People of the Lie
Evil is not committed by people who feel uncertain about their righteousness, who question their own motives, who worry about betraying themselves. The evil in this world is committed by the spiritual fat cats, by the Pharisees of our own day, the self-righteous who think they are without sin because they are unwilling to suffer the discomfort of significant self-examination. Unpleasant though it may be, the sense of personal sin is precisely that which keeps our sin from getting out of hand…It is a very great blessing because it is the one and only effective safeguard against our own proclivity for evil.
-M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for the healing of Human Evil (1983).
The bad habit of lying starts in childhood when we discover that lying may enable us to indulge in something forbidden, break a rule, or shirk a responsibility without getting into trouble for it. Growing up is the difficult and often painful process of recognizing that there are no free lunches—that everything has to be earned and nothing can be gained without a corresponding sacrifice.
Throughout history, the ruling class has always lied to the people it governs. What seems to make our current era in the West somewhat peculiar is the avidity with which large swaths of the population embra
Article from LewRockwell
LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.