Peter Hitchens

Peter Hitchens is an author and columnist for The Mail on Sunday, a British anti-progressive tabloid. 
Simply put, Hitchens belongs to the hang 'em, flog 'em, the country is going to hell in a handcart school of British journalism that Fleet Street inflicts on its readership. 
He is known for being a strong traditional conservative to the point where even the British Conservative Party (and particularly David Cameron) is considered too progressive,"[W]e do not have a proper conservative party", he has written, "we only have the useless Mr. Cameron" (If only The Committee of Unintended Consequences had been able to grill Blair). even going as far as to put them on the same level as the Socialist Workers Party.'The UK is finished' – Owen Jones meets Peter Hitchens via YouTube channel. He was dismissive of UKIP, frequently denouncing them as a General post, The Mail on Sunday blog, 12 April 2010 His brother was the writer, atheist and skeptic Christopher Hitchens.
==Early life==
Ironically, Hitchens started his life (or at least his university life) as a member of the Trotskyist International Socialists, a forerunner of the Socialist Workers Party, saying that he "thought Marxism-Leninism had the answers to the problems of the world". He allegedly turned up late to a lecture declaring, "Sorry I'm late: I've been starting the revolution!"This is just about the only university anecdote Greg Dyke seems to have. He is a great example of the quote "If a man is not a socialist by the time he is 20, he has no heart. If he is not a conservative by the time he is 40, he has no brain," even if a great many of the conservative utterances put the second conclusion in doubt. Hitchens became disillusioned with the left after visiting Warsaw Pact countries in the early 1980s as a journalist and finding what he saw at odds with what he was told as a member of the Labour Party.
==Later life==
He is the brother of the late post-Trotskyist Christopher Hitchens, who was known for his outspoken atheism (effectively disowning his brother for a time). Despite the friction between them, the two reconciled in later life and engaged in numerous public debates about religion together. When Christopher died, Peter wrote an affirming eulogy for him — despite their different views — titled "In Memoriam, my courageous brother".https://archive.is/tkLl
==Pet peeves==
They say hating things is unhealthy. Hitchens tends not to agree... Some of Peter's pet hates are:
* AbortionHow long until we abort the old too?, Daily Mail, 18 July 2009
* HomosexualityI'm sorry Mr Duncan, if you're gay you are not a Tory, Daily Mail, 4 August 2002.We show tolerance to 'gays' and get tyranny in return, Daily Mail, 31 January 2009. To be fair, though, he has upbraided Fidel Castro as "a monster" for (among many other crimes) his long-standing persecution of gay people, although he has still, y'know, compared gay rights activists to wild-eyed, depraved Stalinists in the top column, so yeah, still a homophobe. 
* Sex education and the teachers thereof: "State groomers are as bad as paedophiles" was the title of an October 2008 article."State groomers are as bad as paedophiles - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog". mailonsunday.co.uk. Retrieved on 26 September 2015. He also claims that it is the source of the "sexualisation of children," and has hinted that anyone who disagrees with that conclusion is effectively a paedophile.BBC News - Peter Hitchens: Sex education causes teenage pregnancy (and a suitably brilliant smack down by David Dimbleby).
* Birth controlCondoms, pills ... but how about restraint?, Daily Mail, 29 March 2009
* All politicians.Paddington Green nick, that's where our bleating MPs belong, Daily Mail, 7 December 2008Our political parties are corpses and democracy as we used to know it is quite dead, Daily Mail, 20 September 2008
* FeministsHe has described the National Family and Parenting Institute, which champions the cause of fatherless households, as "[t]his horrid anti-marriage 'Institute'" and "this ultra-feminist coven."
* Liberals and Leftists: "Every so often our new Marxoid ruling class make an exciting discovery. There's a long way to go (probably too long) before these smug, dogmatic dimwits realise that conservatives were right all along about everything. But we must always welcome even the smallest glint of intelligence among such unfortunate, delusional people.""NO! The most important word that a child will ever hear - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog". mailonsunday.co.uk. Retrieved on 26 September 2015.
* Unusually for a conservative, Margaret Thatcher, which means that, if he were an American, he may trash *gasp* Saint Reagan.He has said that he feels regret for falling "for the great Thatcher-Reagan promise".
* "Warmists" - established scientific convention Global warming is happening."Warmism versus Science", MailOnline blog, 17 February 2014
* Winston Churchill-"Yes, Churchill did one indisputably great thing. But we should not worship him as if he were a superhero - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog". hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk. Retrieved on 17 June 2019. Nelson Mandela-, Barack Obama- and Princess Diana-worship, the latter two being "cults […] bereft of reason and hostile to facts" (Obama, he claims, is "the obedient servant of one of the most squalid and unshakeable political machines in America," as evidenced by "his sordid associates, his cowardly voting record, his astonishingly militant commitment to unrestricted abortion and his blundering trip to Africa.")"PETER HITCHENS: The night we waved goodbye to America...our last best hope on Earth". Mail Online. Retrieved on 26 September 2015.
* The BBC (in fact television in general).Why should we have to pay for 'stars' who spit in our faces?, Daily Mail, 04 November 2008
* Unlike most modern conservatives (who tend to pick and choose, and usually reserve out-and-out condemnation for hip-hop and forms influenced by it), all pop and rock music, in totality.Pop goes the Monarchy - the Queen listened to Paul McCartney and I heard the end of the Royal Family, Mail on Sunday, 10 June 2012. This piece shows a belief that a pop-dominated society and monarchy are incompatible, and that the former will inevitably undermine the latter, which might have seemed believable in the 1990s but seems quite absurd now. He even implicated Engelbert Humperdinck in the Great Moral Decline of the 1960s.So much for 'Father's Day' - in a country where fatherhood is dying out, Mail on Sunday, 16 June 2013 Many Mail readers who agree with most of his other views are out of sympathy with Hitchens on these issues. Ironically, though, many leftists would also sense the continuum he senses (which Richard Littlejohn and don't sense) between Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones and the modern British working-class appropriation of hip-hop — the difference, of course, is that they'd see it as a good thing.
* The loss of the British EmpireIf we hadn't fought World War 2, would we still have a British Empire?, Daily Mail, 31 August 2009Inside Burma - one of the world's most beautiful and ugliest countries and the last ghost of the British Empire, Daily Mail, 14 December 2008
* "Green" issuesHe is, however, a self-proclaimed "tree-hugger [...] very nearly as grieved by the destruction of a mature tree as I am by the loss of a human life."
* EvolutionHow do you like your shrimps? 50 million years old, or lightly boiled? Admittedly, his has "a tentatively expressed doubt," and therefore not quite worthy of the "Pet peeves" category. But still.See also this piece, an intelligent-design drumbeat summarily roasted here by PZ Myers and here by Jason Rosenhouse.
* Islam and Islamification"Will Britain convert to Islam?". Altermedia International. Archived from the original on 7 July 2013. Retrieved on 26 September 2015.
* Secularism and secularisation"The Muslim threat to this country," he declares, "does not come from a few swivel-eyed, blowhard preachers. It comes from our own willingness to drive Christianity out of schools, government and broadcasting, and our feeble refusal to require migrants and their descendants to respect and accept our culture and faith" (If only The Committee of Unintended Consequences had been able to grill Blair)
* The British penal system"What's the point of prison? - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog" He complains it isn't punitive enough.
* Anything else he can blame on the left: "In Soviet Britain [for example], television watches YOU!" roadworks now seem to take five times as long as they used to. And when you come back to the country from abroad, it always takes ages to open the aircraft doors, which other countries manage in seconds. Does anyone know why these particular things have got worse?""PETER HITCHENS: If only The Committee of Unintended Consequences had been able to grill Blair. Mail Online 8 December 2009. Retrieved on 26 September 2015. Note the bizarro rhetoric equating a UK at the end of more than a decade under New Labour and almost two decades of Thatcherism before that with anything remotely similar to soviet communism; it's basically a British variant of Obamunism.
* Calls for nuclear disarmament"If you're ready to bomb, you won't have to. If you're not, you will have to. - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog". mailonsunday.co.uk. Retrieved on 26 September 2015.
* For a long time, his brother (after a misunderstanding over a Marxist joke).
* Stephen FryStephen Fry - A Stupid Person's idea of What an Intelligent Person is Like and other articles
* People who are smiling (?)You want louts like this punished? You must be a ‘nasty extremist’ like me: "Wayne Bishop, whose triumphantly smirking, selfish face looks out at us from amid his terrifying brood of children, ought to be breaking rocks on Dartmoor instead, and to hell with his 'right' to a family life."
*Neoliberalism (no, seriously! He's even defended Jeremy Corbyn, although only to an extent)"I'm not that keen on the free market consensus, either. … [Moral and social liberalism] are attempts to construct some kind of total worldview without religion. The market, for a lot of nominal Conservatives (who aren't actually conservatives at all, but are in general liberals), the market has become substitute for God. They see Adam Smith's hidden hand as as a kind of divine providence." Owen Jones meets Peter Hitchens - full length (12:51 to 13:21) YouTube.
* The metric systemMy Reply to the Metric Zealots, Mail on Sunday, 31 March 2017
* Decimalised currencyA pence for your thoughts - decimalisation, history, monarchy and a rare BBC correction, Mail on Sunday, 21 April 2016
* The Good Friday AgreementSurrender, Deterrence and Drugs, Mail on Sunday, 22 July 2013
* Drugs,Peter Hitchens on the Legal Drugs Alcohol and Tobacco, Mail on Sunday, 2 December 2013 and the concept of addiction itself.Peter Hitchens: 'I don't believe in addiction. People take drugs because they enjoy it', The Guardian, 21 October 2012 He is on record as saying that the hundreds of scientists who can verify the existence of addiction are wrong purely because he personally doesn't understand it.Matthew Perry debates drug courts with Peter Hitchens - BBC Newsnight
* GIFs on Twitter@ClarkeMicah on Twitter (25 Feb 2018): "Once again I must point out that I automatically and unhesitatingly mute anyone who sends me gifs. No exceptions, no hesitation, no reconsideration.". Cue onslaught of GIFs in his replies.
* NOT RationalWiki (he even defends it against the other Wiki, from which he is life-banned, for being more honest in being biased against him.):
:
* Skimmed or semi-skimmed milk."Welcome to Britain...you really didn't need to try so hard to get in - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog". hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk. Retrieved on 17 June 2019.
* The 'Special Relationship' between the UK and USA."Down with the Special Relationship - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog". hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk. Retrieved on 17 June 2019.
*The UK's Supreme CourtHow the Supreme Court got ahead… by conning you with a cunning plan, Mail on Sunday, 18 November 2023. (How dare they restrict the powers of the government? Who do they think they are?)
*Daylight savings timeSocial media post
* "Alleged comedian" Russell Brand (aka "The man in the hat")
* The reaction to the Coronavirus pandemic which he believes is rather foolish."Is shutting down Britain – with unprecedented curbs on ancient liberties – REALLY the best answer?", The Mail on Sunday, 22 March 2020
* Human rightsWherever there's trouble, you'll find human rights, The Mail on Sunday, 28 May 2011
* His home countryIn a public debate with his brother on religion, he claimed that "you only have to look at my home country to see that, in countries that don't believe in hell, hell comes into existence", and that people being kicked to death is a daily occurrence there.
* The TV series Sherlock, which he even blames for wrongful convictions."Granny gets her gun - from a bunch of shameless neo-Nazis... not that the BBC would ever tell you", The Mail on Sunday, 19 February 2022
== Core beliefs ==
In a November 2007 column for The Mail on Sunday, Hitchens said that women who are raped should be denied anonymity, that he did not believe all "events now often depicted as 'rapes'" are "in fact rapes at all" and that many of these involved "men and women who have been engaged in a sexual relationship for some time" or who were "not specially chaste in their personal lives.""Rape is a very dirty word", Mail on Sunday, 13 November 2007 He has also expressed the view that "some rapes are worse than others".Some rapes ARE worse than others... There, I've said it, Mail on Sunday, 22 May 2011
In his column, he has also expressed his view that a woman's place is in the home;"Do you agree with Peter Hitchens or Liz Jones - is a career more fulfilling than raising the next generation?", Mail on Sunday, 15 February 2008 that women should not have access to contraception such as the pill;"Condoms, pills...but how about restraint?", Mail on Sunday, 28 March 2009 that women should not have premarital sex"Not even Kim Jong II could live down a visit from Mandy", Mail on Sunday, 25 October 2008 and that women should not have the right to an abortion. "Abortion… when human life isn't just cheap, it's on special offer", Mail on Sunday, 24 May 2008
In September 2008, he accused the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, of using "cheap tricks" by "exploiting" his disabled son Ivan, who suffered from cerebral palsy and a form of severe epilepsy and who later died, in order to "make us like him." In the same column, he dismissed ADHD as a "cult" with "no proof." "Four years breaking rocks... Now that's what I call flexible" Daily Mail, 28 September 2008
In a January 2009 column, Hitchens revealed that he does not believe that poverty exists in the United Kingdom but that it is a left-wing lie and that people in poverty suffer from "moral poverty" and are being punished because there is "an almost total absence of good examples in their lives" whilst the middle class are "better off because they are good." In the same column, he also supported an MP who called dyslexia a "lie," branding the belief in it a "cult" and anyone who suffers from it "the result of a colossal failure by our schools.""Poverty? It’s just a lie the Left uses to destroy the middle class", Mail on Sunday, 18 January 2009
In February 2009, he again espoused his view that homosexuality is something that should be kept "in the bedroom." People are being "forced to say that we think homosexuality is a good thing, that homosexual couples are equal" and Hitchens does not believe "homosexual couples are just as good at bringing up children as the children's own grandparents." In his view, Britons are now "the subjects of some insane, sex-obsessed Stalinist state, compelled to wave our little rainbow flags as the 'Gay Pride' parade passes by." He has also repeated right-wing talking points about how public acceptance of gay people destroys traditional marriage. So, yeah, he's a homophobe. This actually makes his brother Christopher seem mild in comparison…
Hitchens has done much to fan the flames of vaccine hysteria, at one point ending every column for several months counting out the number of weeks that Gordon Brown (or was it Tony Blair? Or was it both?) had refused to tell him whether or not their children had received the MMR vaccine. Unbelievably, he still believes he was justified in taking Andrew Wakefield seriously and has spent much time in 2013 trying to justify himself on this front, without a moment's embarrassment or shame."Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog". mailonsunday.co.uk. Retrieved on 26 September 2015. On 29 September 2013, he came up with another not-as-bad-as justification for Wakefield's scaremongering in a column which generally resembled a grotesque self-parody; hysterical paranoia about the metric system and a smug, supercilious "joke" about Wales. He is right about the Blairites preferring David Cameron over the less neoliberal Ed Miliband, though."Why the Blairites back the Tories against Red Ed - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog". mailonsunday.co.uk. Retrieved on 26 September 2015.
Though rarely expressed in so many words, he has often shown a tendency to regard rural England (in which only a minority of the population has lived since the great expansion of the 19th century) as inherently more English than urban England (even though England was the world leader in mass urbanisation).See for example "The Lost Past of the Church of England, an Archaeological Discovery", Mail on Sunday blog, 3 July 2013. Note the tone of the "Yes, I admit it" line, and also the fact that the bishop he had been out of sympathy with represented an area of Manchester, epicentre of the England whose Englishness he cannot really accept. This probably has little to do with active racism; denying the Englishness of urban England is a historic tendency in English culture, as old as industrialisation itself, and probably the biggest reason why the Industrial Revolution was not followed by a complete constitutional revolution. The bias is deep-rooted and predates post-1945 immigration (which, with the partial exception of post-2004 Eastern European migration, has mainly affected the urban areas); while the immigration undoubtedly gave it a new lease of life in certain circles, it did not create it, and Hitchens appears to be more a romantic dreamer of a misty past than an active supporter of ethnic cleansing. It is, however, probable that he puts his "rural England more English than urban England" belief in code to avoid being accused of racism, though a case can be made against the view for other reasons; even if it isn't racist, there are different reasons why it is flawed and dubious.
In full stopped clock mode, he did oppose the Iraq War.Channel 4 News. "Hitchens on Iraq: 'slow decline'". channel4.com. Retrieved on 26 September 2015. He also claims to be "a lifelong trade unionist" who "favour[s] nationalisation of industry where it makes sense","Peter Hitchens: I am a Trade Unionist and I favour nationalisation". Big Issue. Retrieved on 26 September 2015. especially the renationalisation of British railways,"Why Nationalised Railways Would be Better - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog". mailonsunday.co.uk. Retrieved on 26 September 2015. and has said that "While I'm not in favour of abandoning all nuclear weapons, I think Trident an absurdly elaborate and extravagant system."
==Interview fiasco==
In 2023, Hitchens sat down for an interview with podcaster Alex O'Connor in which the two would discuss drug decriminalization, secularism and the monarchy. However, during the interview Hitchens decided that they had discussed drugs for too long and maturely suggested they move on threw a bizarre tantrum for the next fifteen minutes wherein he accused O'Connor of luring him there on false pretences, declared that "I actively dislike you" and called him "rude, incompetent and extremely dishonest" and a "propagandist" before storming out of the room.Peter Hitchens Storms Out of Interview | "I Actively Dislike You", Alex O'Connor on YouTube, 11 October 2023 He then took to social media to complain about how O'Connor "bored" him with "unoriginal" questions.‘Enjoy The Society You Get’: Commentator Storms Out Of Interview Saying He’s ‘Sick To Death’ Of Drug Decriminalization, Daily Caller, 12 October 2023 This was not the only flareup, as Hitchens had previously called O'Connor stupid for comparing marijuana use to alcohol too many times. Evidently, Hitchens and Ben Shapiro have the same attitude towards interviews.
This incident also demonstrates Hitchens' inflated sense of self-importance. He made multiple references to his anti-drug book The War We Never Fought as if it was the single most important work ever written on the subject, as he has done in other interviews, and even suggested that its poor sales figures were because of a conspiracy to silence his enlightened views. When O'Connor said that he had read the book and still believed that drugs should be made legal, Hitchens immediately assumed that he must not have understood it (apparently believing his arguments are so persuasive that they are physically impossible to disagree with).
==Books==
Hitchens has written and published several books. Some of them have pretty scary blurbs, depending on who you ask.
*The Rage Against GodThe Rage Against God by Peter Hitchens (2010) Continuum. ISBN 1441105727.
:"An autobiographical and spiritual journey from atheism to faith in God through the power of reasoning. It states that faith is the best antidote to utopianism, encouraging men and women to act in the belief that there is a God and an ordered, purposeful universe, governed by an unalterable law."
*The Cameron DelusionThe Cameron Delusion by Peter Hitchens (2010) Continuum. ISBN 1441135057.
:"The struggle between the main political parties has been reduced to an unpopularity contest, in which voters hold their noses and sigh as they trudge to the polls. The author explains how and why British politics has sunk to this dreary level. He also examines the Tory Party's record in government and opposition."
*Abolition of LibertyAbolition of Liberty: The Decline of Order and Justice in England by Peter Hitchens (2004) Atlantic Books. ISBN 1843541491.
:"In this volume Peter Hitchens argues that the time has come to re-examine the criminal justice system root and branch — to cope with rising levels of violent crime, and to restore public faith in society's ability to defend itself."
*Monday Morning BluesMonday Morning Blues by Peter Hitchens (2000) Quartet ISBN 0704381567
:"The "Express's" most controversial columnist is well known for his disregard for fashionable opinion. This collection of columns and journalism provides a chance to enjoy (or confront) one of the greatest enemies of the modern left."
*Abolition of BritainAbolition of Britain by Peter Hitchens (1999, multiple editions) Quartet ISBN 0704381176
:"Identifies various things that the author feels have gone wrong with Britain since the Second World War and makes the case for the 'many millions who feel that they have become foreigners in their own land and wish with each succeeding day that they could turn the clock back."
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Ableism
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Category:Atheophobia
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Category:British people
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Category:Christians
Category:Conspiracy theorists
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Category:Fundamentalists
Category:Homophobes
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Category:Living people
Category:Leftists who turned right with age
Category:Pseudohistory promoters
Category:Pseudoscience promoters
Category:Purity culture
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