It amazes me that people understand what it means to line up to get a driver’s license renewed or convince the city to enforce a no parking zone but still attribute divine competence to the CIA, FBI or their equivalents in the UK or elsewhere. They may be spooks but they are still civil servants working in massive government bureaucracies. I imagine that for many people it is more comforting to believe a malevolent force is running the show than face the fact that most of the time nobody knows with much certainty what the heck is going on.

Nicholas Packwood (contemp.) Canadian essayist and academic

Ghost of a Flea, “Conspiracy” (17 May 2004)

http://www.ghostofaflea.com/archives/002160.html