Trust and all that jazz

[Confuseous]

There has been some brouhaha over the term ‘trust’ and politics and the government lately. This reached some levels of excitement when a known author had her articles and a letter to the press reacted to by various quarters in the mainstream media from citizens to a politician.

Trust in terms of government can be drawn into three broad categories. The first involves trust in specific issues, for instance, a promise made in an election that is not kept, and policies or ideas that seem inconsistent to proper procedures and expectations from people though not outright involving violation of any law.

(It is a given, as in Watergate and Nixon, when there is corruption involved, then breach of trust is concomitant. So it is assumed that the integrity of public officials should not be compromised nor would it be deemed acceptable).

The second is the most common measure of trust in that it is shown when a government/political party is returned back to power by a reasonable electoral mandate. Whatever one’s emotional response to people in power, a clear mandate as understood within a system of democratic practices can be claimed to be a sign of trust.

http://singaporeideas.wordpress.com/2014/06/20/the-politics-of-language/

 

[Satyr]

There has been some brouhaha over the term ‘trust’ and politics and the government lately. This reached some levels of excitement when a known author had her articles and a letter to the press reacted to by various quarters in the mainstream media from citizens to a politician.

Trust in terms of government can be drawn into three broad categories. The first involves trust in specific issues, for instance, a promise made in an election that is not kept, and policies or ideas that seem inconsistent to proper procedures and expectations from people though not outright involving violation of any law.

(It is a given, as in Watergate and Nixon, when there is corruption involved, then breach of trust is concomitant. So it is assumed that the integrity of public officials should not be compromised nor would it be deemed acceptable).

The second is the most common measure of trust in that it is shown when a government/political party is returned back to power by a reasonable electoral mandate. Whatever one’s emotional response to people in power, a clear mandate as understood within a system of democratic practices can be claimed to be a sign of trust.

http://singaporeideas.wordpress.com/2014/06/20/the-politics-of-language/

No government should trusted. They should all carefully scrutinized. The temptations are more than most humans can resist. Singapore admits as much by paying Ministers sky high salaries. That takes care of the love of money. Power can be misused in many other ways. What are the safeguards.