The Illiberalism and Irrationality of Western Liberals – As Evidenced by the Sydney Morning Herald

The Sydney Morning Herald is a frustrating and revealing newspaper….it’s frustrating because it offers so much that is good but in the end comes across as a dumbed-down progressivism for those who think they are liberal.  It’s revealing because it shows how weak the intellectual and rational arguments are made by those who consider themselves to be the intellectual elites.  It’s almost as though they have given up on rationality and are just relying on the inherent self-evident superiority of their values.

Take the abortion bill going through the New South Wales Parliament just now.  It’s ill thought out, draconian and will end up with in effect abortion on demand up to birth.  The Sun-Herald reported on this last Sunday.

Balanced Letters

They had eight letters.  All one or two sentences.  All of them pro-abortion (I know that the Herald received many anti-abortion but for reasons of propaganda did not publish them.   These letters all made the same devastating points (to those who made them).   Men should not comment or decide on abortion, and the Church should have nothing to say.   The Herald missed out on the irony that five of their correspondents saying men should not comment, were men.    The question about what business it is of the church is simple to answer.   We are concerned about the weak and the vulnerable.  We are not interested in church power – but we believe that all human beings, including those in the womb, are made in the image of God.  We have a right to comment because most of the elites who govern our society seem prepared to override humanity and science in order to further their inhumane ideology.

The Next Step….?

Peter Fitzsimmons is a writer and columnist for the SMH.  He is a good writer but he does not use his gifts wisely or constructively.  He rarely misses an opportunity to mock Christians and demonstrate to himself his own innate superiority.
This, for example is the kind of sneering mockery which he is apparently paid to produce:   He wrote this before the Australia/ All Blacks game.

This time, it’s over to you religious types, who dinkum believe there is some kind of spirit up there, taking notes, working out who goes to the naughty corner to beat them all, and who gets to live an eternal life happily ever after, somewhere above the clouds. This great being, many believe, can turn a blind eye to the starving in Africa; terrible tsunamis in Asia; and the election that put Malcolm Roberts back in the Senate – but can also focus on sorting out tries for believers who point to him in the sky in thanks for delivering another five-pointer, and can turn whole matches for the true believers.

I have gently derided your collective absurdities for years.

But, I told you, I give up.

Friends, it’s time to PRAY for a Wallaby victory.

See if that works.

Apart from the tone, illogicality – Peter is left with a slight problem.  The Wallabies won!

But his Sunday column exulted in the almost certain passing of a law to kill babies and then went on to boast that the time had come to pass a law to allow the euthanasia of the sick and elderly.    He spoke with contempt of the “the most hidebound of conservative forces’ before going on to boast,, ” I will decide how I leave this world, and the circumstances in which I go”.  In that one sentence you have all the arrogance and irrationality of the Progressives.   It is a demonstrably false statement – (as was clearly evidenced in todays attack in Sydney – anyone of us in the CBD could have lost our lives) but that does not stop Peter making it.  Truth rarely seems to get in the way of his rants!

Cosmo Cosmopolitians

There were two other statements he made – both made elsewhere in the paper.  Firstly he boasts about Sydney being more ‘cosmopolitan’  – forgetting the fact that Sydney is the last Australian State to produce this regressive legislation.   And also ignoring the fact that several Labor MPs from the Western areas of Sydney have voted against because they live in real cosmopolitan neighbourhoods – full of Arabs, Asians and Africans – the only problem is that they are largely working-class and have traditional values.  By ‘cosmpolitan’ Peter clearly means those who read ‘Cosmo’ and go to coffee shops in Newtown (which are superb by the way!).  In fact he really means’ ‘those who agree with me’.

The other snide comment he makes is about the Conservative Political Action Conference being held in Sydney this week.  The SMH seems to be having a collective hissy fit about it.  Desperately searching for some terrible thing to happen at it.  The only evidence of that at the moment is Nigel Farage making some rude remarks about a couple of the Royals…and so our Left Wing Progressives find themselves defending royalty!  But Peter Fitz…and his fellow columnist Jacqueline Manley….want to issue dire warnings of American politics in Australia.  They fail to grasp that with their particular brand of identity politics – that is precisely what they are introducing.   Bringing the irrationality of Yale to Sydney will only result in a rise in the kind of right-wing politics they say they want to prevent.     Manley for example complains about ‘nastiness’ whilst writing a nasty and vindictive column.  Apparently when ‘Progressives’ are nasty its nice….

One last thought….Manley talks about ‘conservatives’ who oppose social change ‘reflexively’.   But it is often the other way round.  It is the progressives who control media, academia, the judiciary and the corporations who instinctively react when faced with real social change.  They want to defend their position and continue to proclaim that they alone are on the ‘right side of history’ and are progressive.  The reality is that they are reactionary regressives,  on the side of the elites, who are seeking to preserve their own power and ideology.  They have a lot in common with the Chinese Communist Party!

Perhaps when Peter and Jacqueline stop their mocking sneering and are ready to actually listen to what others say they might come to realise that real Christians are probably the only radicals left in Western society!   But I suspect they are too busy trying to conserve their outdated views to appreciate that!  We can but hope….

The Church and Abortion in New South Wales