin.
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Just further exacerbating the opioid problem.
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There was 500,000 opioid deaths since...
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Over the last 20 years. And then the whole COVID-19 situation.
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I don't even want to belabor that too much.
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What's another notable one in the healthcare? Does anybody remember the Tuskegee syphilis study?
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Now, this was the U.S. Public Health Service at the time. And this went on, folks, 40 years.
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1932 to 1972. too. And Tuskegee, they withheld penicillin from black men with
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syphilis to observe the progression of the disease.
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And what did this lead to? Well, any disease that goes unchecked just leads
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to other complications, undue suffering.
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You can infect other people for sure.
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Yeah. And at least a hundred died from that direct neglect.
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You could call it controlled neglect.
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Purposeful neglect, but still neglect. And then more recently,
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what about old Fauci, right?
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The gain of function research funding. Yeah, he denied, denied, denied.
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Got pulled up into Congress.
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And it came to light that the NIAID provided grants to EcoHealth.
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And they subcontracted to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for coronavirus research.
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And there you have it, folks. It was a dude that ate an infected bat at a street stand.
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Get the F out of here. Get the F out of here.
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So because of that, Fung, that was directly, directly contributed to the outbreak.
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There's ongoing house investigations in that by
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the way and then never mind the like myocarditis cases
30:35
that or you know healthy young men dropping
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dead and and look if you folks never
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mind what side of the aisle you're on if you believe if if you write it off
30:47
as coincidence that the healthy young athletes were just dropping dead you're
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you're being willfully ignorant Yeah, you're being willfully ignorant.
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Go on and on about five i'm not gonna i'm not gonna continue on with
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that i got like i got like five more
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sections of notes on all that stuff i'm not gonna do it
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that was an avoidable that was that was a that was a i'll take the term plandemic
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that had nefarious not not it was nefarious and it's conception it was nefarious
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and it's execution and then it's nefarious and the denials.
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All right. I'll leave it at that. What about economics? Well,
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where has the government failed us in economics?
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Oh my God. How much time do we have?
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How much time do we have? Was anybody around?
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So I'm sure my audience is probably, you know, 30 somethings and above.
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Everybody remember 2008. Yep.
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All these loans, all these, all these, uh, prime loans, people started losing
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homes left and right. People, people were crushed.
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But then what happened to the, uh, the big money people? Yeah.
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They just, they just got bailouts. The banks got bailouts.
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Meanwhile, you didn't get a bailout. No one got a bailout except the big banks. Yeah.
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And then there was a, the FTX thing in 2022, which basically made people distrust
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the markets and that kind of distrust in the free market,
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it kind of puts a crunch on entrepreneurship and adventurous innovation.
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All right. I got, I got a couple more here. I'm going to leave a couple more for finance, right?
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I'll just say the Federal Reserve, 1913, brought central banking to America.
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Boo, boo, boo.
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Led directly. Well, those policies ended up leading to the Great Depression for sure.
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The value of the dollar since the inception of the Federal Reserve,
33:03
good people, has dropped 96%.
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The value of the dollar has dropped 96%.
33:09
Now, is that strictly the Fed? Well, yeah, I'll say it is, but also it's because
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FDR, yeah, we all remember President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, right? Mm-hmm.
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1933, started stealing everybody's gold.
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Nobody could hold gold. Physical coin, physical gold, even gold certificates.
33:37
They all had to give them up to the Federal Reserve at $20 per ounce.
33:42
So people made, they got paid less than value on what they had.
33:47
Give me your money. I'll give you something in return.
33:52
And that was a literal stealing of wealth. Literal stealing of wealth.
34:00
And then, okay, fuck, man. I could go on and on.
34:04
All right, and then real quick, the last thing I'm going to talk about when
34:08
it comes to the examples of distrust.
34:12
Is, folks, the surveillance state. The surveillance state.
34:17
And this has been around longer since 9-11 But in September 11, 2001,
34:26
Once they passed the Patriot Act We have never gone back,
34:31
folks When the government takes an inch When they ask for an inch,
34:38
they take a mile And anything that the government says is temporary Is sure to be permanent,
34:43
so the patriot act has allowed the government to spy on you and me and everybody
34:48
else without no can no expectation of privacy whatsoever they don't give a crap
34:55
that they infringing on your privacy.
34:59
There's insufficient oversight for the whole thing people wiggle around whatever
35:03
little uh sort of superficial token rules that they had for that they reauthorized it,
35:12
they reauthorized it, I think, in 2024, I think, last year.
35:17
Yep. And then with the integration of AI, folks, because AI is coming and it's
35:21
coming fast, that's just going to amplify the issues.
35:26
This facial recognition stuff is going to be the downfall of everyone because it will be flawed.
35:33
And you're going to be like, well, what about calibration? What about this?
35:36
What about that? But if your face looks like some other dude's face that got
35:40
caught on a crappy facial recognition capture, yeah, that's it, man.
35:46
And then next thing you know, we're going to have the pre-crime units.
35:49
Everybody remembers Minority Report.
35:53
Or 1984 when you thought crimes.
35:58
AI is just going to speed that up. And the potential there to be misused by
36:04
law enforcement agencies is just, or to be used for disinformation.
36:09
Yeah. What about deepfakes? You don't think the government does deepfakes as well?
36:15
All that stuff just erodes, just like a river cutting through a valley,
36:22
just eventually just eating away at the banks and creating new streams all the time, all the time.
36:31
All right. All right. Holy cow. I'm sorry for this.
36:35
Now I'm going to go into like a, I'm going to do a direct comparison from the
36:40
Nordic countries to the U.S.
36:45
So let's look at demographics, folks. Demographics. the
36:49
nordic countries have homogenous populations
36:52
and that that's just the facts of the matter all the
36:56
people there i mean the vast majority the vast majority
36:59
they have similar backgrounds they have similar cultural histories all right
37:04
they all have a familiar familiarity with each other which leads to predictability
37:10
and consistency among the general public where as in contrast to United States, folks.
37:18
We are the melting pot. Now, yeah, I know there's some European countries over
37:23
there that are melting pots, right?
37:25
United States is the melting pot of the world, folks. We got people from every country on this planet.
37:33
And when they come to America or when they go to Western Europe,
37:37
they're not going to assimilate.
37:39
They're going to bring their culture with them, right and then
37:43
you got so it becomes almost tribal you got
37:46
people living in america who are sometimes isolated whether it's by design or
37:53
just it just happened to be that people gravitate toward the familiar and then
37:58
then you got tribal right you got this group don't trust this group.
38:04
Or they're at least suspicious right do these
38:07
people believe the same thing i believe do they have the same values
38:11
I don't know I can't trust a guy and that's
38:14
why you always hear me carrying on about individuality judge
38:18
and and and build build a do your little personality profiles on people as individuals
38:27
not as groups now that being said sometimes individuals act differently in their
38:32
within their tribe versus when they're separated from their tribe.
38:40
Also, here's a very significant thing. The total population of Denmark,
38:45
Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and then all their autonomous territories, to include Greenland,
38:51
total population of all those together is 28.3 million.
38:56
As of some stats of 2025 this year, America's population, the population that
39:04
we know of, right, is 341 million, 341.1 million.
39:10
So when it's the election cycle, and we got Bernie up saying,
39:15
why can't we do it like Denmark does it?
39:18
Because they have such a great social welfare program or whatever.
39:21
Keep in mind that Denmark just has a small piece of that 28 million.
39:27
I didn't even break them down individually.
39:30
I didn't even break them down individually. That's probably somewhere around,
39:34
let's just say 5 million per country if they were broke down even.
39:39
5 million people. And of those 5 million, how many work? And then probably the
39:45
vast majority work, and probably the vast majority pay taxes or contribute.
39:49
Whereas America has 341 million.
39:53
And yeah, probably the vast majority work. But then we we know that we've already
39:58
said in other episodes that there is some estimations that there are somewhere
40:02
in the neighborhood of 12 to 20 million illegal aliens in America.
40:08
That's that's more than population of of any one of those any one of those countries.
40:15
That's that's twice as much as the population of any one of those countries.
40:19
Yeah, so we're looking at crazy challenges here that you can't do that direct.
40:26
Why can't we do socialist programs like this?
40:29
That assumes a high-trust society.
40:32
That assumes there won't be any fraud on that welfare program.
40:36
Yeah. The Nordic societies up there, there's a distinct lack of diversity,
40:42
whether you like it or not.
40:44
But because of that lack of diversity, they have a strong sort of alignment
40:49
of ethical values, moral standards, behavioral, you know, social behavioral norms.
40:55
And that includes with emphasis on work ethic and then civic duty as well.
41:01
Those people feel a duty to each other, a responsibility to each other.
41:06
There's people walking around the streets of America that wouldn't piss on you
41:09
if you were on fire. And they have it like that, and that creates that rock-solid foundation.
41:15
The U.S., ever so diverse, ever so, has a broad, broad, broad spectrum of different
41:25
morals and different values, different beliefs,
41:29
different traditions that they bring with them from other countries. Yeah.
41:35
And it leads to fragmented or isolated communities, whether they're isolated
41:42
on purpose or by the broader community or whatever.
41:46
I'm not saying one's right over the other. I'm just saying familiarity seeks,
41:51
you know, it's comfortable.
41:53
So you'll see, you know, Mexicans will live in a mostly Mexican community, right?
41:59
Indians live a mostly Indian community.
42:03
Laotians live in mostly Laotian communities They want to be near each other
42:08
Especially if you've got family and stuff like that Yeah And what that does though Is that creates.
42:15
Just vastly different Interpretations of what it means To be fair Or what it means to be honest,
42:23
And you know Internationally like A level of honesty you would think Well honest
42:29
is honest right A lie is a lie, a truth is true No, man, that ain't the case.
42:34
That ain't the case at all.
42:36
So that's the cultural, that's how they get to their cultural cohesion,
42:41
and that's how, or at least an obstacle to our cultural cohesion,
42:46
folks. What about interpersonal trust individually?
42:51
The Nordic nations haven't.
42:53
Over 60% of the folks in that survey in the Nordic nations agree that most people,
43:01
they said most people are trustworthy.
43:04
In contrast to U.S., it was less than 30%.
43:08
Less than 30% who said most people can be trusted.
43:12
Yeah. Trusted with what? Well, how do you measure trust in somebody anyway?
43:18
Yeah. You let them babysit your kid? Nah, I don't trust very many people to do that.
43:25
So all this, all this has very real implications on, on the economic socioeconomics, right?
43:34
In Nordic countries, because of this high of trust,
43:38
because of this homogenous society where they all look the same,
43:43
they all went to the same church, or they all worship the same pagan Norse god,
43:48
whatever they got going on over there,
43:50
it enables, it's efficient.
43:53
The society itself is efficient.
43:56
Like, day-to-day costs of transactions and living is lower.
44:03
And their informal institutions are healthy, you know, and their business,
44:08
their small businesses are healthy.
44:10
Even their artists are healthy. They have, they live fairly well.
44:16
They have lower regulations and they don't need all this legalese to safeguard
44:24
them from doing business with one another.
44:28
They're not scared of being hoodwinked, folks. They're not scared of being swindled,
44:33
bamboozled, led astray, right?
44:37
I got that from Malcolm X, Denzel Washington, back in the day, probably about 1990.
44:45
Look, America, the diversity in America, and while I'm recognizing folks,
44:51
I recognize the goodness of it.
44:53
There is goodness in it. And it brings vibrant color and variety,
45:00
which I value that. I value that.
45:04
But it complicates the ability to establish and hold that trust, widespread trust.
45:13
Like I might do business with Jerusalem Grill, and because they have good food
45:21
and they treat me nice, I might be more apt to, right?
45:23
But that don't do anything for Las Palmas Mexican restaurant or Mr.
45:30
Martinez's car wash because they're from different cultures.
45:35
So you got to kind of dance your way through to establish some sort of baseline with them.
45:42
So you got to be more formal with the way you deal with them, more guarded.
45:47
You want to, you know, and I hate to use the state.
45:52
I hate to use law enforcement or use legal enforcement for anything,
45:56
but you got to be more rigid and more specific when you, when you,
46:00
when you do a contract with somebody, even, yeah.
46:03
So the things don't get lost in translation.
46:06
So you, so you mitigate suspicion by doing all those, these other things that
46:12
just make things less efficient.
46:17
Know each other's values. We don't know each other's belief systems sometimes.
46:23
So the Nordic countries historically have a very robust welfare system and very
46:32
low abuse of that system, very low corruption involved within that system.
46:36
Now what they are dealing with though, they got challenges coming because they,
46:41
they, immigration is increasing a wee bit up in the Nordic countries.
46:48
And we're starting to see instances of where there's problems popping up,
46:52
criminal problems, namely rape, because you got these people walking the streets
46:58
in a high trust society, not on guard.
47:01
They haven't spent their whole life being on guard. They haven't been switched on.
47:04
If you live in Atlanta, you go out of the house, you're switched on,
47:08
you're paying attention.
47:09
Right? If you live in Oslo, yeah, life is good.
47:15
I don't got to worry about getting mugged or stabbed or getting my car stolen.
47:19
But now this increased immigration, they're bringing in people who come from
47:23
some places that don't have the same set of values, folks.
47:26
And now this is starting to put a little strain on those traditional levels
47:30
of trust in that society.
47:33
And they don't want to be they don't want to be ugly so they don't want to blame
47:36
so they're gonna they suck it up for a while and then it comes to a boil and
47:42
then there's an overreaction overcorrection.
47:45
Because these immigration these immigrants couldn't assimilate to a pretty a pretty,
47:54
stringent sort of it's stringent in that it's it's set in its way and there's
48:00
not much that's going to change that way because it's throughout history, it's been the way it is.
48:05
Whereas in the U.S., the melting pot, right, we have been a melting pot for
48:10
almost since the beginning.
48:12
We've always promoted rugged individualism and opportunity, but it's dicey because.
48:22
There's ongoing and ever-changing and very direct efforts, folks,
48:26
to bridge cultural divides because we've always, in America, been dealing with that.
48:32
So we've never established a solid, solid identity. Well...
48:37
Establish a solid identity. But when a new group kind of moves in,
48:43
we're kind of like, okay, let's figure out how we're going to get through this
48:47
and solve this problem and do business with these people.
48:52
And I say it's through civic education, through education people,
48:56
and through Through accepting responsibility and through enforcing that there
49:05
is an American, there is law,
49:08
and that you got to assimilate to a degree.
49:13
Maintain your culture by all means, but if it violates the laws of America,
49:21
then you got to put that one in your closet or move back.
49:26
So America has very inclusive policies to a degree, folks.
49:30
We give subsidized loans and grants to immigrants all the time,
49:35
and we have been doing that for a long time.
49:38
And there's nothing wrong with it, but there has to be some kind of process
49:43
to it, folks. There has to be.
49:45
So, folks, is America a high-trust society? I mean, I wouldn't say no. I would say no, it's not.
49:53
I'd say it's about a medium trust society if there were a scale.
49:58
But to be high trust, right, as a nation, we have to, well, one,
50:03
we have to foster prosperity.
50:07
Everybody is better when they're making money. I don't want to use money.
50:11
I don't want to be materialistic here.
50:13
But everybody's better off when they're not struggling. And everybody don't
50:17
have to drive around in a Bentley. But if you're not struggling to feed your children.
50:24
Economic policy can make it to where people can work and can thrive and can
50:29
be entrepreneurs and you can start your own little business.
50:33
But all those examples of the breaches of trust that America has done on the
50:39
general population over time, that just highlights that the government,
50:44
you know, they've got other designs, man. They've got their mind on other things.
50:48
They're not 100% concerned about whether or not America trusts them or not.
50:52
There's a lack of accountability right now.
50:54
And then there's finger pointing in our government. So we've got to cut that out.
51:00
If we want to become a high trust, prosperous society, we have to take the government,
51:08
Congress and Senate has to take accountability and responsibility for all the
51:13
bull crap and then stop it immediately and course correct.
51:18
That's Congress. And for you, What about us as individuals? Folks,
51:23
I'm all about decentralized action.
51:26
Decentralized action. Act locally. Act on the ground level, folks.
51:33
You do what you can do to make people in your circle trust you,
51:38
and then you demand trust of those people on the same scale,
51:46
with the same metrics, right?
51:49
So that your circle, you have a circle of trust.
51:52
There you go. And then reach out from there.
51:55
Now make it your, it's your close friends. Then it's your acquaintances.
52:00
Then it's people you do business with on a daily basis or week to week or month to month.
52:06
And then they're like, man, that guy's a trustworthy guy. And then you go,
52:09
man, that car shop, I like those guys.
52:12
Then you, and then you, you, you tout each other and then more people come in.
52:17
And once they come, because here's the thing, folks, when you're around people
52:21
who trust you, it makes you feel more compelled to be trustworthy.
52:25
Yeah, that's right. It does. And when you give your trust, you expect that trust back.
52:33
So act on the low ground level. Yeah.
52:37
Have an expectation of trust and then be willing to give that trust when it's deserved.
52:45
Now, you don't give it freely, folks. Don't take me wrong. You don't give it freely.
52:50
I'm going to say a thing that this is a famous phrase, trust but verify.
52:56
Make sure that your trust is not being given in vain.
53:01
And good people apply critical thinking to everything you're seeing around you. Yeah.
53:08
Thinking to everything you see around you. Make yourself better. Be trustworthy.
53:15
And pretty soon your community, the collective, the greater good will benefit.
53:23
All right, folks, that was my rant. That was it.
53:27
High Trust Society. Is America high trust? Eh, maybe not. Probably not.
53:33
However, all is not lost, folks. It's not.
53:38
And again, I don't think you can depend on politicians really to fix anything.
53:43
But what you can do, and look, I may be naive.
53:48
I still think voting has some effect, especially local level stuff.
53:54
Now, that being said, local level, I've just gone to the zoning office today.
54:01
And, yeah, I'm going to have to apply for a special permit to build the range.
54:07
And what that has to do is go up for the Floyd County Board of Commissioners, I think.
54:14
So now these are people who just voted to raise our property taxes, folks. Yeah.
54:24
They just voted to raise our property taxes. So I don't know how they're going to look on the range.
54:32
I'm going to present a professional product and I'm going to present my best case.
54:39
And that's got to be voted on twice. I think, I think they vote on it once just
54:42
to push forward and then, and then the general public, well,
54:46
around the area where the range is going to be, has, they, they're going to
54:49
get some time to speak up.
54:51
And then beyond that, I don't know.
54:55
Do I trust that those people will do what I consider to be the right thing?
55:00
I happen to think what we're doing is the right thing.
55:03
And I hope, you know, I'll pray. Not just hope.
55:07
Not only do I pray that it goes well, I've enlisted high trust friends to pray
55:14
for me too, that it goes well. I think we're doing right with it.
55:19
All right. So good people. That was that.
55:24
Yeah. Are we a high trust society or not? Yeah. America, it's,
55:28
it's, it's, it's eroding slowly, slowly, surely eroding, but folks, it's never too late.
55:36
It's never too late to put the brakes on and reverse course.
55:39
All you can do is be a high trust individual.
55:42
That's what you can do. That's what I can do. So I'm going to do my best to
55:47
be a high trust individual so that anybody who deals with me knows that I'm
55:53
standing on solid ground and I aim to do what I say I will do.
55:58
And yeah, that's it. I encourage you to do the same.
56:04
So good people, I spray shooting solutions this Saturday, 23 August, pistol workshop.
56:11
We're going to be working on dynamic movement in and out of positions,
56:14
target transitioning on the move, things like that.
56:20
Private private private private 30th next saturday
56:24
the following saturday is the wild card day and we
56:27
will pick random drills out of the drill index deck
56:32
of cards and we will also shoot the blackjack 33
56:35
challenge drill and if you score 90
56:39
or above on that you will earn yourself a
56:42
blackjack 33 challenge coin september 1
56:46
i have action pistol match and that
56:50
is going to be on practice score you will
56:53
sign up through through us but the scores will be posted on
56:56
practice score and you have an opportunity to win some training there that week
57:01
let's see now on my calendar it's not posted yet on the website but then i think
57:08
the next thing after that will be a while a rifle workshop and then a wild card day.
57:14
After that, October is up in the air because I got a few things I'm still trying to sort out.
57:22
But there is a September trauma, a course, September 20th with my friend Dennis at forcesolutions.co.
57:33
They will be doing a trauma course and I posted that on my socials,
57:37
and I'll post that up again a couple times before then.
57:41
But if you want to learn how to stop the bleed and manage airways and things
57:45
like that, this is going to be a great class for it. All the equipment will be provided there.
57:51
You just show up with some snackies. It's going to be a full day of training.
57:55
And then after that, yeah, October's up in the air, folks.
57:58
But what I do have tentatively on the calendar, so you've heard me talk for
58:03
the past several episodes that we got a three-day land navigation course coming
58:07
up, and I kept saying hopefully September.
58:09
We have that on the calendar for December, folks, 5, 6, and 7 December, 5, 6, and 7 December.
58:20
As we get closer to that, I will post that up on the Two Team Guys website and
58:26
put a link out there for people.
58:28
I think I'm going to open up another probably four slots for that. It's a private group.
58:34
Well, not a private. Yeah, it's a group of guys who got together who requested the course.
58:39
And they're probably going to have a couple more guys. And pending how many
58:42
they have, I'm probably going to open it up for three or four more people to
58:46
join on that. That is not for the weaker fainthearted folks. That is a challenge.
58:53
It is in the Talladega National. Well, it's up here in Rome, classroom day one.
58:58
And then that's going to be a 24 hour overnighter in the Talladega National Forest.
59:04
Yes, it's going to be going to be a beast. So that is all that I'm prepared to put out right now.
59:10
So please follow those things. So that's OspreyshootingSolutions.com.
59:15
That is twoteamguys.com and
59:18
then again like i mentioned at the beginning of this episode help
59:22
a homie fund that is on givesendgo.com backslash
59:27
help a homie so that we can that we can try to be charitable and it's voluntary
59:34
folks that's the that's the source of all things is is voluntarism no no coercion
59:40
you don't have to pay i'm not i don't have the power to tax you and if I did, I wouldn't.
59:44
But I am asking for your help and if you can volunteer up some funds, please, please do.
59:50
Other than that, folks, be good to each other. I appreciate you and until next
59:55
time, be safe. I love you guys.
59:59
Music.