Mad Mel The Wrong Guide

Many people start their adult life on the left of the political spectrum and then gradually drift to the right. Some drift rather less than gradually, and rather more obviously, and this tendency has been exemplified by the return to full-throttle ranting of Melanie “not just Barking but halfway to Upminster” Phillips, who has today seen terrible things in, er, the Girl Guides.

Not even a little fair and balanced

Wait, what? You read that correctly. Mad Mel has taken exception at the idea of no longer pledging to “love my God”. How could they? So out comes the long handle: “An unholy war in the Guides and why we must ALL fight the secular bigots” screams the headline. Oh, and Guides are no longer pledging to serve “my country”, but only “my community”. This is yet more grist to the Mel mill.

Now, some may look on and respond “Meh” at the idea of no longer pledging allegiance to one or other of organised religion’s various deities, or trying to relate to a “community” rather than a “country”, but for Mel, if there is no organised religion, then there is no trust. Yes, this is another example of taking personal opinion and allowing it to morph into alleged fact.

Mel helps this process along by contrasting religion with “an ideology which brooks no dissent”, which sounds very much like Herself Personally Now. She also shows signs of not understanding where society is at right now: organised religion, and the belief in one or other deity, is very much a minority sport. But Mel does know that much of this is down to political correctness. And we know what that means.

“‘Political correctness’ is not remotely liberal at all, but viciously oppressive. It is simply a mechanism for re-ordering the world according to a particular dogma — and thus inescapably stifles all dissent. Innately hostile to traditional morality, it paves the way for a secular Inquisition in which today’s Torquemadas are the ideologues of such group rights — and it is Christians and other religious believers who are the heretics to be silenced by force”. Wibble. And. As the man said, there’s more.

“It is, indeed, the principal weapon of unholy war wielded by the forces of militant secularism, which are intent upon destroying the Judeo-Christian basis of western morality. It supplants traditional morality and the concepts of right and wrong, truth and lies by a creed which says in effect, ‘Whatever is right for you is right’”.

Yes, the Guides have been taken over by “aggressive secularism” and “hyper-individualism”! It’s all “about tramping underfoot the beliefs of others”! There are “secular zealots”! Society’s demise is being hastened! Bloody hell, there’s some strong stuff out there in the “legal highs” marketplace, and no mistake. Mad Mel’s had a summer break, but all it’s done is made her more screamingly intolerant.

The world moves on. Organisations move with it. That is all. Get over it, Mel!