Stepping back and taking a look at the motive force behind most political and socioeconomic efforts and policies today, we often find there is a common denominator. Unfortunately for most Americans, that force is not a desire by the ruling class to improve the lives of people by increasing wages, providing more safety or livability, or to solve some long-term problem that has great public consequences.
Sadly, that motive force is most often something far more insidious.
It is called moral blackmail.
Moral blackmail is a process by which the blackmailer schemes to induce guilt in an innocent person. It is also used to convince a person to commit a lesser offense to prevent a more serious offense from occurring. Most often it begins by saying, "If you allow (or do not allow) a particular thing to happen, you are responsible for the outcome, and it will forever be on your conscience. You do not want to carry THAT burden for the rest of your life, do you?"
This form of blackmail is used all the time with issues like welfare (I guess you just want your grandmother do die of hunger when Social Security goes bankrupt and you surely hate the homeless.), illegal immigration (Are you so cruel you want Guatemalan babies to be eaten by coyotes in the desert?), public services (If you do not agree to additional funding for the fire department, your neighbor’s house will burn and it will be your fault.) and tax policy (If you do not approve the new property taxes, your local elementary school will not be able to replace the swing set and little Jill might accidently hang herself. Want that on your conscience?) and most recently, it has been aggressively deployed in the arenas of both public health and race relations.
Masking and vaccinations during the recent “pandemic” are easily understood examples. Absent of any evidence other than conventional wisdom and wishes, the general wearing of face coverings (masks, cloth gaiters, etc.) has transitioned from scientific disagreement to a cultural panic. If you do not wear a mask or demand every child wear one at school, you are literally a murderer, the same with getting vaccinated – if you choose not to take the poke, you are no better than a serial killer (even though, if the vaccines really work, the vaxxed have no risk from the unvaccinated).
Who wants to carry the weight of being a secret assassin around with them 24/7/3625, right? Nobody wants to infect someone’s grandfather or second grader, do they?
The attempts at mask/vaccination guilt trips are ubiquitous and omnipresent, but taken as a whole, the public health-based moral blackmail is chump change as compared to the one that presents the most opportunity for damage to civil society and social cohesion.
That one is Critical Race Theory.
CRT is example of moral blackmail on steroids. It is not just about hanging a flailing, live albatross of guilt around your neck, this goes much deeper. This process goes something like this:
Every system in America has been, is now and will always be racist, therefore, because
The systems were created by white people, whites are eternally guilty of racism.
Correcting the systems so that they protect equality is not good enough, so
The systems must be either tilted in favor of black Americans, or
The control over those systems must be given over to black Americans, so
The systems can be used to punish white Americans until such time as black Americans are satisfied the moral debt has been repaid.
But no matter how much you apologize, kneel, pay, and say what they want you to say, the blackmailers will never be satisfied.
Imagine your child has been kidnapped and the kidnappers call you and say they want a ransom. You ask how much they want, and they reply, “We don’t know, just start giving us money and we will tell you when it is enough. We will give your kid back when we are satisfied.” Now imagine how impossible your situation would be if the law enforcement units of government were not only aware of the kidnapping, but in on it as well.
That is CRT in a nutshell.
CRT is state sanctioned moral blackmail by master criminals.
The New Jersey Waste Disposal cartel (i.e. the Jersey mob) is nothing compared to the size of this “you have a nice life, be a shame if something happened to it” action.
There is a reason that activists, social justice warriors, community organizers and politicians use this technique – it works – and it is especially effective in slices of society inhabited by people with low self-esteem, lacking self-confidence and who are conflict avoidant. These are people who think “Maybe I AM a racist”, “Why would they call me a racist if I were not?” or would prefer just pay for the blackmailers to go away rather than fight, even when they are 100% innocent – and know that they are.
Not a single American white person alive today has ever owned a slave that came to North America in the Atlantic slave trade and no black American alive today has ever been a slave via the slave trade. Tradition and common sense inform us that none of us are individually or corporately responsible for the sins of our ancestors.
And yet, the blackmailers never go away. They are always searching for a new angle – and for the same reason governments do not negotiate with terrorists, no one should give in to moral blackmail. Once the terrorist or blackmailer is rewarded, there is absolutely no incentive to stop.
Another characteristic of the manipulation of moral blackmail is this: it is always about money.
Always.
Every perceived slight or grievance has a price tag attached – but the fact is that there is never enough money. The asking price in any situation is never fixed and in most, a final tally is never discussed.
If you give in and pay, you should always understand that it is only a down payment, never a final one.
Blackmailers always come back.
As WOPR (the computer in the 1983 movie “WarGames”) told David (Matthew Broderick), “The only way to win is not to play.”