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    %MANIPULATIVE COERCIVE ADDICTIVE GUILT EVIL LAW 951105

     Not all guilt is healthy guilt.   Often  manipulative
and  addictive  people create communal settings  in  which
weak people are made to feel guilty so as to give power to
devious manipulators of guilt-filled people.

     When  people feel guilty we do well to ask  questions
such as:

     1.  Has  anyone  really  been harmed  by  actions  or
inaction in ways for which the "guilty people" are clearly
responsible?

     2.  Do   some   or  all  of  the  people   who   have
presumably  have  been  harmed by our  actions  bear  some
responsibility  for  the  harm  they  perceive  they  have
experienced;     e.g.,     by   defining   or    accepting
definitions    of   some   creative   non-conformity    as
"offensive"?

     3.  Is  the  definition  of  "harm"   one  which   is
rooted  in published written legislation duly adopted by a
duly authorized legislative body---or is it     merely  an
informal "consensus"  on the part of some   self-appointed
group of troubled citizens?

     4.  Is    the   sense   of   "harm   done"    clearly
articulated   by  someone  who  has  really  been  harmed,
inferred  on behalf of someone whom others have  suggested
has  been harmed,  or by someone whom the "guilty"   party
fears may have been harmed?

     5.  Is the presumably "guilty"  person a person  with
low    self    esteem    who    is    guilty    of    self
condemnation---when  such  behavior is  disintegrative  of
self and others?

     6.  Are   people  who  feel  "guilty"   being   taken
advantage of by manipulators of guilt?

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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