Propaganda exploits a strong human tendency: the automatic and strong tendency to believe what we're told. Believing what one's government tells one is relatively easy. It takes no effort at all. Disbelief, on the other hand, seems to run contrary to human nature. We are, it would seem, inherently lazy in such matters. It actually requires considerable intellectual and psychological effort to disbelieve what our leaders tell us. Added to that is the commonly applied social stigma that comes with disbelief. Disbelievers -- may God save them -- lack patriotism, a sin seen by most Americans as being on the order of patricide.

— Richard L. Franklin