Exactly
Confirmation bias, the very one.

An awful lot of people in the world seem to believe that there is this evil machine called "The Government" that is only there to deceive, control and generally fuck over the people they govern and, therefore, anything that The Government says is automatically a lie.

This seems especioally prevalent in the US. When I was in Las Vegas last, I was heading to a gun range in a taxi and the driver asked me if we had guns back home. When I said we don't, he said "Who does? The Government?" You could actually hear the capitalisation in his question. I had visions of our half-blind PM packing a Glock and the demon headmaster Jack Straw toting an AK...
(ScousersPet, Tue 8 Jul 2008, 15:35, Reply)