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Should governments try to manipulate the personal behavior of citizens? Please, oh please, tell me this is a trick question. I would like to know of one single government body, just one, that doesn't manipulate the way their citizens act.

In the great land of freedom that is the U.S.A. for example, if I am walking down the street, in my hometown (pop around 20,000) and a police officer decides that I am his target of opportunity, I had better hope some close friend happens to have $500 extra to bail me out of jail. If you don't have that all important ID and/or money on your person, you just became a vagrant and will be arrested.

That is just an example. We are constantly bombarded with various forms of propaganda. Unless I am mistaken, we are fighting a couple of wars at the present. One is in Iraq. When Iraq and Iran went to war it was decided that Saddam was the lesser of the two evils, so we armed and trained his armies. Now we find ourselves fighting the very same people. At least we were. Now were are fighting a faceless enemy known as the Insurgents. A common street pickpocket would be proud. With the ultimate sleight of hand, our government changed the war and no one even seemed to notice. We tend to believe without question what the "major" news networks tell us like the gospel.

The other war is in Afghanistan. When the Soviets invaded this country in 1979, we did all that we could (without causing open warfare with the USSR) to help the locals fight off the evil aggressor. Now we are fighting the exact same people we helped. One could, very tactfully of course, ask if that makes us the new evil aggressor. These small facts don't seem to make the news very often. When they do it has been spun so much that it is incomprehensible, or wedged between two celebrity couples that are getting divorced. It's kind of like a really bad written "1984", where the current "enemy" has always been the "enemy".

There were terrorist attacks on U.S. soil (that is yet another story that could have several versions) but it served its purpose, it brought the American people together against a common enemy. Of course with GPS systems they can find you within ten feet, but we can't find one person with our entire military. We spend billions on wars with no clear directive, while on the home front the economy goes down the toilet. But that is OK, because we are going to get the people that killed 3000 some odd Americans. The fact that we lost more service members in a year doesn't seem to matter.

Like it or not, our news is censored. When is the last time you watched a soccer game on an Italian TV station? Yet, they watch our programing all the time. We see and hear what the government wants us to know. Ours is not alone, all governments do it.

So I think this question makes no sense in the fact that deep down, we all know the answer. We may not like it. We may choose to ignore it. That doesn't change the fact that it is happening everyday to everyone of us. Can we do anything about it? I don't think so. Live your live as best you can, and don't ask too many questions.

Learn more about this author, T. Scott Randolph.
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