Either way, it seems people don't have a lot of faith in the government, and there are plausible examples of things the government has done to put itself in this situation.
Another example from the same era, gulf of tonkin incident. It doesn't matter what it costs the people at the bottom if the people at the top get what they want, that's the impression I think many of us are left with.
I think you know the answer to this.
There's lots of things I'd like to believe, but don't because they are not true.
Outside of HN and other geek outposts, a great many people, maybe most have a flaky relationship to the truth on almost everything. We're not immune to that of course but I at least know with fellow geeks they will admit the possibility of being wrong instead of relying exclusively on waving their hands and feels. Geeks will change minds when presented with data. Often slowly and grudgingly, but still they are able to do it, it is in them, their identity is looser.
One thing I suspect most of us have very wrong about people is that being 'scientific' is strongly connected to personality, and so appeals to logic and reason are simply not going to resound with everybody in totality. It is not meaningful to them.
The World is my anecdotal evidence for that.
And yet between here and reddit, I think I see this pop up every other week.