In other words, in order to believe in what we think our nation stands for, we must constantly, every day, in small acts or thoughts and large, deceive ourselves, as we constantly rehearse our comforting bedtime stories. Myths of racial and cultural superiority. Belief in benign monarchs, infallible popes, and honest government. Assumptions that the religion into which you are born, or have chosen to adopt, just happens to be the one sect which is true among hundreds of heathen creeds and apostasies out there.