Trust is a tricky word.  I suspect many people place their trust in a supernatural God – they pray to Him, Her or It a lot.  You can trust in luck or in the word of someone who says he has information from the inside.  Wink, Wink!

My dictionary has many definitions of “trust” but I will winnow them down to the two most popular uses of that word.  I trust you will have the patience to read to the end of this explication of what drives the thinking few or the trusting multitude.

Trust: 3. confidence in the certainly of future payment for property or goods received; credit. to sell merchandise on trust.  10 a.  An illegal combination of industrial or commercial companies in which the stock of the constituent companies is controlled by a central board of trustees… b.  Any large corporation or combination having a monopolistic or semi-monopolistic control over a commodity or service. Archaic: reliability.

Today we DIS-trust almost everything.  This is because you hear one story, turn around and hear another which completely is the reverse of the first.  Little kids learn to tell lies as soon as they suspect that the truth will get them in trouble.  Bigger people lie as a matter of course.  They trust that long term behavior will serve them well. They rely on the gullibility of all others.

We do NOT trust government.  One party says that there is the problem – we should pare government down until it has very little to do. Place your trust in business or those who know how to trade things.  Another party says that we should expand the powers of government so that there are limits to what some people may do or say in order to get you to trust them so they can lead you where it will do them the most good. Each party relies on the believability of what it proposes.

Then, too, we do NOT trust private enterprise.  This is because it cannot do what government must do for ALL the people.  Private enterprise is just that. You can trust private concerns to do all they can do to ensure that their partners will continue to be enriched by the policies of the Boards of Trustees which govern them.  These are really small numbers of people but the backers of giving over government to private enterprise think that it can be done.  Let government worry about armies and things like that – but, hey – we could get a group of legionnaires to go and do what they do best, fight the enemy and begin to run the enemy’s country as if it were their own.  I somehow do not trust the logic just expressed.

Trust is a tricky word.  Trust me, I know.