[Splintered]

There is a grand problem with your argument, Sternn.

What is the difference between your 'conditioning', and the simple effects of society?

Society isn't totally run by the government. To the largest extent, society is run by the everyday people and their actions. When I see the band Arch Enemy, I naturally associate it with my friend Matt because he is a fan of Arch Enemy. This is not the direct action of Arch Enemy paying Matt to make me think of him. When I hear the word 'Dannon', I think of the song 'Daniel' by Elton John.

When I hear Burger King, I think of fat, greasy burgers that are rather tasteless. Pizza Hut simply reminds me of an old town I used to live in, not a big red roof.

This is simply the natural cause of my mere existance, and not some form of brainwashing. This conditioning would occur whether I got it from an intentional misleading, or my day-to-day activity of actually interacting with the world.

Of course people will pick up something on a billboard. This can't make their reactions predictable, because their reaction will be the sum of every memorable past action that occured. When I see an anti-gun control banner, do you automatically assume that I will hate guns for taking * number of children the past year? No. I, and I believe that the majority of my fellow men and woman, will take it with a grain of salt.

You're argument also completely crumbles to the ground when you say, "They work to make you not believe in it." If they worked to make you not believe that brainwashing exists, then I can argue that you have been brainwashed to believe brainwashing exists. It's the equivalent of a logical black hole, or an infinite loop in which you can never escape. It's circular logic, "Brainwashing exists because you've been brainwashed to believe it doesn't exist."

Once again, I must reiterate that you assume the majority of people agree with Bush. Look at the polls: Most of the world doesn't agree with what Bush says, despite how many times Bush says Freedom and says it's for our own good.

Read it over Mon Capitan, the majority of the world does not believe what Bush actually says. The best we can say is that works counter to your theory; brainwashing people causes them to reject what Bush has said.

Of course, I can easily defeat that using another one of your premises; we're being brainwashed to think the majority of the world doesn't believe what Bush says.

But wait, we can go even further and say that we're being brainwashed to think we're being brainwashed to think the majority of the world doesn't believe what Bush says.

I plead you to see the ridiculousity of your claim. It's essentially a special case in which you can concoct anything you want, then hide under the viel of 'you've been conditioned to think otherwise'.