When I first started on the path that led me to doing journalism, it was after 9/11, and I was speaking out against the coming Iraq war, warning people how the government was lying about WMD. My own parents and older brother refused to listen to me and supported the war effort, even though I was providing them with all the information I had so they could see the truth that there was no evidence Iraq still had WMD. My brother at one point at least conceded that I’d refuted all the claims and that no credible evidence was publicly available, but then his argument became: "well, I’m sure the government has classified intelligence that Iraq really is a threat and just can’t publicly release it."
For a long time, I just couldn’t understand it. I just assumed that facts and logic matter to people. But the truth is that beliefs often matter more, so that reason is suspended if necessary to maintain a belief system. The idea that the government would lie to start a war was just so incompatible with their view of the government as “the greatest on Earth”, and even though there are bad actors within it, the system itself is fundamentally benevolent, a beacon of light shining democracy and freedom on the world. It’s a belief system, a matter of faith. The state religion.
~ Jeremy Hammond
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