General assumptions often lead to erroneous conclusions, but one cannot go far wrong in always assuming that whatever one's government is saying is a lie.

One of the (many) problems with government is not that power corrupts or even that it is magnetic to corruptible people; rather, it is that we have been conditioned to tolerate corruption in power, and so we don't even try to hold our politicians accountable.

If I went on a killing spree that left thousands of people dead, I'd be branded as the worst kind of criminal. So why it is okay for the government to do exactly that?

One of the (many) problems with government is that they are usually so preoccupied with whether or not they can do something that they fail to consider whether or not they should.