The government is not trusted because we've seen them fuck us over and sell us out so many times, they hardly bother lying to us anymore, except election time.
The cops are a whole other ball game. There's always been a problem with the class bully growing up to be a cop and continuing the pattern. In small towns this was especially true. In bigger police forces they tried to weed these people out with stricter guidelines, and feedback mechanisms to report them.
Then came the war on drugs. Thirty years ago a buddy got pulled over in Philly with an oz of pot. The cop made him throw it into an overgrown weedy field, one handful at a time, and let him go. That doesn't happen today, with points to the cop, recognition for his boss, and kickbacks from private prisons for the business.
Next comes the war on terror. Money starved police departments getting federal funding for paramilitary trailing, and bad ass equipment. To attitude shifts with the equipment/training, and frankly, it's fucking scary out there today. A routine traffic stop can turn into a firefight in the blink of an eye, in any neighborhood, even rural roads.
I had a deputy county sheriff in New York State, pull me over to ask me if I'd built my truck myself. But he still approached the cab with caution, because I could have been a psychopath. Oh all right, a violent psychopath.
