The Politics of Mistrust

[Robert A. Rosenberg]

At 13:31 1/28/96, John Young wrote:

>
>   While not directly related to technical crypto, a number
>   of findings parallel discussions here about the diminution
>   of personal and economic security. Samples:

My personal reason for mistrusting the Government is that it uses Coercive
Power to steal money from me (via "taxes" such as FICA) claiming that I am
buying Benefits for myself such as SS and Medicare yet it does not meet the
obligation to supply these services under the promised terms when I
need/want them. If SS and Medicare were run by a private company and
operated the way the Government changes the rules, all of Top Management
would be in Prison for Fraud (and a number of other charges). Any Benefits
program that the Government uses its coercive power to force me to join and
pay for should be REQUIRED to maintain the terms in place when the payments
were collected (ie: There should be no unilateral alteration of the terms
by the Government). The ONLY program that I can think of where this has
even partly occurred is with IRAs (all payments prior to year X are treated
under the original tax rules while payments into an IRA after that date
have a new tax status). All other programs are subject to rules
modification (ie: reductions of promised/paid-for Benefits) or Congress
defunding at a moments notice.