If ever a nation were built so that its population could be easily brainwashed, America is it. We didn’t start out that way, or we would never have become a nation. We would still be, “Oh, that colony, over there” as a Londoner points toward the Atlantic Ocean. “Been nothing but trouble since the day we got them!”
Without media, radio, television, movies and finally the internet and social media, it would have been difficult for leaders to engage in brainwashing the citizenry. But there is one other key element. We actually thought (back then) because we had to figure things out. Advertising taught us that we could just let someone else figure it out and then do what they told us to do.
“Free advice” with ulterior motives is really at the heart of brainwashing, isn’t it? When the plug is, “Buy my product,” or “Vote for me!” brainwashing is likely in play. Someone wants to remove your thoughts and insert their own in place of yours. But what they really want to do is get your action or assent.
Why don’t they just ask for your action or assent? Because they don’t think you will give your action or assent. They don’t want to persuade you, which takes time and effort, and requires some similar thinking, or maybe some give-and-take on both sides. They just want you to say yes and give them your money or your vote.
Lying and brainwashing are pretty much alike, in that they are both unethical forms of persuasion. God, if you will recall, called the devil a liar from the very beginning. It wasn’t a compliment, but it is a good warning for us, given all that humanity has already endured (death and destruction) because of the devil’s lies.
Brainwashing is really lying on an industrial scale. It is carried out by people we don’t know and who don’t know us personally. So, for brainwashing to be effective, it requires people with little discernment listening to people they don’t know, have no reason to trust, and then accepting what they hear and see as absolutely true and accurate – even more true and accurate than what they might have arrived at if they had thought it through.
Just offhand, one would think it would be hard to find very many people like that. But life tells us otherwise, doesn’t it? America is filled with a lot of lazy thinkers, who would rather let somebody else do the job for them. They don’t know what they believe because they don’t know who they are. All they care about is holding a popular opinion. Thinking frightens them, because they don’t know where it will lead them; they might even wander off the thought reservation and be ridiculed by others.
There are a lot of culprits who can be blamed for this, but in the end we are each responsible for what we believe, regardless of how we got there. If we believe a liar, especially for the accolades of men, we will in the end pay the price. God alone is the only one who won’t lie to us, but do we listen to Him? He asks frequently in His Word: “Am I a man, that I should lie?”
The devil will do his best to lie to us, because it is a way of stealing the good that God has planned for us. The devil only has the power that we give him if we believe his lies. Come to think of it, the same is true of evil people: They will continue to lie to us, but we only give them power over us when we believe their lies.
If you don’t want to be ruled by the devil and his liars, stop believing them. Even easier, stop listening to them or watching their media. Demand their evidence, or search out your own. Very likely, they have none. Their talking points are furnished by those who own them, but the evidence is harder to manufacture. That’s why America has a court system, not a Ministry of Truth.