I distrust trust people for a variety of reasons. I call my top three reason the Three Great Distrusts

• Some persons are venal
• Some persons come from another planet
• Some persons cannot tell their arse from their elbow

Some persons are venal

We are all familar with the salesman who lies to us to close the sale, answering our questions about his product to reassure us, regarless of the truth. We also get used, recruited to a cause by the lies of some-one who has an ulterior motive to promote it.

Some persons come from another planet

When we are stunned by the realization that some-one else sees the world very differently to the way we do, we might ask, jokingly: What planet are they from? It does no good to answer that they are from Earth, just like every-one else. The gulf of incomprehension remains unbridgeable. An example is provided by the Chinese practice of foot-binding. Who thought that was a good idea? The main stream of Western thought believes in sensible shoes, with enough room for the toes, and is horrified at the damage done. Yet the main stream is in the middle. On the other side lies The Society for Barefoot Living whose members see "sensible" shoes as a harmful and silly fashion item, that painfully constrains the feet. Sometimes there is just no common ground between persons.

Some persons cannot tell their arse from their elbow

We tend to associate dangerous ineptitude with carelessness. We assume that every-one has an appreciation of the limits of their competence, and will not harm those they care for by going beyond those limits. This, unfortunately, is over optimistic. Someone can have your best interests at heart, and still pursue a catastrophically wrong course of action on your behalf.

Freedom

The value of freedom is an axiom of Libertarian thought. Much as I value freedom, I don't find the value of freedom entirely self evident, and I am inclined to offer justification. If I am not free, other persons will wreck my life for me, either to make money off me, or because our values are alien to each other, or through incompetence. I will not even be able to get to the bottom of what happened, whether they were deliberately pursuing their own interest at my expense, or whether they genuinely think the outcome good for me, or whether they had no idea it would turn out so badly.

It is hard to defend yourself against the abuse of power when you cannot tell whether the person who exercises that power is corrupt, alien, or incompetent.

If you think they are corrupt

Your strategy is to dig behind the scenes to discover their financial interest. This will discredit their power over you. If they are alien or incompetent, no such interest will come to light.

If you think they are alien

You need to concentrate on escaping their power. Don't waste time trying to dig dirt on them. Don't waste time trying to educate them. Escape

If you think they are incompetent

Your strategy is based on education. This will fail with an alien, because they disagree about ends. You might very well pursuade them that the means they are pursuing will harm the ends that you consider important, but you will not get through to them, because they do not consider those ends important themselves. If they are corrupt they likely already know what you are telling them, and have decided to do the wrong thing because there is money in it for them.

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts

One could simply enumerate the arguments for freedom

1. If others have power over you, they will abuse that power for financial gain.
2. If others have power over you, they will impose a repugnant world view and set of values on you.
3. if others have power over you, you will suffer from errors that you yourself would not have made.