What I mean by "trust"

When I say that America will benefit by an increase in trust in our government, I mean trust that the government is led by people of good will, people who trust us, and people who will respect the law and the liberties and legal protection of all people under the law.

But we should never trust our political leaders to be perfect--to make perfect decisions or even, always, to make wise or moral ones. We must always hold our leaders accountable and be willing to disagree with them (respectfully) if we think they're wrong.

In a recent book titled First Democracy (mainly about ancient Greece), Paul Woodruff has commented thoughtfully on this and other issues. Drawing parallels with the United States, Woodruff notes how our government has in recent years shown "contempt for the rule of law in international affairs. At home, it [has moved] to suspend laws governing trials in cases relating to alleged terrorism. It is common to suspend elements of law in a war zone (though international laws still apply), and terrorism seems to make every place part of a war zone. The moral error here--and it is a devastating one--is a confusion about the difference between conventional war and crime. Conventional wars end; crime goes on forever. We can accept a temporary loss of freedom pending the end of war. But not a permanent one. We cannot accept a loss of freedom in order to fight crime or endless war. If we are engaged in a permanent war, we must learn to prevail day by day while observing the rule of law. Terrorism is like crime, in that the threat will never go away. We have had it with us for a very long time. My great-grandfather was killed by anarchist terrorists in 1880 in New Jersey, when a train was bombed. If we suspend the legal rights of suspected terrorists, we may do so indefinitely and everywhere. Such a policy may make us a little safer from terrorists, but it risks putting us at the mercy of leaders who are permitted to conceal their actions in this sphere, and who for this reason cannot be held accountable. But the Founders knew this as well as the ancient Greeks did: leaders cannot ever be trusted. They must always be held accountable.

"Then and now, fear has been at work. The Greeks understood how fear leads to tyrannical behavior. United States leadership is (for good reason) afraid of terrorism and afraid of actions against the United States that might develop under international law. The pattern is fairly clear: Empire [or, for the US, widespread international power and influence leads to exposure, exposure to fear, and fear to devensive moves that sacrifice democratic principles. Fear of external dangers tends to make us want to follow our leaders with devotion, loyalty, and total trust. But trust is dangerous. As Demosthenes insisted in the age of First Democracy, 'distrust is the best protection of the people against tyranny.' Too much distrust destroys the fabric of the state, however, and drowns out harmony with discord. The best protection for us all is courage--the courage to do what is right even when we are beset by dangers. Political courage requires us to keep in mind what is right, and here is where education is the key. We must all learn the lessons of history and share them with each other--about how precious freedom is, and how easily cowards may come to betray it." (221-22)

Maybe a better word than "distrust" would be "vigilance" or "caution." We must never put our government in the hands of others and then stop caring, thinking, or observing. "The price of liberty," we've been told, "is eternal vigilance."