Laughing at the new Inquisition

Some of the opinions I’ve heard recently have made me realize that I disagree with progressives – not just ideologically but for mental health reasons. One of the main strands of progressive insanity is, of course, the idea that all cultures are equal: even gay-hating, women-hating, Jew-hating ones, apparently. Yes, I’ve looked into it and there doesn’t appear to be any sort of qualificational threshold on this. We have to treat all cultures with equal respect . . . except, of course, for western culture, which is racist and imperialist and should be trumped whenever possible. It’s what we call equality, I think. Or maybe it’s diversity. It’s one of those nice cuddly progressive words, anyway. Well, it would be, wouldn’t it?

PCNow, there are many reasons why I could never be a progressive, not least because I am genuinely tolerant of difference. I believe in diversity, especially diversity of opinion, which is something progressives seem to feel threatened by. With some of them, it has become such a phobia that a kind of progressive inquisition seems to have developed to stamp down on opinions that are ‘incorrect’. And I think this is because most progressives inhabit a self-reinforcing social or professional bubble where everyone carries around the same shallow, unexamined, assumptions and certainties and they’re simply not used to being disagreed with. They find it traumatic, poor souls, which is why progressives are more likely than anyone else (except Muslims) to demand censorship of opinions they don’t like.

Now, you can measure how progressive you are, if you want to, by how long it’s been since you called somebody a racist for advocating secularism or democracy – ‘racist’, of course, being the handy catch-all word for any social or political opinion progressives disapprove of; used, typically, as a first resort, like a pepper spray, to shut people up before they can be heard.

You see, progressives instinctively know what’s best for everyone. It is their core defining trait. They believe that if they find a thing personally offensive to them, it should be banned for everyone. Opinions they personally disagree with should be shouted down before anyone else can hear them. Progressives give themselves permission to think and behave this way because they believe they occupy some kind of high moral ground: an idea that, like so much progressive thought, is both amusing and disturbing at the same time. But, because they make this typically arrogant and false assumption, every disagreement becomes a moral judgment. So, when they encounter somebody with a different view, a progressive will tend not merely to disagree, as a normal person would, but to actively judge and condemn them as a despicable human being who deserves to be personally villified and their opinions, however valid, deliberately misrepresented and crushed by any means, however underhand or dishonorable. So they’ll quite happily slander you as a racist when they know very well that you’re not and, yet, still be smugly convinced that they’re doing the right thing.

Now, being called a racist is especially unpleasant because it isn’t just a casual insult that can be shrugged off. It’s a shunning word, like ‘traitor’ or ‘pervert’, that can stain a person’s reputation whether it’s true or not. And progressives invariably use it with that express intention from up there on that high moral ground right across the border from Cloud Cuckoo Land. And they police each other, too, with a puritan ferocity. I know people who are afraid to speak their mind in front of their more progressive friends because they know they’ll be judged and condemned for it. And they don’t need the hassle. So they keep their mouth shut and pretend to be somebody else. And that’s fine with progressives. They don’t want to know who you really are. They only care about who you’re supposed to be. It’s all about a world that should exist but doesn’t.

Another important quality progressives possess is that they appear to be excellent mind readers. Whatever you say, a progressive can always tell what you ‘really’ meant by it. It’s a simple formula: if you say X, you must mean Y. And Y is unacceptable. Therefore your opinions must be crushed. However clearly you state your position, a progressive will always manage to read between the lines enough to change it so that they can call you a racist. It’s really quite an amazing skill . . . I mean, sickness. And it is what I think of as a kind of altitude sickness from constantly occupying that high moral ground where progressives just don’t belong, bless them. Their shameless double standards are simply not equipped to survive in an atmosphere that makes such impossible demands on them for unqualified integrity. The strain is just too much for progressives. It seems to weaken their already diminished capacity for clear and honest thought so that their minds fill up with crazy racist apparitions and the spectre of Islamophobia looms over them like a ludicrous bedsheet ghost. They’re running scared from their own propaganda, these poor people, afraid to step out of line in case the Inquisition turns on them; compelled to keep repeating the lie that all cultures are equal because if they told the truth and said, “Well, actually, the evidence is that all cultures are nowhere near equal and to claim otherwise is an insult to everyone’s intelligence”, well then, by their own shabby progressive standards, they would instantly become racists: which in progressive circles is tantamount to being anointed with the plague. They just can’t do it.

And this is your real tragedy if you are a progressive (apart from actually being one, that is). You’re trapped up there, on that imaginary high moral ground, by your own dishonest propaganda. Your history of shameless slander and lofty condemnation would make any climb-down far, far, too humiliating: especially when those flimsy relativist double standards of yours simply explode under the pressure of returning to reality (as we like to call it down here on terra firma). And then, all those nasty little labels that you’ve maliciously and falsely pinned on others, in the past, would come home and attach themselves to you, where they have always belonged.

And we can’t have that, now, can we, progressives? So, I guess you’ll just have to brazen it out and keep up the ridiculous charade with your vile and cowardly racist anti-racism and your ugly hypocritical moral posturing, while the rest of us all have a good laugh at your expense.

*I believe in diversity, especially diversity of opinion, which is something progressives seem to feel threatened by*

“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”
- William F. Buckley, Jr.

Another important quality progressives possess is that they appear to be excellent mind readers. Whatever you say, a progressive can always tell what you ‘really’ meant by it. It’s a simple formula: if you say X, you must mean Y. And Y is unacceptable. Therefore your opinions must be crushed. However clearly you state your position, a progressive will always manage to read between the lines enough to change it so that they can call you a racist.
When I use the term “Liberals” I use scare quotes. Because “liberal” has been turned into a code word. In 1919 when Theodore Roosevelt said,

It is not the critic who counts . . . The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena . . . who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds
that was a liberal sentiment. By the time the socialists had spent the 1920s distorting the language, “liberalism” was inverted to mean the exact opposite of that. The precise opposite of that T. Roosevelt sentiment is encapsulated in the Elizabeth Warren/Barak Obama statement of pure cynicism:
You didn’t build that.
Indeed, as has been said, “No man is an island.” But the person who takes responsibility - by borrowing money to start a business, for example - is “the man who is actually in the arena,” and he or she actually does deserves the credit for “building that.” Which is precisely what ownership is.

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