Do You Trust Our Government?

Folks...

(*SIGH*)

When I warn you that there's real trouble brewing underneath the surface of the American body politic... I'm not simply being hyperbolic.

Excerpting:

Judges who hear Social Security disability cases are facing a growing number of violent threats from claimants angry over being denied benefits or frustrated at lengthy delays in processing claims.

There were at least 80 threats to kill or harm administrative law judges or staff over the past year - an 18% increase over the previous reporting period, according to data collected by the agency.

The data was released to the Association of Administrative Law Judges and made available to The Associated Press.

Now understand, folks... I'm coming at this not from the perspective of, "oh, these poor abused people," but rather, "hmm... I wonder what the percentage of fraudulent claims is?"

That said...

(*SIGH*)

Continuing to excerpt:

Fifty of the incidents came between March and August, including that of a Pittsburgh claimant who threatened to kill herself outside the hearing office or fly a plane into the building like a disgruntled tax protester did earlier this year at the Internal Revenue Service building in Austin, Texas.

(Yep... remember that guy...?!?! Funny how the incident has faded from memory...)

Continuing to excerpt:

While no judges were harmed this year, there have been past incidents: A judge in Los Angeles was hit over the head with a chair during a hearing and a judge in Newburgh, N.Y., was punched by a claimant when he showed up for work.

In January, a gunman possibly upset about a reduction in his Social Security benefits killed a security guard during a furious gun battle at a Nevada federal courthouse.

(*SHRUG*)

My point? Just this...

While it may be comforting to assure yourself that even the "angry" Tea Partiers - such as myself - would never fly an airplane into a building or even consider committing the far lesser crime of assaulting a judge, the point I'm trying to get across here is that there are a lot of extremely angry Americans nowadays.

How far do you - you reading this - trust the government...???

Are you 100% confident that the new airport security scanners you'll soon be asked to trust are 99.999% safe...???

Be it a dispute with local, county, state, or federal government authorities, how confident are you that you'd have the same odds of prevailing as say a rich, powerful, politically connected fellow citizen?

(Now of course that's always going to be the case to some extent... but would you say that the odds of "right" winning out against "might" would be better for you today or would your father have stood a better chance back when he was your age?)

My fellow New Yorkers... do you trust "the government" in Albany?

My fellow Americans... do you trust the majority of our elected and appointed representatives in Washington to be both competent and honest...???

(Obviously the answer is "no" to both of the above posed questions...)

(*SIGH*)

Anyway, folks, just some food for thought...