The late great Hitch used to like the following anecdote. When a spokesman for the teamsters union was asked, “Wouldn’t you say that the teamsters Union is a very powerful union?” the spokesman looked uncomfortable and replied. “Listen, being ‘powerful’ is a bit like being ladylike. If you have to say you are, you probably ain’t.”
This is a piece of wisdom that should be tattooed in mirror writing on the foreheads of many ‘outspoken’ atheists. If you have to say that you’re a freethinker, you almost certainly aren’t. (Skeptic is, just about, acceptable, since we need something to call ourselves, though I maintain it is something to demonstrate rather than declare). On a related noted, one reason why fleet street is head-and-shoulders over the unreadable US press is that its members, as a rule, refer to themselves as “hacks, rather than “writers” or, worse still, “wordsmiths”.
