They're From the Government, and We Don't Trust Any of Them

It's probably the small subset of FB posters that I've been talking to recently, but I've decided that there is sizable number of otherwise ordinary folk out there who don't trust anything connected to government.  I'll go further: belief in conspiracies abounds.

If the topic is climate change (and action necessary to deal with it), someone will inevitably mention that any climate action is really intended to expand the role of government, deny individual freedoms, impose massive new taxes and will lead to some kind of oppressive world control.

Someone will often mention "chemtrails".  Before moving to this part of the country, I had never heard of this conspiracy, but all you have to is look up.  Waaaay up.  Those trails behind passenger jets?  They are full of mind-controlling chemicals designed to keep the populace docile.  And here I'd thought all along they were just vapour trails.  Who knew?

If the topic is GMOs, the conversation will quickly come to include someone's comment that it's mostly a government plot, designed to cede control (and massive profits) to corporate buddies.

If the topic is vaccines (and here we can include Big Pharma and the entire sweep of the medical care system), there will always be someone pointing to some "article" exposing decades of massive cover up, dangerous additives, the "reality" of sub-optimal efficacy, and the like.  To what purpose, I've started to wonder?

There are many, many, many reasons not to trust "government" actions.  One would need only to emerge from one's cave very occasionally to be quickly aware of some decision-making travesty or another.  But I draw the line well before accepting the existence of massive conspiracies to dupe the public, hide test results, poison little children and enrich multinational corporations.  Well, perhaps the last is true....

First, although it's fashionable to describe "government" as some faceless entity capable of autonomous actions, the reality is that all of government is made up of people who are, more or less, your neighbours.  Real people, with children, at least some morals, a conscience, and (mostly) good intentions.  Sure, individuals screw up occasionally, but they never seem to get away with it for very long.

Secondly, although everyone likes to complain about the size of government, those numbers can confer some sense of security.  Do you really think that any secret could be kept, for very long, between so many people in such a large organization?  Even if every person in a government department could be co-opted into some grand scheme, how long would it be before some maverick whistle-blower spilled the beans.  Even in an organization as secret as the US military, there have been massive exposes n recent years.  And readers will have heard of Wiki Leaks.  In this day and age, nothing stays secret for very long.

And finally, for now, keep in mind how risk averse most people in government departments really are.  If there is a chance, no matter how insignificant, that something could pose a hazard to the public, most government operatives will err far on the safe side of caution.  They know perfectly well that their asses are on the line should anything unpleasant happen.  As an example, I was talking to an environmental scientist friend of mine the other day.  She was telling me about a situation locally where some water wells were contaminated and unfit for use.  One problem, among a list of several, was cadmium, possibly contamination from a nearby rail siding.  The thing is, she said, is that the "safe" level for cadmium in drinking water is so low that almost any place around here would exceed it, just because of the kind of rocks and mineralization we have.  I'm pretty convinced that most government regulators are terribly risk averse to the point of paralysis.  That's why I don't spend a lot of time worrying about government conspiracies.

So put away your tin hat.  There may be less to worry about than some people believe.