Part 1 of 5
To ensure devotion from the children they kidnapped and used as soldiers, the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone would attack a village, kill most of the adults and then take the children. They would take a child and force them to murder one of the surviving adults, preferably their own parent. Once done, the child was theirs for life. The RUF became their new family.
The Khmer Rouge used a variation, where young “recruits” were put through what the regime called “forging” where they participated in an execution. Once they had innocent blood on their hands, they belonged to the Angkar (“the organization”) forever (or so the leader thought*.)
Mao’s Cultural Revolution didn’t need machetes. During struggle sessions, students were pitted against their teachers. Children were manipulated into denouncing their parents. Spouses betrayed each other in public squares. The ones who participated in attacking the targets became (as one historian noted) “complicit in the violence and hence invested in the state.” Three different regimes, three different continents, same playbook.
The mechanism is simple. Force someone to commit an atrocity (or to publicly champion one), and you’ve purchased their loyalty for life. They have exactly two psychological options going forward: either the regime is morally justified in what it demanded, or they themselves are monsters. Most people will choose devotion to the ideology of the regime every single time. And once they’ve chosen it, they’ll defend that choice with a ferocity that has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with psychological, self-preservation. Orwell understood this. Room 101 wasn’t about pain. It was about making Winston betray the person he loved most, because after that betrayal, resistance became psychologically impossible.
This isn’t the Collectivism of someone who thinks universal healthcare is a good idea. This is the tool of the Extreme Collectivist Elites (the ones who understand that the Collective’s power depends on destroying the Individual’s ability to think independently and want to rule the resulting sheep). Moderate Collectivists are not part of this manipulation but try very hard to pretend it isn’t happening. The Elite are the ones running the show.
So, what does any of this have to do with abortion in America?
Everything.
Abortion is the loyalty test. Once you’ve murdered your own baby, or publicly endorsed those murders, you’re in. You have the same two options as that child soldier: either abortion is morally acceptable, or you’ve been cheering for something monstrous. The Collectivist Elite doesn’t need to care which answer you pick, as long as you keep picking the first one.
That’s why the fight over abortion has never really been about women’s rights. “Women’s rights” is just a convenient Handle (the label slapped on the outside of the movement so people will grab it without examining what it’s attached to). The real function of abortion in American politics is the same function it serves in every Collectivist system: it cracks the foundation of Individualism by convincing people that some Individuals don’t count. Once you’ve accepted that premise for one category of people, the rest is just negotiation over which Individuals get disqualified next.
If you’ve noticed a similar pattern with the current push for “Trans Rights” (another issue that requires its followers to publicly deny observable biological reality in order to prove their loyalty), you’re paying attention. The timing is worth noting. The Collectivist Elite’s grip on the abortion issue started slipping right around the time they’d already constructed a replacement. But we’ll come back to that.
Every stage of abortion’s history in America has required people to abandon logic and reason to maintain the Collectivist position. From Margaret Sanger’s eugenics project to the legal fiction of Roe v. Wade, from the 28-year RICO prosecution of pro-life protesters to the deceptive ballot measures that followed Dobbs, the pattern repeats. It has to. The Collectivist position on abortion cannot survive contact with either logic or reason.
It never could.
This series will trace that pattern.
Tomorrow, Part 2: The Roots.
Wednesday, Part 3 The Legal Fiction.
Thursday, Part 4: The “Racketeers for Life”.
Friday, Part 5: The Pattern.
*Once out of power and facing the atrocities they committed, rather than remain in denial, many of the former Khmer Rouge became devout Christians, finding the only true release from the atrocities they committed in the forgiving grace of Jesus Christ.