By age nineteen, I had almost complete trust in various professions and categories of people. Somewhere along the second year of the Air Force.....I put health professionals (nurses, administrators and doctors) along with AF First Sergeants into this category of zero-trust.
In blunt language, I became an absolute skeptic of either group of people. Whatever they suggested or said.....you had to ask more questions over and have a good bit of doubt over what they were doing.
As the years rolled by....I added other professions onto the list. Safety inspectors, car mechanics, bank clerks, lawyers, insurance agents, and college professors.
Somewhere in the early 1990s.....I added all cops (local, state, federal, FBI, etc). It wasn't very difficult. I came to a point where I realized half of these guys were either unqualified for their job, bothered by mental problems, or just plain stupid. Sadly, half of these guys are trying hard to do their job, and their buddies are screwing the profession over left and right.
By 9-11, I came to be skeptical of Senators, Congressmen and Presidents.
After 9-11....came TSA agents. Maybe half of these guys are qualified for their job and doing a four-star job. The problem is that every time you cross over into some airport....you come up against some joker who ought to be a security guard at some 7-11 operation or a mall in southern Mississippi. One single idiot out of a group of six that you might encounter today at some airport.....who ought to be doing something else other security.
Journalists? I added them around 2010 to the list of folks who you just can't trust. Foundation guys, think-tank experts, and TV news media guys......all fall into this same group. They tell you something, then you realize they skipped some topic or element of the story....intentionally. You'd like for them to back-up and tell this.....but they won't dare explain this because it's not part of their slanted view of the news.
Religious ministers? Well, yeah.....I've put them on the list as well. When they show up in a BMW or stay at a five-star hotel.....there's something in their profession that bothers me.
There's just not many professions left where I have some trust in what they say or recommend. It's a fairly short list (barbers, barkeepers, farmers, and bar-b-q joint operators).
Is it a growing trend among people? I've come to think that a lot of Americans are growing skeptical of people they used to trust. Judge Judy, Alex Trebek of Jeopardy fame, and Clint Eastwood are among the few left that I would have absolute trust with.
All of these leads back around the world of law enforcement and our general attitude that there's awful of corruption, greed, incompetent nature, and bizarre behavior being demonstrated daily. It's to the point where you get pulled over and you start to immediately look at some guy in sunglasses and black-stormtrooper boots, and think it's some potential scam to rip you off.....one way or another. The guy starts to ask fifteen questions and trying to figure what you did wrong or how to screw you, and you just start to freeze with each question and think....what exactly is this guy going fishing for and why me?
Yeah, it's a sad deal in a way....we've corrupted ourselves enough....to lack trust in the majority of people we run into.
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