Here’s a fun fact: I was once a loud and proud lefty. I know — it’s enough to make you spit out your bongwater.

Yes, I was sceptical, cynical and sexual. These days, by contrast, I am medicated, moderated and married. But enough about my personal problems.

This was a time when being left-wing meant challenging the prevailing view. A time when being progressive meant exploring new ideas. A time when being tolerant meant accepting diverse opinions.

I call this golden age “the 1990s” and to be honest it probably wasn’t quite as good as I remember it but I was on a lot of drugs at the time. In fact, from what I can recall the drugs were largely the point, closely followed by the sex and rock ‘n’ roll. In other words, being a lefty used to be fun.

We championed the right of Andres Serrano to display his exquisitely provocative “Piss Christ”. We photoshopped Jeff Kennett’s head on Michael Jackson’s body and asked “Who’s bad?” We were lewd, crude and often nude.

But these days the rebels have become the self-righteous. The side that used to fight for freedom now fights to curtail it. The left has become censorious and snitchy. The hip have become square.

We’ve seen it in the strangling of language into tortuous euphemisms that rob words of their beauty and power because of fears they could offend and trigger warnings in textbooks because of fears they could provoke an emotional response.

We’ve seen it in the oceans of indignant outrage that erupt every time someone violates, challenges or even just deviates from the set vocabulary or ideological script.

We’ve seen it in the chilling Orwellian spectacle of a cartoonist being hauled before a quasi-judicial body and forced to justify his work — and the even darker sight of other journalists siding with the prosecutors.

We’ve seen it in the threats to boycott a beer brand because it was drunk by a gay MP and a straight MP who dared to debate same-sex marriage.

And now we’ve seen it in the absurd hyperventilation about a tiny independent film that has dared to suggest that some men have been upset or oppressed by the women in their lives.

Now, for the record, I have NOT seen The Red Pill (which apparently puts me in good company) nor do I particularly want to. But the idea that it ought to be banned — as some cinemas and student activists have done — or that even debate about it should be pulled from social media — as was also reported — is a sad sign of the new mentality of the so-called progressive movement.

READ ABOUT THE RED PILL HERE

Increasingly the response to any provocative or controversial view is not to challenge it but to shut it down. Not to debate it but to destroy it. This is an approach every bit as backward and thuggish as that of the boor who shoved a pie in Alan Joyce’s face.

The question at the heart of this debate has nothing to do with whether you agree with what The Red Pill is saying. It’s whether you believe that just because you disagree with something it should be banned.

And if your values are so weak and baseless as to be threatened by every countervailing wind or opposing views then those values are hardly worth having at all.