I am from Sweden. We do trust the state and each others. The society comes really high on the sociological metric of "trust". That said, it is just ... naive..

I am from Sweden. We do trust the state and each others. The society comes really high on the sociological metric of "trust". That said, it is just ... naive... to argue that "Some instances of X have done good, so let's trust (all?) X". Especially since these X evolve surprisingly over time, sometimes quickly. (The whole of Europe demilitarised totally after the cold war and are now surprised we have something like a Hitler as a neighbour.) Edit: Hmm... that comment was about internal US politics? OK... Living in a country with trusting idiots which believe what they are told to believe, I do know that politics for internal consumption can seem weird from the outside! Both the US extreme left/right seems crazy (say, Chomsky and Fox).