Trust and Freedom

Floyd Petersen, 2013

Dear Editor;

I am a professor and research consultant In the School of Public Health here at Loma Linda University. In this capacity I have been fortunate to have traveled to many parts of the world.  I also served on the Loma Linda City Council for 20 years, 10 of those years as mayor.

Several years ago I was teaching a graduate level class in biostatistics at a university in Kenya. My students were from 22 different African countries. Since some students were from French speaking Africa, all my lectures were interpreted into French. My interpreter was Yenge Yenge Yenge Isaac, a business administrator from the Cameroons.

One day during a break, our conversation turned to global economics.  Mr. Isaac speculated on how nice it would be if Bill Gates gave each African a million dollars. Mr. Isaac knew that I had some understanding of African culture as I had taught and lived in Zambia  for 7 years in the early 1970's.   He then turned to me with a serious questioned look and asked; "Why are you rich and we are poor"?  And by "you" he didn't mean me personally, of course, but we as Americans

Wow! A profound question.  A question that everyone must have pondered at some point in their lives: why are some peoples rich and some poor”. I replied that many books had been written on that subject including the 500 page “Guns, Germs, and Steal" by ULA professor, Jared Diamond . "But", I said, "I have a simple answer":  We have a famous American by the name of Thomas Jefferson who wrote our most famous document - our Declaration of Independence. In the last sentence of that document Jefferson wrote this: " We pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor". I said: "I believe It is this pledge of "Sacred Honor" that has made us rich as a nation". "We are rich because we trust each other, and when that pledge is broken, we will be poor".  He said "Now I understand ".

Why are we rich? Because we can borrow capital to start a business, and the lenders trust they will be paid back. We call the police and trust they will come to our aid. We put our money in investments and trust it will not be absconded with. We trust in fair elections to choose people to represent us in civic affairs, and we trust they will make and enforce fair and equitable laws for our city or county or state, or country that will protect us from those who would betray our trust for their own selfish greed.  Knowing, full-well, however, the most well-intentioned law cannot substitute for trust between people

 We can have as many open government laws as we can write but if it is an elected person's studied intention to rip us off, it can be done. We have seen it too often. Over and over, in the last several years, big business has betrayed our trust, in spite of myriad laws.  Trust cannot be legislated.

Perhaps we have spent too much time perusing our second most famous document - the constitution - to discover our rights as citizens, and too little time re- reading that last sentence in the  Declaration of Independence, reviewing our responsibilities inherent in that pledge of our sacred honor we made to each other.

The continued success of our treasured experiment as a free people is based on trust. For without trust there is no freedom. Trust is our only real currency.

Floyd Petersen