I’m worried that the US is going to end up like Latin America. When I travel down there the thing I notice the most is that no one has any faith in their government, at any level. They don’t trust the police, they don’t trust the army, they don’t trust the schools, they don’t trust the congress, the president, the courts, nothing. “La justicia es solo para los ricos” is something I hear often down there. Corruption thrives when this is a commonly held belief, and I am noticing more and more of the same attitude here in the US. The government is viewed as an external agent, an other, something that none of us can control. People don’t trust the government, they put their kids in private schools, they move into gated communities, they try to get every tax dodge they possibly can. Screw everyone else, I’m just out for myself and my family. This attitude seems equally prevalent among conservatives and liberals alike.
I hope someday that people start to remember that it’s our government and our country, and that if we have a problem with it it’s up to us to fix it by holding our elected representatives accountable and firing them if they don’t do the job right. We get the government that we deserve.
