Free When I Say No, I Feel Guilty by Manuel J. Smith Page A

to pay a fine for going too slow, but he also expected me to feel like a “putz” (guilty) because of his judgment of me. He seemed a bit disappointed over mylack of emotion, but was able to recover his poise once he mounted his Yamaha and drove off.
    When systems of right and wrong are used, psychological guilt results. When laws are used to induce psychological guilt, these laws, or their enforcers, violate your human assertive right to be the ultimate judge of your own emotions. Such emotionally used laws are radically different in their effect from other laws. If you decide to assert yourself in the face of an ordinarily enforced law, you can break the law and face the legally prescribed consequences, i.e., a civil judgment against you, a fine, or a jail sentence. That is your own decision. It may or may not be wise in someone’s view, but it is your decision, just as the consequences, positive or negative, are yours. If you decide to break an “emotional law,” you not only face legal consequences but are also expected, irrespective of your own judgment, to feel psychological guilt for breaking such a law. A very clear though extreme example of an emotional law can be seen in the case of conscientious objectors to the draft. Men with sincere beliefs that war is a tragic waste of man’s efforts and who will have nothing to do with war have been routinely sentenced by courts to several years of menial work like cleaning out bedpans in hospitals in lieu of a jail sentence. While cleaning out things like bedpans may not sound attractive, that part of the court sentence is trivial. What is important is that the freedom of the conscientious objector to go home at night depends greatly upon the system of rights and wrongs held by the hospital staff, or even upon their whims. If the staff does not like the C.O., they fire him and he may go to jail. In plain language, when a judge sets up this sort of arrangement, he is really telling the C.O., “You are sentenced to several years of licking someone else’s boots to stay out of jail. You will not be your own judge, but I am making them the judge of all you do.” The C.O.’s choice is clear: go to jail or renounce your right to be your own judge of yourself. Such an arrangement, if not successful in making the C.O. feel guilty by seeing his “error,” at least punishes him for using his own judgment in not“defending” his country. He is made to agree to give up his assertive right to judge himself in other areas for several years.
    These examples of legal manipulative emotional control point out the ultimate misuse of the consent of the governed. No government can be democratic if it attempts to regulate or manipulate the emotional state of its people. In my reading of the American Constitution and the Declaration of Independence of the American Colonies from Great Britain, for example, I can find no section that would empower the American government to engage in the punishment of legal offenses by controlling the emotions of the offender. I do read, however, that we are entitled to certain inalienable rights, among them, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If you do not exercise your assertive right to be the ultimate judge of yourself, then the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are just words printed on paper.
    Now, let us look at your other assertive rights, all derived from your basic right to be your own ultimate judge. We’ll also take a look at the most common ways other people manipulatively violate these rights.

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Our everyday assertive rights—
the common ways other
people manipulate us
    Being your own judge has a great number of implications for your behavior and thoughts about yourself and other people. But how do you translate this one overall statement about yourself into common language that relates meaningfully to your everyday living. How can you tell when you are being manipulated, when your assertive