
Maybe I could have phrased it better. I said I wasn't sure, not that I was certain. There's an emotional implication there that I don't think fits. I believe the great majority of people have genuinely good intentions. But as a group, we're kind of a mess and always have been. If we were cattle, I'd describe it as moving close to being on a feed lot vs happy cows grazing in a field.
I was going to quote that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and found out from uncle Google that the concept may go back to an 1790 speech by an Irishman named John Philpot Curran as "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance". Which is maybe a better way to express it. My take on that is that assuming that everything is going to be fine is not a great plan. Extending it a bit, humanity is given the opportunity to survive, but we have to earn it.