The Anti-Imperialist League and the Battle Against Empire - Thomas E. Woods - Mises Institute

"States have successfully managed to persuade their subject populations that they themselves are the state, and therefore that any insult to the honor of the state is an insult to them as well, any questioning of its behavior or intentions a slap in their very own faces. It becomes second nature for many people to root for their state in a way that does violence to reason and fact. They will defend the most contorted, ludicrous claims — claims they themselves would have dismissed with scorn had they come from Saddam Hussein or the 1980s Soviet Union — if necessary to vindicate the honor of the men who rule them."

The Anti-Imperialist League and the Battle Against Empire - Thomas E. Woods - Mises Institute