I’ve spent the morning hopping around the ‘sphere, and have noted a trend I’ve noted in previous election years… I’m noticing how very much of the platforms of the Democrats is surrounded by guilt. Perhaps you’ve noticed it, too?
[1]A strange set of emotions, guilt is. Perhaps the easiest to evoke, and the easiest to control, once one understands the cultural cues. It won’t take much for people who do understand this tool to keep a great number of people under the yoke of guilt. A few examples:
Think about the leftists’ constant guilty bowing to the god known as the “environment”. What is the environmental movement of today centered around? Guilt. Guilt for too much pollution. Guilt for too much energy use which leads, suppsoedly, to pollution. When the facts of the matter do not impress enough to produce the desired effect, the facts are exaggerated so as to create more guilt. Al Gore has made a very nice living, thank you very much off of placing guilt on the shoulders of the average Joe and Jane just trying to get enough gasoline in their car to get back and forth to work, while seemingly avoiding guilt and it’s foibles for flying his jets around the world, and using 10 times the average family’s annual energy use in one trip… a trip spreading guilt about energy use. Anyone who questions the facts Gore and the rest base their arguments on, are labeled as guilty of a myriad of things. Such charges tend to avoid dealing with actual facts, but rather tend to focus on the emotions surrounding guilt.
Think about the usual cries from Democratic candidates about how we should be “helping the poor”. Guilt again, of course. Conservatives, who want government out of such matters, are guilty of being selfish, we’re told. Anyone who complains about governmental largess in any way… welfare, healthcare, etc, is labeled guilty. Such guilt is not only a nifty way to prevent any real discussion on the issues, the sheer pressure of guilt is a tool to break down resistance to governmental power in the matter. To avoid such guilt we gladly give up half our income and more to government…. never noticing that such government efforts never do quite stem the tide of poor to be helped. (If government ever actually fixed the problem, one supposes their claim to ever growing power would be made illegitimate…. they’d never be able to point to someone’s guilt to expand their own power, anymore) As with the environmental movement, anyone raising any kinds of questions on the topic is made out a pariah, guilty of the worst kind of social mis-stepping. Such as those pointing out that the person who heped the poor the most in our history was Ronald Reagan.
Guilt is perhaps the most crippling of emotions, for both the individual, and a culture as well.
Think about the election process we’re going through, just now. Particularly, an aspect I mentioned last night . [2] We have a black candidate who without directly saying so himself, implies through subordinates that anyone opposing his is guilty of racism. His most formidable opponent is a woman, and the idea has somehow made it out of that campaign and it’s supporters that those opposing her are guilty of being sexist, and that opposition to her is being waged purely on that ground. Anyone who questions either of these stands is labeled guilty before the echo dies.
[3]Food… that which gives us life… is seen as a guilty pleasure. We’re supposed to feel guilty when we run to McDonald’s or BK. We’re supposed to feel guilty if we have a cup of coffee that is not run by ‘the right people’. We’re supposed to feel guilty if we shop at the great Satan, WalMart. We’re supposed to feel guilty if we buy good not union produced. We’re supposed to feel guilty for simply being American. We’re supposed to feel Guilty if we’ve managed to improve our families standard of living beyond that of our neighbor… and our governments act on that guilt by increasing the taxes we pay with the stated intent of ‘making things equal’. Some environmentalists have it that man is guilty of ruining the environment by simply existing in the numbers that we do… but never quite seem to make the conclusion that such observations lead to.. that such people could save the environment… just a little, by removing themselves from the equation. Their guilt, apparently doesn’t quite take them that far.
Guilt is perhaps the most crippling of emotions, for both the individual, and a culture as well. When everyone is guilty. it is criminal to be innocent. And yet, we continue as a people to buy the stuff being packaged.. guilt… as ‘fairness’… as “Environmental responsibility” and so on. Make sense to you? How much of this guilt, we buy, much of this guilt we accept into our lives, depends entirely on how slickly the purveyors of such guilt package it. And boy they do that well. People get paid millions annually to package guilt well enough that it influences our actions and specifically our voting.
If there’s one thing that amazes me about all of this, it’s that more people haven’t picked up on the idea that guilt is the main motivator for voting Democrat. Look at the laundry list above again. Aren’t these part and parcel of the Democrat mantra?
Think about the reaction of voters, to a Republican candidate wise enough to point all this out.