Misplaced trust can be a killer.
Ask, if you could, any member of one of the many death cults in recent times, whose adherents trusted their leaders enough to take their own lives.
The same goes for many a soldier, fighting wars of aggression believing that they are on the “right” side of the conflict.
Most go to their early graves still believing that deceptive falsehood, while others only begrudgingly awake from their living nightmare, after witnessing first hand the atrocities of which they and their countrymen are capable.
Where Mistrust Begins
Humanity is, for the most part, composed of collective and social groups, based around religious or political beliefs mostly, with a built-in myopia, distrust, prejudice and even hatred toward other such groups.
Such divisiveness starts early in life, when children are taken from their families and placed into classes by age, or even sex, where they are segregated and taught competitiveness against one another and other groups, academically and in other areas, such as sports and political debates, among other ways in which social status is engrained into the consciences of pliable young minds and hearts.
There is also a certain level of social class distinction of the haves against the have nots, which is likewise encouraged and fostered in adolescents, mainly through the class distinctions of those who are better groomed, more persuasive and well-liked by others, being perceived and promoted as capable leaders, often with titles of nobility to match their alleged status.
Naturally, those whose families come from a background of relative wealth, compared with those whose background is more impoverished, are seen and positioned as better candidates for such adulation and, in some cases, even reverence.
Authoritarian Bias
Authority, or those who are supposed to represent it, is automatically taught as being “right” and to be obeyed always, which to most means regardless of how they behave, or misbehave, in relation to the trust invested in them.
The level of trust in such so-called authorities is often used as a gauge by which to determine the level of so-called patriotism of an individual, or to label those who may have good reasons to mistrust as dissidents, rebels, or even enemies.
This all goes hand in glove with the propensity of men and women to accept and believe, often without any proof whatever -- or vague insinuations, accusations and innuendoes at best -- slanderous gossip and rumors as factual, without ever seeking out the objects of these attacks to determine the actual truth of the matter.
Slanderous Prejudices
Such wagging tongues have even brought entire nations to their knees, and toppled many a leader from power eventually, in addition to the many lives of ordinary people ruined, devastated, and even destroyed by the vicious whims of those with an agenda of greed, envy, avarice, lust or hatred toward the victims of their accusations.
Nowhere is this entirely evil pursuit more in evidence than in governments that encourage their citizens to spy upon and report one another for supposedly “suspicious” attitudes, activities, or behaviors that seem to be something other than “ordinary.”
Of course, if these same citizens could witness the behavior, activities and attitudes of their own leaders, whom they implicitly trust, first hand, they might be aghast at activities they would perceive as suspicious, underhanded, nefarious or hypocritical.
Oftentimes this is exactly how those in positions of power, trust and authority believe and behave, to the detriment of all those who mistakenly rely upon and invest in them the misplaced trust that allows them to get away with such detrimental activities, such as ferreting out of their country, into other jurisdictions, hoards of millions in whatever currency, valuables and property they can grasp for their own greedy gain.
Such people often command center stage and the attention of the media, and thereby the populace, to convince others of their alleged sincerity, reliability and trustworthiness, and some predictably fall from grace, and are unmasked, exposed and thereafter hated as monstrous aberrations.
Domestic Enemies
Needless to say this sort of condemnation is sometimes leveled against those more deserving of approbation instead, as a result of those far more deserving of the epithets they hurl, or encourage, who thereby deflect attention away from themselves and their own miscreant activities.
The primary question remains: Who do you trust, and why do you trust them?
For it is not enemies from without that you should fear the most, but rather domestic enemies you have entrusted with your life and property whom you should rightly fear.