|
Post by Young Ireland on Dec 17, 2018 21:33:06 GMT
He might come to regret that, as might everyone who is rushing to nail their colours to the radical right mast. It might be time to pay less attention to the labels of left and right as they are becoming bereft of any meaningful significance in the current political debate. Simply being a Catholic will attract the term right wing by default. Being anti-abortion and pro marriage, in the eyes of the MSM and the majority of politicians and SJWs, is being right wing. Hi Assisi, I did qualify my post with the term "radical". I accept what you say above and that's fine, but in my experience, many people seem to be going way beyond that and embracing rather questionable movements simply because they are anti-liberal. The enemy of our enemy is not necessarily our friend.
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Dec 17, 2018 21:40:57 GMT
It might be time to pay less attention to the labels of left and right as they are becoming bereft of any meaningful significance in the current political debate. Simply being a Catholic will attract the term right wing by default. Being anti-abortion and pro marriage, in the eyes of the MSM and the majority of politicians and SJWs, is being right wing. Hi Assisi, I did qualify my post with the term "radical". I accept what you say above and that's fine, but in my experience, many people seem to be going way beyond that and embracing rather questionable movements simply because they are anti-liberal. The enemy of our enemy is not necessarily our friend. I don't think John Waters cares what anyone thinks of him anymore-- that is the impression I get. He says he has retired from being a journalist. I suppose that makes him a freelance commentator now.
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Dec 17, 2018 21:51:22 GMT
There are now several groups congregating around the populist right of the Irish political spectrum-- the National Party, Irexit Freedom Party, and Identity Ireland. Personally I see the Irexit Freedom Party as the most likely to make any kind of breakthrough. I attended the initial party conference although I did not join. I'm not really much of a party man. I had never actually been to a political event so I went partly out of curiosity. There was a lot of energy in the room, but doubtless that is the case at all party conferences. When someone made a pro-life statement from the platform, there was a huge cheer.
I was struck by the phenomenon Hibernicus has often mentioned in connection with the pro-life movement-- the whole "people are with us" delusion. Social and cultural conservatives of all stripes seem to find it very difficult to accept that the Irish people are now secular-liberal and it isn't simply a hostile media or political class.
|
|
|
Post by Young Ireland on Dec 17, 2018 22:03:53 GMT
There are now several groups congregating around the populist right of the Irish political spectrum-- the National Party, Irexit Freedom Party, and Identity Ireland. Personally I see the Irexit Freedom Party as the most likely to make any kind of breakthrough. I attended the initial party conference although I did not join. I'm not really much of a party man. I had never actually been to a political event so I went partly out of curiosity. There was a lot of energy in the room, but doubtless that is the case at all party conferences. When someone made a pro-life statement from the platform, there was a huge cheer. I was struck by the phenomenon Hibernicus has often mentioned in connection with the pro-life movement-- the whole "people are with us" delusion. Social and cultural conservatives of all stripes seem to find it very difficult to accept that the Irish people are now secular-liberal and it isn't simply a hostile media or political class. Interesting, Maolsheachlann. Has the recent troubles in UKIP spilled over into the Irexit Freedom Party much?
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Dec 17, 2018 22:06:11 GMT
There are now several groups congregating around the populist right of the Irish political spectrum-- the National Party, Irexit Freedom Party, and Identity Ireland. Personally I see the Irexit Freedom Party as the most likely to make any kind of breakthrough. I attended the initial party conference although I did not join. I'm not really much of a party man. I had never actually been to a political event so I went partly out of curiosity. There was a lot of energy in the room, but doubtless that is the case at all party conferences. When someone made a pro-life statement from the platform, there was a huge cheer. I was struck by the phenomenon Hibernicus has often mentioned in connection with the pro-life movement-- the whole "people are with us" delusion. Social and cultural conservatives of all stripes seem to find it very difficult to accept that the Irish people are now secular-liberal and it isn't simply a hostile media or political class. Interesting, Maolsheachlann. Has the recent troubles in UKIP spilled over into the Irexit Freedom Party much? I haven't really followed them since the conference, which was many months ago now. In all honesty, I was a bit disappointed-- it was much more a pep rally than a forum for serious discussion.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Dec 20, 2018 19:12:16 GMT
The problem is that people want a leader who will address what is wrong, and this makes them vulnerable to cult leaders and crooks who claim to have all the answers. (Fr Maciel of the Legionaries of Christ, Clemente Dominguez the self-proclaimed Marian visionary and Palmarian Pope, and others come to mind.) It doesn't help that an older generation of Catholics were taught to obey and defer and discouraged from thinking for themselves too much. This makes them more vulnerable to such people. Cult leaders actually discourage critical thought and understanding, because they claim to have all the answers from which it follows that no-one else can have anything to contribute except obedience. They take up people's time, resources and idealism and leave them bitter and burnt out. (This is not unique to trads, BTW - Trotskyites are notorious for this behaviour.)
As for Irexit, I suspect its failure to go beyond a pep rally is that this would involve going beyond the bare principle to discuss how it might be carried out in practice, and that would require difficult decisions (as the ongoing beargarden in Westminster and Whitehall shows). Irexit would basically mean going back to being a British satellite state. There is a case for this on the same basis that the inhabitants of Berwick-on-Tweed reportedly said during the Scottish independence referendum that if the break came they would rather go with Scotland and be a decent-size town 30 miles from Edinburgh, than be 300 miles from London on the utmost periphery of England - but I suspect many republican and nationalist Irexiteers would find this prospect unpalatable.
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Dec 20, 2018 21:11:19 GMT
The fact that Justin Barrett says his views on divorce have changed because of the break-down of his own marriage doesn't impress me much. Didn't he know that marriages broke down? Admittedly, he campaigned against divorce in 1995, which is a long time ago. But the sanctity of marriage seems to me like a central component of social conservatism-- although of course we should have compassion regarding particular situations.
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Dec 20, 2018 21:14:10 GMT
As for Irexit, I suspect its failure to go beyond a pep rally is that this would involve going beyond the bare principle to discuss how it might be carried out in practice, and that would require difficult decisions (as the ongoing beargarden in Westminster and Whitehall shows). Irexit would basically mean going back to being a British satellite state. There is a case for this on the same basis that the inhabitants of Berwick-on-Tweed reportedly said during the Scottish independence referendum that if the break came they would rather go with Scotland and be a decent-size town 30 miles from Edinburgh, than be 300 miles from London on the utmost periphery of England - but I suspect many republican and nationalist Irexiteers would find this prospect unpalatable. . Presumably this means Ireland was a British satellite state between 1922 and 1973-- the highpoint of Irish distinctiveness, I would say. So I don't really have any fears of becoming an economic satellite of Britain. Economics is just how you pay the bills-- how you run the house is then your own business.
|
|
|
Post by assisi on Dec 21, 2018 20:39:43 GMT
The problem is that people want a leader who will address what is wrong, and this makes them vulnerable to cult leaders and crooks who claim to have all the answers. (Fr Maciel of the Legionaries of Christ, Clemente Dominguez the self-proclaimed Marian visionary and Palmarian Pope, and others come to mind.) It doesn't help that an older generation of Catholics were taught to obey and defer and discouraged from thinking for themselves too much. This makes them more vulnerable to such people. Cult leaders actually discourage critical thought and understanding, because they claim to have all the answers from which it follows that no-one else can have anything to contribute except obedience. They take up people's time, resources and idealism and leave them bitter and burnt out. (This is not unique to trads, BTW - Trotskyites are notorious for this behaviour.) As for Irexit, I suspect its failure to go beyond a pep rally is that this would involve going beyond the bare principle to discuss how it might be carried out in practice, and that would require difficult decisions (as the ongoing beargarden in Westminster and Whitehall shows). Irexit would basically mean going back to being a British satellite state. There is a case for this on the same basis that the inhabitants of Berwick-on-Tweed reportedly said during the Scottish independence referendum that if the break came they would rather go with Scotland and be a decent-size town 30 miles from Edinburgh, than be 300 miles from London on the utmost periphery of England - but I suspect many republican and nationalist Irexiteers would find this prospect unpalatable. I think the language is important here. To say that a non-EU Ireland would be a 'British satellite state' is a bit too emasculating a phrase. Ireland in her turn has already contributed to building much of the British infrastucture over the years. An estimated 20% of the UK population is of Irish descent. The influence has gone in both directions and we are tightly entwined. Naturally Britain would be a dominant trading partner because of size and proximity. As the days of British colonial adventures are hopefully at an end, there is no reason that both countries couldn't exist as separate political entities but also as close friendly neighbours.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Dec 21, 2018 21:58:50 GMT
We were indeed a British satellite state 1922-73. We had a currency union (we had our own coins and notes, but we kept parity with Sterling; and on three occasions the British carried out major currency devaluations without telling us first). Britain was our main trading partner. We were able to assert our sovereignty by being neutral while our government assisted the UK on the quiet (this was possibly inevitable but it was an epic exercise in self-delusion). We also exported a large chunk of our population to Britain as cheap labour having done little or nothing to prepare them for this,which is why such a large proportion of the British population are of Irish descent. There has been a fairly basic choice facing Ireland for centuries between allying with a continental hegemon or with Britain, with the added disadvantage that the continent was generally less interested in Ireland than Britain was and so less willing to fight for it. Since Britain is weaker than it has been for centuries, perhaps things will be different this time, but our administrative and legal systems are so different from the continental model I suspect the adjustment would be extremely painful. We were more culturally distinctive in 1922-73 for a variety of reasons, including transport and communications technology, preconciliar devotional Catholicism, and the fact that much of the population consisted of impoverished small farmers. Those wouldn't be replicated if we left the EU now. The question is not are we a satellite - the question is whose satellite we will be and how far do we have a choice.
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Dec 21, 2018 22:15:57 GMT
We were indeed a British satellite state 1922-73. We had a currency union (we had our own coins and notes, but we kept parity with Sterling; and on three occasions the British carried out major currency devaluations without telling us first). Britain was our main trading partner. We were able to assert our sovereignty by being neutral while our government assisted the UK on the quiet (this was possibly inevitable but it was an epic exercise in self-delusion). We also exported a large chunk of our population to Britain as cheap labour having done little or nothing to prepare them for this,which is why such a large proportion of the British population are of Irish descent. There has been a fairly basic choice facing Ireland for centuries between allying with a continental hegemon or with Britain, with the added disadvantage that the continent was generally less interested in Ireland than Britain was and so less willing to fight for it. Since Britain is weaker than it has been for centuries, perhaps things will be different this time, but our administrative and legal systems are so different from the continental model I suspect the adjustment would be extremely painful. We were more culturally distinctive in 1922-73 for a variety of reasons, including transport and communications technology, preconciliar devotional Catholicism, and the fact that much of the population consisted of impoverished small farmers. Those wouldn't be replicated if we left the EU now. The question is not are we a satellite - the question is whose satellite we will be and how far do we have a choice. Why was it "an epic exercise in self-delusion?". Why shouldn't we have had a nuanced neutrality? I wonder if Churchill and David Gray considered it self-delusion? Did Hitler consider it self-delusion in not ordering the Luftwaffe to decimate us? How does a satellite state fight a trade war with the state of which it is a satellite? Independence is never absolute. Sovereignty that has to deal with outside constraints is sovereignty nonetheless. The difference is that the constraints are OUTSIDE, not inside.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Dec 21, 2018 22:40:10 GMT
It was an exercise in self-delusion because the population as a whole were given a false impression of how it was done, which downplayed the extent with which we had to co-operate with the Allies unofficially to make it possible. The government consciously propagated the view that we stayed out because we in general, and Dev in particular, were morally superior (and that the combatants were more or less on the same moral level, which is why the death camp film was such an ambarrassment when it was shown here after the war). Gray was an amateur diplomat appointed because he was married to the President's aunt, and afraid that unless Dev was discredited by propaganda Irish-American opinion might disrupt the postwar settlement as they believed it had post-1918. Churchill was given to shooting his mouth off and one function of his more strong-minded advisors like Alanbrooke was to keep his dafter pronouncements from being carried out. Part of their response (and of the reason why Hitler didn't attack us) was that since Ireland was "naturally" seen as a British satellite, any form of neutrality however weak was a "gain" for Germany and a "loss" for Britain. The fact that we are on the far side of Britain also helped. When I said a satellite I don't mean an occupied state like the old Eastern bloc - I meant a smaller state in a position where it is naturally dominated by a stronger one, like the Latin American states in relation to the US. Such a state can assert its autonomy but if it does there is usually a price to be paid,and the question is whether/when that price is worth paying. Ukraine between Russia and Germany might be another example.
PS Questions of people's felt national affinity also enter into whether the price is worth paying. I recently read a memoir by a 1916 veteran who was arguing that there had been a retrospective mandate for the Rising, and the example he gave was that if something similar were done by Breton nationalists he believed most Bretons would repudiate it and continue to identify with France.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 7, 2019 18:48:39 GMT
There was a noticeable NP presence at the March for Life yesterday. I didn't see Justin Barrett but Paul Reynolds the deputy leader was there. Several earnest young men were giving out leaflets very long on photos of misty Irish landscapes containing crowds of people facing away from the camera, and very short on specifics about how to achieve their stated aims. (Incidentally, when Thomas Davis - quoted on their leaflets - said "Ireland for the Irish" I don't think he meant what the NP means by it; for one thing Davis's own father was Welsh not Irish.) We are assured that the only way to get rid of abortion is to elect a National Party government, but I expect the former to take place an extremely long time before the latter (and I'm not optimistic about the former).
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 8, 2019 9:13:57 GMT
(Incidentally, when Thomas Davis - quoted on their leaflets - said "Ireland for the Irish" I don't think he meant what the NP means by it; for one thing Davis's own father was Welsh not Irish.) What do you believe the Nationalist Party's stance is on Irishness? What is your opinion based on? I've listened to a lot of National Party videos and speeches by Justin Barrett and I've never heard anything to suggest that, from their point of view, having a non-Irish parent would disqualify you from Irishness. Indeed, it's no secret that Justin Barrett idealizes and models himself on Patrick Pearse, who had an English father. It's fine to criticize anybody's opinion or views, but we should be fair in doing so, and not caricature it. As for the historical understanding of Irishness, it's hard to escape the view that the natalist view was simply taken for granted for the great majority of Irish history. Indeed, this is still the tacit assumption everybody makes, not only in Ireland but elsewhere-- we all use terms like "Irish", "Mexican", "Hispanic" etc. precisely to mean ancestry and descent. The fashionable view of nationality seems quite similar to the fashionable view of gender-- everybody still IN PRACTICE treats masculinity and femininity as a reality, despite paying lip service to gender as a social construct. Similarly, even the most determined cosmopolitan still treats ancestry as the defining reality of a person's ethnic identity, for good or bad, in their everyday conversation. The lecture "The Necessity for De-Anglizing Ireland" by Douglas Hyde was seen as one of the catalysts of the Irish-Ireland movement. Hyde is seen even now as a moderate and a rather irenic figure. But this is from that lecture: We must set our face sternly against penny dreadfuls, shilling shockers, and still more, the garbage of vulgar English weeklies like Bow Bells and the Police Intelligence. Every house should have a copy of Moore and Davis. In a word, we must strive to cultivate everything that is most racial, most smacking of the soil, most Gaelic, most Irish, because in spite of the little admixture of Saxon blood in the north-east corner, this island is and will ever remain Celtic at the core, far more Celtic than most people imagine, because, as I have shown you, the names of our people are no criterion of their race. On racial lines, then, we shall best develop, following the bent of our own natures. The only point I'm making is that such rhetoric was entirely uncontroversial and not at all "problematic" until the day before yesterday. One might accuse Justin Barrett and the National Party of many things, but I don't think it's fair to say their Irish nationalism is anachronistic and un-historical.
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 8, 2019 9:44:05 GMT
Incidentally, I'm not arguing for the National Party here. I've come to believe that old-style political nationalism isn't sustainable and the best we can now hope for, in terms of the survival of national traditions, is "salad bowl multiculturalism". So I now consider myself a cultural nationalist rather than a political nationalist. (I don't think anyone could accuse cultural nationalism of contradicting the social teaching of the Church regarding solidarity and the preferential option for the poor). By cultural nationalism, I mean seeking to preserve and perpetuate one's national and ethnic traditions, in one's own life, and my encouraging others to do the same.
|
|