No one can make you feel bad about yourself with your consent. From Brandon Smith at alt-market.com:
We have all heard this time honored cautionary mantra: “All governments lie”. It’s not a theory, it is a fact that history has proven time after time. I would only expand on the rule and say this: All governments, all corporations, all corporate media, all think tanks, and all corporate funded activist groups lie. There is a reason why public trust is at all time lows for the majority of these organizations, and it’s not because they are managed by good and honest people.
If you operate on the assumption that these groups are lying to you most of the time then you will find yourself on the right side of history. That said, there are questions we need to ask ourselves if we ever hope to change the world for the better and remove these liars from power: Why do they lie? Why has this become a rule to live by? And, how are they able to lie and get away with it so often?
Well, it’s not because power corrupts. That cliché might be true to a point, but I think it’s a way for people to dismiss the bigger problem because they are afraid to address the ugly truth. The reality is, power does not necessarily corrupt; it’s that the corrupt seek out power.
Governments and other mainstream institutions always lie because psychopathic liars always infiltrate and overrun them. We have very few checks in place to prevent this, and very little is understood about psychopaths in the general public. To understand destructive institutions is to understand the character traits and methods of the psychopaths that control them.
Psychopaths are not very complicated people nor are they all that intelligent, but they often succeed because they are relentless in their pursuits. The common signs of psychopathy include a complete lack of empathy, the obsessive desire for dominance, the use of physical or psychological violence to gain control over others, a narcissistic need to feel superior to everyone else and a habit of playing the victim while victimizing others.
