Monkeys and Indoctrination

I heard an analogy once using monkeys and it goes something like this:

Take 5 monkeys and put them in a small room with a stepladder bolted to the floor and a bunch of bananas hanging from the ceiling over the stepladder.  Every time any of the monkeys attempt to climb the stepladder, spray them all up against the wall with a firehose.  After a time, they will all come to associate touching the ladder with being sprayed and will give up trying to obtain the bananas. 

Then take one of the original monkeys out and replace it with a new one.  As soon as the new monkey attempts to climb the ladder, the other four, not wanting to get sprayed with the firehose will beat him mercilessly every time he reaches for the ladder.  Once he finally associates touching the ladder with getting beat up, remove another one of the original monkeys to repeat the process until all the original monkeys were replaced and what you have left are a bunch of monkeys programmed to not ever go near the ladder, but none of them know the original reason why, only associating it with the beatings.

Pretty much how Congress got to be the way it is, isn't it?

But more importantly, that's how many of us have come to hold many of the opinions we do - getting beat up by the masses.  Think about why you believe what you do.