Nice little piece.

Americans believe strange things and think strange thoughts. Millions of Americans, perhaps a majority, think

proudly, that invading and overthrowing two weak, remote foreign states that have done us no harm means that we are “defending our country”;

that the main purpose of higher education is to field professional sports teams (even more important then beer busts and training Asian scientists);

that the primary goal of human life is shopping;

that what “we” feel to be right is binding on everyone (though “we” has never been satisfactorily identified);

that some pretty, morally and intellectually mediocre politician or other is a great statesman whose elevation to power will make the world better;

that it is the duty of a “good citizen” to participate in the dead ritual of voting;

unlike every civilised and even half-civilised people in history, that manners are an affectation unnecessary to society;

that a doctor’s degree or an ordination makes a wise and benevolent person;

that capitalism and free enterprise mean government subsidy of business;

that science can and should prolong their individual existence indefinitely—even if it means cannibalizing babies;

that spending other people’s money and blood on causes we favour makes us virtuous.

All of which goes back to the original and greatest and strangest perversion of all: that canting verbiage about government of the people and a glorious Union justifies the brutal war of invasion and conquest in 1861-1865 that reduced the people and resources of part of the country into a conquered territory to be exploited by the politicians and money men of the other part.

“If only Longstreet had . . .” —O. Henry