Becoming an Ism.

A number of celebrities, including Terry Pratchett, Philip Pullman and Stephen Fry, have written an open letter opposing the Pope’s visit to Britain. What they object to is the Catholic position on birth control, gay rights and abortion. They’re entitled to their view, of course. What I find disquieting is that they want him banned. Banned? That’s just a form of censorship.

There was a time when liberalism was a generic term for an overall position. It was radical, and one of the things it generally objected to was censorship. It believed in freedom of thought and expression. But then it grew into the Great Liberal Alter Establishment. It became the ism for people lacking the capacity for free thought to follow. The point about free thinkers is that they don’t generally follow anything.

Liberalism has become a club every bit as entrenched in its shibboleths as conservatism, and its spokespersons and leaders exhibit the same pomposity. Any expression of disagreement with one of its hallowed beliefs is howled down with the same hysteria as was once exhibited by the conservatives who objected to the banning of slavery. I’ve had personal experience of being called a right wing bigot for disagreeing with just one shibboleth. It would be difficult to be any less right wing than me, but the followers don’t seem to understand that. But of course, they wouldn’t. Followers are, by their nature, programmed to follow, not think. You can justify your view with as much rational argument as you like, but it falls on deaf ears. There is more than a whiff of totalitarianism about the Great Liberal Alter Establishment, and I want nothing to do with it.

Make no mistake; I’m not a Catholic. I have no time for Catholicism and its sordid history, and neither the Bible nor the Pope mean anything to me. But when I see the likes of Stephen Fry and his cronies setting themselves up as the arbiters of right thought, I know I’m on my own. I intend to stay that way.