Editor’s note: If you would like to submit a letter for possible publication, please email it to editor@rationalist.com.au. See our Publishing Guideline
Dear Editor,
This rhetoric from Senator Ralph Babet (‘The Left cannot handle the truth’, The Spectator, 13 September 2025) that Leftism is a “mental illness” – suggesting Rightism is sanity – is far from the truth. It’s rhetoric with no basis.
In the US, Leftists believe that people should not have guns freely, that we should uphold legal institutions, that we should pay attention to what qualified people tell us, that scientists are not trying to trick us, that doctors are not trying to harm us, that dialogue is the way to solve problems.
Leftists tend to be intelligent debaters, not hot heads yelling slogans.
I know there are outliers who are not these things, but it is these qualities of calm discussion that tend to describe all the Leftists I know.
Those on the Right start off calm and soon fall into name calling, slogans and outright anger. They parrot terms they heard on Sky News – such as “lefty loony” – and end up believing it. All it reveals is their own lack of facts and statistics backing whatever they are saying. We see this in the parliament so often.
We need to stand against these claims by Right-leaning individuals as they have little basis for most people.
Mary Collis
Face veiling: a matter of basic fairness
Dear Editor,
Regarding burqa bans in Europe (‘Burqa ban bill approved by Portugal’s p...
