Trust, But Verify..

Most of us need some sort of “institution” to make sense of the world.

Think about who you lean on.  I’ll pick some random examples, not necessarily mine:  Johns Hopkins for medical advice, the Catholic church for moral guidance, the American justice system to defend civil rights, Harvard for the full and final academic truth.   In the face of an existence so full of random misery and confusion, we desperately need to believe our soldiers are fighting for a just cause, our doctors really care about our health, and the FBI is the gold standard of law enforcement integrity.  To think otherwise is to throw ourselves headlong into the chaos of doubt.  We desperately need to know the “good guys” are out there, that they represent a “trusted institution,” and they are on our side.  But what if your priest was secretly debauching teenage boys?  What if your doctor followed the pharmaceutical rep’s advice — in order to improve the bottom line — over your health?  What if you found out the FBI had so little gun crime, they entrapped people into violating the law so as to justify their existence?  The stench of such corruption is too powerful.  We have to pretend the signs don’t exist, just to keep from becoming one of those people who yell, randomly, on the sidewalk.

Last night, I re-watched Oliver Stone’s JFK.  For many years, as a staunch conservative, I distrusted Stone.  Like William Buckley, in his debate against Mark Lane, I scoffed at the notion that elements within our own government had conspired to rid themselves of a president who threatened the military industrial complex and the Vietnam war.  Ponder the enormity of such a claim!  Ponder how imperiled that would leave us all.  It’s nothing short of concluding, “we may get to elect our presidents, but the CIA decides if they stay alive.”  It’s a bit like being that mother who simply can’t believe her wonderful boy is actually a serial killer.  The truth is simply too hideous, so we run from it as fast as we can.

But — just using this one, singular historical example — a reasonable citizen might ask his government:  “can you at least pretend we’re not morons?  Can you concoct some story that doesn’t make us sound silly defending you?”   Why would Lee Harvey Oswald assassinate a president with a gun he purchased from a mail order store in his own name?  How does someone — during the height of the Cold War — pass back and forth between the US and the Soviet Union so easily, unless he was an intelligence asset of the American government?  Why were dozens of witnesses who reported gunfire from in front of the president ignored?  How can reasonable men listen to Arlen Specter describe the contortions of a “single bullet” without laughing out loud?  Why would a transparent, justice-seeking government demand that all records be sealed until 2038?  Why is a presidential autopsy performed with generals and admirals barking orders about its conclusions?

On top of all that, we have this disturbing fact: JFK stole the election itself.   Mayor Daley stuffed Chicago ballot boxes to swing Illinois.  (JFK Library, Dictabelt 28A.2, Ben Bradlee memoir)  Corruption of this sort becomes paralyzing — and perhaps that is the intent.

Against all of this, as Americans, we have these enormous, soul-enlarging victories to celebrate:  the American Revolution itself, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the fight to end slavery, the transcontinental railway and the winning of the west, Normandy, the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Our victories leave us weeping, thankfully, with the balm of “meaning.”  It’s so difficult to believe that so much moral success, so many proofs of God, are threatened, at every turn, by vile Pharisees.  It’s hard to imagine John Jay next to LBJ, or George Washington next to Allen Dulles.

But imagine we must, because the founding fathers knew it was necessary.  They were a lot more savvy than we are.  They KNEW we would be facing vile conspiracies of every sort.  Their division of powers were designed to protect us against the bad boys club, so when we get a little weepy hearing the national anthem, we shouldn’t mistake the love we feel in our hearts for our country as a sign that its institutions are beyond corruption.

Being “American” requires more than just love of our institutions.  It means questioning them relentlessly. 

If we really love, we rebuke.

Categorised in: Culture

This post was written by Jim Riley