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Knol

physical processes that stem from basic characteristics such as those studied in quantum mechanics provide a significant degree of variability. Consequently, we can learn to work within the constraints of physical laws. We can learn to mitigate their effects in some sense, but we can’t change their basic character. As a result, the physical ecosystem is an environment in which the trust infrastructure is congruent to the policy infrastructure. Essentially, within this infrastructure, trust derives from physical laws. While the interplay of many physical interactions creates the concept of chaos, the underlying rules are moderately straightforward. On the other hand, when the concept of social ecosystems is introduced, the rules governing interactions become much more complex, because they are mutable and they appear, in many instances, totally arbitrary.

Within a single trust infrastructure, one or more policy infrastructures can be established. Each policy infrastructure defines a context for interactions that includes the form of interactions and the rules governing those interactions. Within the United States the various governmental entities form a number of hierarchically connected policy infrastructures. From a governance standpoint, all of these policy infrastructures exist within a single trust infrastructure in which the root of trust is established by the Constitution of the United States. This document establishes a social compact through which the interactional relationships among citizens and government are defined. Trust emanates from the Constitution based on personal commitment of the citizens. When a critical mass of the citizenry no longer holds this commitment, then a new trust infrastructure must prevail. If no other social ecosystem is established, then the new, default trust infrastructure will be the physical ecosystem, with its associated immediate violence.

Within the trust infrastructure established by the Constitution, national and state governments have been deemed separate sovereigns, meaning that the laws within each jurisdiction can be independently defined and the procedures for adjudicating those laws can be independently applied. All of these separate jurisdictions are, however, subject to the basic precepts of governance established by the Constitution. As an example of variances among these disparate policy infrastructures, consider that execution under the death penalty, as the extreme consequence of failure to abide by the rules of the infrastructures, is more commonly applied in the State of Texas than in any other state in the United States. This is due largely to the manner in which appellate procedures, a part of the larger scale process for effecting the interaction that is the rule of law, are conducted. In many states, these appellate procedures extend the delay between trial and sentence fulfillment almost indefinitely. In Texas, however, strict rules for the appellate process have been established through law, making the process much more expeditious, resulting in the high number of executions.

Religious organizations within the United States are established under the purview of constitutional government. Such organizations can be deemed as tax exempt, removing them from many of the coercive mechanisms that governments can exert. However, rules adopted within a religion are subject to significant constraints by government, rendering them, in general, subordinate to secular law. For example, certain religions view the reception of blood transfusions as counter to the moral code established by the church. While such rejection of medical treatment is acknowledged by government in many instances, in situations where the subject person is not deemed fully capable of expressing an informed consent to the refusal of treatment, such as minor children or those found to be mentally incompetent, then the state can mandate treatment against the patient’s expressed wishes. In general, in the United States, religions cannot exert, as a consequence of interactions within the religious policy infrastructure, rules that have the force of law found within government-established policy infrastructures.

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