Brilliant essay Mike. Institutionalized lies indeed. But as I said to Dustin when he took on the debate about biases at NPR, "the truth has a liberal bias". The right wing's defense with the false equivalency of "all politics is lies" is the really biggest lie of all. Note: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/08/conservative-media-history-steve-bannon-clarence-manion-214199/ As for serfdom, I like Rousseau's tale of the original lie. When a nave met a rogue who convinced him that the land upon which he was casually strolling belonged to him, and thus he must be his serf.