Hostage!

The leftist mind thrives on clinging to its victim status. We make that work against us. We’re the problem insofar as we entertain their victim status assertions. Here’s a short conversation that took place tonight between me and a loved one;

LO; “I need (such and such help from you).”
Me; “I can do that, but you’ll need to (clean up a years old, nagging financial matter)….that’s my pre condition. It’s as simple as that.”
LO; “blah blah blah…Wait. That’s your pre condition?! So you’re holding me hostage!! Anger. Body language indicates a feeling of having gotten one over on me. Now I’ve crossed a line that shouldn’t have been crossed, or so I’m supposed to believe. I am a piece of crap, or so I’m supposed to believe. I should be wary of the pain that’s going to come from this transgression, and that wariness should alter my position on the matter. I should fold, and then beg forgiveness for my evil ways and my generally evil constitution.
Me; (pause) Yes. If getting you to do the right thing is holding you hostage, then I’m definitely holding you hostage” and I just look LO in the eye, and then add; “You need to take care of this (nagging financial matter) right away too, not weeks or months from now, but within days.”
LO; “I’ll take care of it by the weekend. You have my word.”
And that was that. LO will love me for it, and love LO’s self for it. Not for the help, mind you, but for the insistence, as a condition for the help, that LO do what we both know is the right thing. Even right now, because all the tension and angst and doubt has been taken away and the right decision has been made on good terms, LO is being all chatty and friendly with me, which doesn’t happen very often.

This was not planned. This is not a tactic. It was not manipulation or intimidation, competition or one-upmanship. It cannot be planned. It was love, and love doesn’t back down, feel guilty, try to illicit guilt or demand anything in return. It doesn’t need to keep its story straight or feed an ego and doesn’t allow itself to be distracted, upset or derailed. It’s just holding your ground for the right reason and it is the simplest thing ever. I only bring it up because it’s something I haven’t understood well enough in the past, resulting in much pain and suffering.

Would that I’d known this simple and obvious thing a few decades ago…

So you could say that this is a testimony, just one example of things going the right way when so many times they’ve gone the wrong way.

And so it is the reason, or the mechanism, by which a lot of people seek “freedom” from right, do to wrong, while others seek freedom from wrong, to do right. Both the communists and the libertarians see themselves as would-be liberators. Each sees the other as the problem standing in their way. But one is beautifully right and the other is horribly wrong.

That’s where we get the term “liberation theology” as practiced by the likes of Rev. Wright. They see the “constraints” of true freedom and true justice, and of property rights, responsibility and so on, as chains of bondage. They’re being held hostage in that sense and we do practically nothing to correct them. Instead, as a whole, we appease them and try not to offend them too much, trying to make ourselves look good in their wrong-seeing eyes. We don’t stand up to the challenge purely on principle and make the clear case, fearless, insistent and without rancor, and they hate us for it. We fail their test.

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One thought on “Hostage!

  1. (crickets)
    Well I hope that this silence is a thoughtful and contemplative one, rather than a dismissive one.

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