In just the last year or so a Louisiana Congressman, an Alaskan Senator, an Illinois governor, and the mayor of Baltimore have all been arrested, indicted, and/or tried on charges of corruption. They are of different political parties, states, ideologies, races, genders, and generations. The main things that unite them are that they are human, they held (or hold) elective office, and they exploited their offices for personal gain.
Here’s my question: when the evidence so manifestly points in the other direction why do people continue to believe in the trustworthiness of public officials? As Arnold Kling recently pointed out, we’re preparing to entrust $750 billion to what’s at the outside 1,000 people, presumably picked for their highly superior brains, their magnificent hearts, and their courage. IMO there’s not a chance in hell that there won’t be incredible corruption.
Ultimately, I think that there are problems that we’ve got to entrust to government simply because there’s no other tool at hand for dealing with them. Recognizing that our officials are human and they are subject to the ills that flesh is heir to, I don’t think we shouldn’t leave our officials in office too long, we should be able to remove them from office more easily than it is, and we should keep one hand on our wallets at all times.
As Mr. Dooley put it, trust everybody but cut the cards.
