Those Who Distrust Government on Domestic Policy But Trust it in War

"Leake's new book is great on the bogeymen of COVID-19, racism, transgender, and climate change, but he really loses me when it comes to Ukraine and Iran."

I’m getting a lot of feedback on my new book, Mind Viruses: America’s Irrational Obsessions, that strikes me as somewhat paradoxical.

Several readers have told me that they were with me 100% in my characterization of how the US government and its mainstream media lackeys incite fear of various domestic bogeymen to manipulate the American people.

However, when it comes to my characterization of US government conduct and propaganda in the matter of waging foreign wars, I’m told (in somewhat angry terms) that I have completely lost the reader.

I suppose this mental posture can be stated as follows:

I do NOT trust the US government and its special interest pals when it comes to big domestic issues, but I DO trust the government’s when it comes to waging war on the Russians and Iranians.

To put this idea in elemental terms:

I do NOT trust the government when it comes to my domestic interests and concerns, but I DO trust the government when it comes to killing foreigners.

This strikes me as a strange and paradoxical mental state. As our Founding Fathers—and especially Madison—repeatedly pointed out, it is precisely in the matter of waging war on foreign powers that “We the People” should be the most cautious, critical, and vigilant in our relationship with our government.

On the other hand, as I lay out in Chapter 3: War, the Father of Mind Viruses, the archaic human brain is primed with the greatest capacity for fear and loathing of dangerous foreign tribes. Throughout history, politicians have always invoked this fear as a mechanism of manipulating the people and distracting them from their servitude and exploitation by their own ruling elites. As Madison put it at the Constitutional Convention debate on June 29, 1787:

Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended.

I often think of Goya’s nightmarish paintings depicting the “Disasters of War” in the wake of Napoleon’s invasion of Spain in 1808. I find this one of Spanish men tied up and shot by a French firing squad especially poignant.

Goya was in the same deeply troubled state of mind when he painted his horrifying “Saturn Devouring his Son”—a meditation on how power-hungry old men destroy the young.

I suppose it is impossible for mankind to resist the siren song of war. Every now and then we get a politician like Ron Paul or his son Rand Paul who lashes himself to the mast of reason, but they are rare.