From Peter Hitchens:
Nobody under the age of 55 should be able to stand for election, and nobody under the age of 30 should be able to vote in those elections. Nobody under 55 knows anything much about life. Nobody under 30 knows anything.
I would add one: anyone unable to formulate a sentence without using the word “like” is incapable of coherent thought and should be ineligible to vote – that rules out everyone under 40 and many under 60.
In his book Rage Against God, Peter Hitchens makes the point that both atheists and theists believe as they do simply because they choose to do so. In the case of atheism, it is generally a choice made from self-interest: if we admit that God exists we must also admit he might very well require something of us, something we may not wish to give.
Mainline churches have incorporated and refined this whole process, especially when dealing with the gay issue. The Anglican Church has produced endless papers, theological reflections and conversations on why, for 2000 years, the church had it wrong. All a learned smokescreen designed to conceal the real reason: compared to the general population, there is a disproportionately high number of gay clergy who wish not only to continue living with their same-sex partners, but to have their employer’s approval of the arrangement.
The same principle applies vicariously: people like Tony Campolo and Michael Coren who used to oppose gay marriage are now all for it. Not because the arguments have changed, but because condoning the lifestyle of their gay friends affords them feelings of fuzzy comfort – our contemporary substitute for love – whereas disagreement, however truly loving, can be so….. well, unpleasant, intolerant and hurtful.
None of this is new, of course: Peter Hitchens wrote about Aldous Huxley’s view of it here:
The interesting bit , for this part of the argument, begins at the bottom of page 269, where Huxley is discussing the reality of the ‘meaning’ which we like to give to the world and our actions within it.
‘This is a question’, says Huxley, ‘which, a few years ago, I should not even have posed. For, like so many of my contemporaries, I took it for granted that there was no meaning’…
‘…I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption…
‘Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know *because we don’t want to know*(my emphasis). It is our will that decides how and upon what subjects we shall use our intelligence. Those who detect no meaning in the world generally do so because, for one reason or another, it suits their books that the world should be meaningless…’
[…..]
‘No philosophy is completely disinterested. The pure love of truth is always mingled to some extent with the need, consciously or unconsciously felt by even the noblest and the most intelligent philosophers, to justify a given form of personal or social behaviour, to rationalize the traditional prejudices of a given class or community.’
For those who have no idea who Dan Savage is, stop here if you do not wish to experience a rude awakening from your blissful ignorance. Otherwise, read on:
Daniel Keenan “Dan” Savage (born October 7, 1964) is an American author, media pundit, journalist and newspaper editor. Savage writes the internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column Savage Love. In 2010, Savage and his husband Terry Miller began the It Gets Better Project to help prevent suicide among LGBT youth. He has also worked as a theater director, sometimes credited as Keenan Hollahan….
Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, have one adopted son, D.J., and were married in Vancouver, Canada in 2005. Following the 2012 legalization of gay marriage in Washington, he and Miller were part of the ceremonial first group of 11 couples to receive a Washington marriage license. Savage and Miller married at Seattle City Hall on December 9, 2012.
In a recent Australian panel discussion, Savage, on being asked what dangerous idea has the “greatest potential to change the world for the better”, answered instead, the question: “what stupidest idea has the greatest potential to change the world for the worse”:
“I think abortion should be mandatory for about 30 years”
One can only assume that Savage and Miller are not interested in adopting any more children – for 30 years, at least.
The whole episode is at the bottom of this post and is worth perusing if only to enjoy the masterful way Peter Hitchens effortlessly irritates the opposition by merely stating simple truths.
