...but the sad fact is, two truisms apply:

1. Most people are as dumb as a sack of hammers

2. Most people don't pay any attention to anything but bread and circuses, and so whatever sound bites float by most often will stick no matter how ludicrous they are.

The Bush administration's great sinister genius was to be completely aware of these things and to use them to their own fullest advantage.

Bottom line: most people are mindless sheep. Lead them, and they're only too happy to follow, even if it's over a cliff.

That their opposites see a goat die in the street and blame the US government automatically. It's called fanaticism or paranoia either way. That's why. Go spend a hour or two at a liberal blog. I never knew that the US/Whitey/Republicans/Jews/Capitalists were solely responsible for every single even in human history that could not be called perfect.

So let's give the devil his due. People believe whatever allows them to vent their deepest most irrational hatreds.

It's dropped as far as it has. As the Rev. Ivan Stang once said, "Think about the average guy on the street, the average Joe you know. Half of all people are DUMBER than that."

But even otherwise intelligent people are capable of participating in mass delusion, if it presses the right buttons. Charles Mackay knew THAT back in 1843.

SR said:

Go spend a hour or two at a liberal blog. I never knew that the US/Whitey/Republicans/Jews/Capitalists were solely responsible for every single event in human history that could not be called perfect.

Do you have any polling data confirming your claim that a significant number of people believe that "the US/Whitey/Republicans/Jews/Capitalists were solely responsible for every single even in human history that could not be called perfect"? Do you know of any liberal bloggers with any sort of sizeable audience who believe that?

I read a lot of blogs every day - conservative, liberal and everything in between - and while it is certainly true that a handful of extremists on the Far Left have a tendency to view America as the World's Sole Evil and will dishonestly whitewash the flaws of its enemies (solely because they are enemies of the U.S.) - the suggestion that this is any sort of mainstream view -- nearing, say, the 31% level of those who believe Saddam was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks -- is just baseless and wrong.

In any event, there is a significant difference -- actually a fundamental difference -- beteween (a) holding what you believe is a misguided opinion (of the sort you casually attribute to unnamed "liberal blogs") and (b) embracing patently false factual beliefs (such as believing that Saddam was personally involved in the 9/11 attacks).

The saddest thing about Americans is not that most of them are dumb as a sack of hammers (they are), but they're actually *proud* of being dumb as a sack of hammers.

Not everybody wants to wade through weighty tomes or search the internet until all hours to determine what are lies and what are truths. So much easier to tilt back that recliner and let Fox News pump intravenous truthiness into the brain.

Ah, yes . . . that feels better: USA = good . . . [Your choice here]= bad.

There are people who believe there is a rapture coming, there are people who believe they will be met in heaven by 72 virgins, there are people who believe they have a right to tell a complete strange what they can do with their bodies. It's disturbing, yes, but not out of the ordinary. People believe what they choose to believe. Truth and facts have little to do with it.

No, I'm not calling our leaders "Nazis", but they apparently have studied the propaganda techniques perfected by Joseph Goebbels. You only need to read some quotes attributed to Goebbels to understand this fact:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”

“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”

Here's a bonus quote from The Man himself, Adolf Hitler:

“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it”

also believe there was someone on the grassy knoll, 9/11 was carried out by the USA, and that Bush said Iraq was connected to 9/11, and that Al Gore won the 2000 election in spite of the overwhelming evidence that debunks all of these things.

Some people just don't want to be connected to reality.

I think the idea endures in some people's minds because that makes it OK for us to be at war in Iraq. People want to believe that America does the right thing, and that by extension the President does the right thing, and that if our armed forces are fighting somewhere, it is right that they do. We didn't have a good debate over entering this war--we were shamed into following the President's lead as a response to 9/11. I thought it was a load of crap at the time, and even I was willing to hope that perhaps there really was intelligence I just didn't know about that made it a proper decision and not just political hay. (Sort of like when you hear about a jury decision--you figure you weren't there to hear all the evidence.) So some folks want to hang onto the illusion of a connection in order to be able to support the war in their own minds, and more importantly, not feel that America is in the wrong. This is human nature in part, and part of the American culture in part. When you want to believe something badly, sometimes you have to tell yourself some little lies.