Following Stephen Pollard’s surprisingly good column on the Pope, the Adam Smith lot have a surprisingly good column on charlatan ‘experts’ like Professor Sir Roy Meadow.
Actually, not that surprising: the ASI always been good on individual liberty and protection-from-majoritarian-tyranny issues, which is probably why I can stomach reading the site. However, they do spoil it somewhat by linking to a silly column from senile buffoon William Rees-Mogg.
Claims Mr Rees-Mogg: "Almost every cardinal and bishop in the Roman Catholic Church, and probably every bishop in the Anglican Church, is a socialist. They are socialists in the same sense as Tony Blair, or Gerhard Schröder, or Jacques Chirac, or Bill Clinton. They are all socialists because they have never studied the liberal argument. That is a pity; liberalism may not be enough, but it is the basis of our culture."
Clearly, the only reason Mr Rees-Mogg is not a Maoist is because he’s never studied the Maoist argument. It’s not even possible that he could have studied Maoism and rejected it…
Stephen adds very little to Toynbee beyond an endorsement. The Pope’s death, and the coverage it received, however have the potential to compound the sins of which they are accused.
The symbolism of the Popes death has been awesome. It’s hard not to be taken in by it sometimes. He has been cast older and wiser than Gandalf and looks every bit the part. He has travelled far and knows the secrets of life itself. That this is the wisdom that will bring us together and maintain the future and safety of life itself is beyond doubt when from his deathbed he tells he is ‘thinking of the young people’.
With the power of christ on his side, as well, who could resist. Hell, he might even be christ. We are told over and over again how suffering is redemptive and there it is clear as day, in excrutiating detail. He cant talk. He cant walk. He cant breath. By the end we even knew when he couldn’t pump blood.
That 2 million people gather to share in this suggests that the belief is necessary for a swathe of humanity. Unfortunately, that the pope’s suffering connects deeply with the strongest pro-life sentiments suggests that condoms will not be welcome in Africa any time soon.