Antisemitism and homophobia is better aired than buried
When David Ward was removed as a Liberal Demorcrat candidate in the upcoming General Election because his party’s leader Tim Farron operates a “no tolerance – zero tolerance – of anti-Semitic remarks”, Ward told BBC News.
“I am a liberal through and through. How on earth could I be racist or be anti-Semitic?”
Steady. That’s a rhetorical question as illustrated by Ward continuing:
“I would defy anybody to find one single derogatory comment I’ve made against a Jew which was not related to something being done in Israel.”
Looking aside from Farron’s apparent ignorance of Ward’s words before Theresa May and the Tories pointed them out to him in the Commons, and marvel at the man’s defence.
Wow. There it is. The modern problem with ‘the Jews’ summed up: it is okay to hate ‘the Jews’, or at least to be derogatory against the Jews, if you’re attacking Israel, if your apparently loftier target is the Jewish State and its militarism. This speaks to the way in which attacking Israel has become a means of being derogatory about Jews, who are seen as bearing responsibility for various military crimes, and, among the more far-out left, for economic malaise and global instability, too. This is the anti-imperialism of fools.
Back to Farron, and why he thought it right to condemn Ward as soon as the media glare was shone on his opinions. Mind, this was in the same week that Farron discovered that he was ok with gay sex. It was, he said, not a “sin”. The odd thing is that Tim’s an Evangelical Christian, and they believe that homosexuality is wrong. Where does that leave Tim, then? Does the man have the courage of his convictions?
As a Christian, then, Tim was a few burning embers short of the full Cranmer when it came to loyalty and conviction — but it saved his political skin. By way of explanation he mumbled something about specks of sawdust and removing the plank of wood from his own eye. I’d remove the large block of wood from inside your cranium, mate, before you start wittering on in that wet George Formby accent about bloody sawdust. Drop your beliefs just so the gibbering Twitter monkeys don’t get you? Sell out your god for an extra five seats in the Commons? Anyone ever tell you at Bible class about Judas?
In a free country you should be able to say what you like, however stupid or bigoted. Farron’s banning and flimflammery befuddles his message. What does he believe in? What does he think?
It’s not progressive to find Jews guilty of collective guilt because of your weird obsession with Israel over, say, China, France, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Pakistan, Russian, Thailand or anywhere else with problems. And it’s just as weird to spend your time wondering about men having consensual sex because you read a book and believed everything in it to be factually true. But it is a triumph of free speech in a free society to give full throat to your prejudices and let others offend you with theirs.
Rather than this banning and revisionism being an oddity, Tim Farron’s illiberal liberalism is very much in keeping with the age of no-platforming people with whom you don’t agree and banning things that upset you. If you can’t say what you think, it’s not just the bastards and bigots who miss out. We all lose.
Posted: 30th, April 2017 | In: Politicians Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
