That's an interesting and I think valuable angle to all of this. Trust in institutions is absolutely key to the proper functioning of government, but it is also key to maintaining ethical behavior in any institution. If you can't trust your institution to do the right thing, it means you're less likely to speak up when there's wrong doing, and it emboldens those who commit wrongdoing. Over time one can see how this system calcifies into a culture of unaccountable behavior.
This is why the solution to police misconduct problems is going to require systemic change. There needs to be independent investigations and oversight of misconduct, and better systems to support whistleblowers. Those that are terminated for misconduct should not be reinstated and shouldn't be able to become officers elsewhere. In the military, you can't re-enlist if you've been dishonorably discharged, why should officers who abused their power be allowed to regain that power?
> Trust in institutions is absolutely key to the proper functioning of government,
There's an entire thesis to be found in "high trust" vs "low trust" societies; higher trust overall provides huge benefits, as there's less need for checking and defensive behaviour, and people can more readily trust others to help.
But a high trust society, built up over decades, represents a resource that can be looted by individuals exploiting that trust for their own benefit. Or simply sowing mistrust for entirely partisan reasons.
The Eddie Gallagher pardon is an egregious part of that: at no point has anyone advanced the argument that it was a misconviction, the purpose of pardoning him is to signal the willingness of the US government to commit war crimes. It's hugely destructive of trust for no good reason.
I know a few old dudes who did a lot of swimming around Coronado. They've been out of the service since before the turn of the century, all with more than 20 years in.
They've said that someone like Gallagher wouldn't have had the career path in the 80s that he had 20 years later. The SEALs were smaller, tasked less often, and tighter knit. Someone would have had a private talk with him, the culture would have helped him direct some tendencies differently.
Now that SOC gets all the funds and glory, the talent pool has slipped. The institution has lowered its standards, and the old hands have retired, to be replaced with young guns.
This isn't unique to the SEALs and other groups, the entire military has been experiencing a degradation in leadership. Whether it's the USN that can't buy a decent ship, nor sail without colliding with other vessels, to an Army that has has wasted so much money on trying to buy new helicopters (Comanche), new artillery (Crusader), or even radios. The ChairForce can't buy a new tanker properly, and has burned through so many airframes flying donuts in the mideast.
When the leadership of institutions fail, the results are ugly. We're seeing that across many police departments in the US, but it's not limited to just law enforcement.
Regarding the navy ships colliding, touchscreens are being blamed - accompanied by complete lack of training. Also, there are lesser hands to do the same jobs - leading to lack of sleep.
Although technology and training are factors in the collisions, the core problem is a navy that has been overtasked for a decade. This is a leadership issue, both military and civilian.
And if you really want to see the rot, look at the material condition of the ships. IIRC one of the navigation systems was off line (Fitzgerald I think). Heck the appearance of the ships is disgusting as well. Rust everywhere.
Yes, I looked this up. It's quite shocking and deeply frightening. The US navy are the primary military counter to PLAN (PLA Navy). I wonder whether this happening solely due to leadership or because China has become the first manufacturing base for the world and the US is losing its expertise. Difficulties in Navy supply chains indicate a more systemic problem.
I think the USA as a whole suffers from a general disinterest among the best and brightest to pursue important careers.
It's a topic that's on my mind a lot. On one hand, I'm disappointed to see important institutions constantly lowering their standards, but on the other, I don't want these important jobs either.
Other than a great marketing job by the US military, we don't do anything to attract the best and brightest to government service. Reagan did a good job of poisoning that well.
For proof, look at the average pay for EMTs (less so paramedics). Oftentimes it's minimum wage, and if you make more than $12/hr on an ambulance, you're in the minority.
While a lot of the transports done are not at all critical, I know in my time as an EMT and paramedic of all the people that would not make it alive to the hospital if not for EMS.
And I started at $9.60/hr 8 years ago as an EMT trying to get patient contacts for paramedic school.
The Gallagher trial was itself egregious, with the lead prosecutor spying on the defense team until he was removed by the judge, and the prosecution's star witness admitting to having committed the most serious of the alleged crimes himself - after being granted immunity in return for his testimony.
But a high trust society, built up over decades, represents a resource that can be looted by individuals exploiting that trust for their own benefit.
This is exactly the business model of Uber, AirBnB and other "disruptive" companies that extract profits from side-stepping regulations that their competitors bear the overhead of complying with. People have seen the powerful and wealthy getting away with it - Uber is still in business no matter how many times courts find that their employees really are employees - and so try it themselves.
> Trust in institutions is absolutely key to the proper functioning of government
There is this fascinating 2011 paper [1][2] showing that this trust is very long lasting: They found more trust in public institutions in those areas that had been part of the (well-run) Habsburg Empire a century earlier.
[1] The Empire Is Dead, Long Live the Empire!
Long-Run Persistence of Trust and Corruption in the Bureaucracy [pdf] http://ftp.iza.org/dp5584.pdf
What I find interesting is how behavioural patterns seem to have travelled through not only generations of the same population, but even when they experienced significant immigration and changes in government - for more than a hundred years.
I wonder what the implications are in the context of the U.S., its military and police force. One thing I've realized in recent times is how history - and dark, violent history - is alive to this day. There are things that have been going on for centuries, old forces and habits that keep repeating the same sins, erupting to the surface. I suppose this is the flip side of the coin, what happens when a population loses trust in public institutions.
I'll quote the conclusion from the latter link.
> Our results show that past formal institutions can leave a long-lasting legacy through cultural norms – even after some are generations of being governed by other authorities. Nearly a century after its demise, the Habsburg Empire lives on in the people living within its former borders – in their attitudes towards and interactions with local state institutions.
> Comparing individuals living on either side of the long-gone Habsburg border within the same modern-day country, we find that respondents in a current household survey who live on former Habsburg territory have higher levels of trust in courts and police. They are also less likely to pay bribes for these local public services, demonstrating that the institutional heritage influences not only preferences and unilateral decisions but also bilateral bargaining situations in citizen-state interactions.
> The specific mechanisms through which the Habsburg effect prevailed remain an open question for future research. The substantial waves of migration and displacement that accompanied the institutional disruptions in the successor states of the Habsburg Empire suggest that the cultural norms of behaviour are unlikely to have survived solely by intergenerational transmission within families. It rather seems that such channels as the persistent nature of continuous reciprocal interactions in local communities, the content of knowledge and behavioural patterns conveyed in schools, and the quality of human capital of bureaucrats and citizens may have also played a role.
This is why the solution to police misconduct problems is going to require systemic change. There needs to be independent investigations and oversight of misconduct, and better systems to support whistleblowers. Those that are terminated for misconduct should not be reinstated and shouldn't be able to become officers elsewhere. In the military, you can't re-enlist if you've been dishonorably discharged, why should officers who abused their power be allowed to regain that power?