Terrible, terrible things

Pfft. I wasn't trying to make you feel foolish; I'd never take advantage of a guy taking painkillers. Unless, you know, he left his wallet sitting out where I could get at it.

People like Russo are snake-oil salesmen. They tell people what they want to hear, and it's really no wonder that people tend to believe stuff when (a) they want to believe, and (b) the guy telling them obviously has the wherewithal to make a movie.

There's an art to this stuff. It's easy to get people to swallow your initial premise ("A federal judge says there's no legal basis for the income tax!"), because nobody likes income taxes. And once you've gotten them that far, you can steer them most anywhere from that point and they'll go along willingly, because they like your message and because they're invested in it now.

When you stop to think about it, this explains a good chunk of the last six years. People in the U.S. want to believe that the United States is the moral leader in the world, because -- well, we like to feel superior. It's a national trait. If you point at a Saddam Hussein and say "Bad man, bad man!" enough, the people will get behind the notion that the United States, as moral leader, has to drag the rest of the world kicking and screaming along to Do The Right Thing by eliminating the bad man. And you know, if we end up causing the deaths of more Iraqis than Saddam ever did, well, that's the price we have to pay for being more moral than everybody else.