I mentioned that the small god said she brought the asteroid because of what man had become, and they retorted that man might not have become that if… - Sheri S. Tepper

Talk about burning the flag and he gets all choked up. Funny, so many of these guys think the country stands for the flag instead of the other way around.

But you're saying all societies are coercive, said Ellin in a troubled voice.
Questioner laughed. But Honorable Ellin, of course they are. This is what makes reading history so amusing. Most cultures think of themselves as free while regarding others as coerced. They do so because they are following traditional values, and the generations of coercion that resulted in those values is long forgotten.

This led me to the thought that it might be easy to pretend to be a Seer. After all, if one pretended to have visions of the far distant future, how would anyone know if they came true or not?