A post about Liberals inevitably titled “The strange death of Liberal [insert topic here]“

Tim Luckhurst is upset that Rod Liddle is not going to be be editor of the Independent.

Although I can understand why he is annoyed that something he wants to happen is not going to happen, his ire against the “Liberals” who foiled Liddle seems somewhat bizarre.

In today’s Guardian he writes:

Rod Liddle will not be editor of the Independent. The screechingly intolerant campaign of hostility directed against him by metropolitan critics has done its job. They call themselves liberals. If they are right then the word has come to have as little meaning as its common counterpart “progressive”. Sincere liberals do not censor opinion, still less should they caricature it in order to intensify hostility. True liberals oppose arguments they despise by demonstrating the greater value of better ones.

In his people’s red tunic Sunny Hundal has mounted horseback and set loose the dogs of Facebook to trash Liddle’s chances of editing the Independent.

Tim argues that having an opinion, registering that opinion publicly and taking action to see it realised is illiberal.

This is an opinion you see bandied about quite often: Liberals must be acquiescent, weak and silent. When liberals are not they are quickly denounced as fascists, or for those less inclined to go Godwin, as huge hypocrites.

But this is nonsense.

The facebook group is called If Rod Liddle becomes editor of The Independent, I will not buy it again.

I struggle to think of things more liberal than a boycott. They aren’t threatening violence or trying to co-opt the power of the state to stop him and are not calling in any favours from Russian Oligarchs to knobble him.

They are not coercing anyone or threatening to do so and are not calling for Liddle to be silenced. They are just asking for the paper they buy to not become his soapbox. Because of this Tim’s accusations fall short of anything approaching coherence.

Perhaps Tim is destined to get thing wrong when his main concern is a “tyranny of the liberal metropolitan elite.” It seems he, like many others totally misunderstands what a liberal is.

The idea of “daft liberals” ruining everything suits the simplistic narratives that journalists of Liddle’s meagre stature rely on to fill column inches.

But contrary to lazy journalist’s claims most of Britain is not Broken, even if parts are, and immigrants are not taking over, even if it is simpler to say so, and Labour are not accusing us all of being racists, even if some anti-immigrant rhetoric is racist.

How the ruling classes have had their way in the last few decades is not really debatable but to categorise it as “a tyranny of a liberal metropolitan elite” is blindingly foolish.

The tyranny of the liberal establishment were content to have Liddle edit the Independent, [1] but perhaps Tim can present evidence to the contrary?

Being a liberal does not demand acquiescence as the world around you changes, nor does it mean deferential treatment of those with which you fundamentally disagree. A liberal can fight for what they believe in, where do these people think our hard won and fast eroding liberties came from?

[1] After all they have far smaller fish to fry and lives to ruin.

Filed under: The Media

Good article on immigration and the media

Sunny Hundal has written an excellent article on How the Media Help the BNP. Read it here. Excerpt here:

Now, you could be forgiven for thinking that the election of two MEPs would bring the BNP under closer scrutiny since last year. Surely the media glare would expose its nasty underbelly? The party’s deputy leader, Simon Darby, doesn’t seem to think so:

“Dealing with the press on a daily basis it is hard not to develop a healthy disrespect for the people who quite rightly can be blamed for the state this country is in today. However, certainly over the last year I am not the only one here at BNP Towers that has noticed a distinct thaw in the attitude towards us from some aspects of the media.”

The problem here is that while newspaper columnists and reporters keep stating they hate the BNP and all it stands for, they nevertheless keep promoting narratives that harden BNP support. Here is a short list I prepared earlier.

Filed under: Migration, The Media