You make a very valid point about decaying trust. Years ago (Christmas, a year or two post-Katrina) I was at a party at my brother’s house. His wife leans a bit left, and has a lot of lefty friends.
One of them, from previous encounters, I knew to be a serious lefty, who had a $90k/yr make-work do-nothing, schmooze for a living position with MoveOn.org courting donors.
I was in a small group discussing various thoughts on what would happen if DC were ever to be hit with a Katrina style disaster. The basic discussion was whether DC would devolve into a maelstrom of chaos exactly as you would expect for a city full of essentially useless people, or if being the seat of government would mean an all-out National Guard or even Regular Army occupation to keep order – we were undecided.
I had just finished making the point that while I’m far from being a ‘prepper’ (we still called them ‘survivalists’ back then), I kept several weeks worth of food and bottled drinking water in the basement and had enough guns and ammo on hand to (with a neighbor or two) protect myself and my property from anything short of a ‘Chicago fire.’
At this point, little Miss MoveOn interjected “If anything like that happens, I’m coming to your house!”. I replied, “Why’s that?”. She said “I’d be safe!”. Me: “What makes you think you’d be safe at my house?”. Her: “You have guns.”
She took it for granted that I’d protect her. We weren’t even friends. Just acquaintances because she was a long-time friend of my sister-in-law. So I repeated with emphasis: “No… honey… what makes YOU think YOU would be safer at MY house.” Now, she’s a progressive, so I suppose we can forgive her for being a bit slow, but she said again: “You have guns. You could protect me.”
At that point I lost patience and just laid it out bare: “You work for MoveOn. You work every day with the people who’d happily take away every gun I have. You work every day to go easy on criminals, and give voting rights to thugs that should by all accounts, still be locked up. I wouldn’t help you. You’re part of the reason there’d even BE a problem. You’re the enemy of everything I believe. I wouldn’t help you. I’d happily throw you to the wolves.” I thought she was going to cry.
Poster Comment:
This is from an anonymous poster at the Dr. Helen blog.
I've seen this myself. I've liberal women, "You'd rather see a woman raped and strangled with her own pantyhose than defend herself with a handgun. What makes you think I'd do anything to protect you or save your life?"
They think I'm a terrible person. I smile and say,"Yes, I am."