LETTER: New ‘liberals' vicious when you cross them!

SIR – Ah shur, your editorial on the dumping of the blasphemy stuff, reminds me of a time when someone wrote to ‘An Realt’ to demand that I be charged under the blasphemy thing for taking the mickey and generally poking fun at the Catholic religion per se.

How times have changed, yet the zeitgeist of irrationally hating what went before has never been my stance, and there was little reason to dump the blasphemy chap into outer darkness to show how ‘modern’ and ‘liberal’ we now are in Éire. It was just there; never used. 

So what, and why spend so much dosh in advertising that it is vital we get rid of it? And it is gone now, big deal, yet I have to add, so what?

Somehow, the thinking is that voting along the lines of accepting everything this government demands will make us free, and what is today called ‘liberalism,’ could just as soon be named ‘you are with us or against us – yesterday’s man.’

The new ‘liberals’ talk about love, tolerance, political freedom, understanding and the like, yet are vicious when anyone else holds a differing viewpoint on a range of issues pertaining to real life that they seek to crush. Do not fall out of step is the admonishment /warning.

Far from being liberal in the true sense, where social justice and genuine care for the poor and the marginalised is the pressing, but that cannot be glamorous or high-brow enough for today’s purveyors of what they claim is the new political reality of ‘liberalism.’ It is in fact becoming a not-so-gentle dictatorship under this novelty government we are enduring in the  lovely new version of ‘freedom’ where superficiality rules.

Robert Sullivan,

Bantry.

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