Let me tell you a story about life on a certain planet in our galaxy.

On planet M there are billions of people. These beings are held captive by an evil dictator. Their dictator forces all the people to constantly praise him and to sing songs for him because apparently he has insecurity issues and needs to have his greatness constantly affirmed by the people.

This evil dictator does more than just force the people praise him. He also developed a seemingly arbitrary but very strict code of behavior that the people must obey. For example, people of group A are not allowed to marry people of group B. People of group C are not allowed to have physical contact with people of group D. Certain foods are off-limits to everybody, certain activities can only be done at specific times of the day, and to top it all off the dictator taxes the people at a ridiculous high rate.

This evil dictator, on top of demanding the unreasonable terms listed above, threatens disobedience and dissidence with torture for the rest of one’s life. Oh but it gets worse! Using proprietary technology, the dictator forces you to live forever so that he can torture you for the longest time possible.

Before you get the idea that we should fly over to this planet and kill the evil dictator you should know that you would receive significant resistance from the captives. These poor people are so deluded that they think their dictator is saving their lives. They believe that without the dictator, evil would run rampant across their beautiful little planet. For these reasons they love their dictator. They don’t love the dictator just because it’s one of his terms, no, they really do love him and they will do anything to keep him alive, in power, and in complete control of their lives.

So apparently, these people are suffering from a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome. This is a psychological phenomenon that we people of Earth discovered a long time ago. It is the strange phenomenon in which captives develop empathy and positive feelings for their captors. Now if only we could send these people a message – a message of enlightenment that tells them all about Stockholm Syndrome. Surely then they would realize what is really happening.

Or maybe not. This story just gets weirder because as it turns out, the dictator doesn’t actually exist. The inhabitants of planet M made him up a long time ago and now firmly believe him to exist despite all evidence to the contrary. The people of planet M go to great lengths to prove to their poor deluded minds that this dictator exists because it makes them feel better about themselves. So convinced are they of the dictator’s existence that they think life without the dictator would be pointless. We have more than just classic Stockholm Syndrome going on here, we have Delusional Stockholm Syndrome.

Such a thing couldn’t possibly happen on Earth could it? Of course not! Now let’s pray to God.