Originally published at crisis magazine
What does it mean to be free? Our political understanding of freedom is changing in ways that are sometimes subtle. Catholics run the risk of accepting at face value a narrow view of “political freedom” and sacrificing what it means truly to be free.
Bill Maher now has more in common with an average Catholic voter than we might have predicted. He recognizes that abortion is killing (though he thinks this killing of defenseless human beings is laudable). He argues against the rabid identity politics of the Left and calls them on their excesses, especially in their curtailing of individual freedom. Laughing at Maher’s amusing takedowns of the new Democratic sacred cows, Catholics might be lulled into a false sense of fellowship with someone who has a flawed and limited understanding of the human person.
Maher would not, of course, describe himself as conservative. But if being a “conservative” means preserving traditions and values, is Maher not conserving liberalism from when he came of age?
Orthodox. Faithful. Free.
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The eccentric futurist and cultural commentator Robert Anton Wilson observed, “It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative
