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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2015 16:26:34 GMT
I was reading through the comments section of that Gosnell article. Should I be surprised to see the state of the abortionists' comments? None of them - the ones I saw, and I saw a lot of them - had any real substance to their complaints. It was the usual non-sense of talking about "the woman's body", and then slandering all opposition as "right-wing" or "misogynistic", etc.
One commenter claims that there is no reason to listen to Ann McElhinney because she is part of a right-wing group (I forgot the name now), but according to another commenter they are only "right-wing" because they are against abortion. Nice logic, huh?
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 15, 2015 17:37:54 GMT
The current PHOENIX has a puff piece about "Mary McAleese's Holy War" which lauds her conviction that Catholic moral teaching is objectively morally disordered because it promotes homophobia. If I thought Catholic doctrine was actively sinful (and God forbid I should develop such a mistaken conviction) I would not remain a Catholic. The PHOENIX also quotes her as saying "If I shout at you it's because you paid no attention when I spoke politely". This of course assumes she is self-evidently right and the person whom she is addressing is self-evidently wrong, so that they need not be treated with common civility. Does anyone else remember the old WILLIAM children's books by Richmal Crompton, describing a gang of mischievous small boys who are pestered by a small girl called Violet Elizabeth Bott, who is in the habit of proclaiming "If you won't let me join in, I'll thcream and thcream and thcream until I'm thick!" (In case anyone thinks this is misogynistic, it should be noted that Richmal Crompton was a woman.)
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 20, 2015 21:44:18 GMT
A couple of weeks ago the IRISH TIMES carried a piece by Anthea McTiernan, incorporating a Facebook post by her teenage son, in which she declared that it was unfair that those like herself and her partner who have deliberately chosen not to get married because of ideological opposition to marriage should be disadvantaged in the eyes of the law as compared to married couples (e.g. they are not treated as next of kin, do not have automatic inheritance rights). She practically declared that the next step in the equality agenda ought to be the abolition of marriage as inherently unjust, although she congratulated those like herself who believe this on keeping shtum until the same-sex marriage referendum was safely passed. VILLAGE magazine carried a similar denunciation of marriage before the referendum; expect to hear more of this bright idea. BTW in the Facebook post her son claims that had he been born a few decades earlier than he was his mother would have been torn from his father and confined in a "corrupt religious institution". This is an interesting example of making history darker than it was; he seems to think she could have been arrested simply for having a child out of wedlock. Unmarried childbearing and non-marital cohabitation would have been met with extreme social pressure (which is a serious understatement) but I don't think she could have been arrested for that alone - unless she was a minor, or a great deal poorer than she seems to be.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2015 13:04:07 GMT
This woman sounds like a complete idiot. What does she expect? To get benefits just because she has a partner? Kind of funny that a woman who obviously doesn't love the man in her life enough to marry him is complaining that either of them wouldn't be entitled to the other person's stuff when they die. Besides, if marriage is abolished then how will that help the situation? As far as I can see, it doesn't help the situation at all.
In regards to her son's post, who really cares? He's probably just regurgitating the nonsense he was fed by his senseless mother.
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 23, 2015 21:31:09 GMT
A few Fridays ago Tara Brady in the Friday section of the IRISH TIMES interviewed a feminist film-maker who has just made a documentary about the good ol' days of radical feminist campaigning in the US in the late 60s/early 70s, including of course abortion campaigning. They both clucked sympathetically over the continuing salience of "reproductive rights", the current codeword, and the wickedness of the proposal to defund Planned Parenthood given all the services it provides (naturally, MS Brady did not explain to her readers that the proposal arises from PP's habit of selling pre-ordered baby parts for medical research). A striking example of how many Irish pro-aborts have moved from being all quiet and shy about what they really want to openly espousing the most extreme American pro-choice position in the few years since the Savita case. This partly reflects our greater exposure to US media over the last 25-30 years, with cable TV and the Internet. Expect more and worse.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Dec 2, 2015 9:11:28 GMT
Micheál Ó hAodha had a superb piece on abortion in today's Irish Times. Unfortunately, it's in Irish. But I would encourage anyone who can to work through it. It's about Jamie Carragher, the Liverpool player who was born in 1978. Apparently doctors advised his mother to have an abortion because of a projected severe physical handicap. The mother refused. She was right. The writer goes on to say the vast majority of abortions are carried out for social reasons. It's very rare you get such breath-taking honesty in The Irish Times. But they don't seem to mind when it's said in Irish.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Dec 2, 2015 9:30:36 GMT
Sticking with the Irish Times, there is a story on the international survey on national awareness which placed Ireland second for national self-knowledge. The Times gives a breakdown of the questions asked and the answers given (sorry, no link). Question six asked the respondents how many Irish people were non-religious - atheist, agnostic or non-affiliated to a denomination. The average answer given was 34%; the correct answer is 6%. This is also a broad category. It was also the question where the given answers were widest of the mark.
Now, does anyone here wish to suggest why this incorrect perception of the Irish people's beliefs is so widespread? Answers on a postcard, please?
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 1, 2016 19:23:04 GMT
David Quinn reminds us of the radical implications of last year's marriage abolition amendment and notes that the ceaseless media self-congratulation over it (very much on show in the end-of-year roundups) treats the No vote as non-existent. He reminds us that the 8th (Pro-Life) Amendment was actually passed by a larger majority than the marriage abolition atrocity, but even at the time the media showed their bias by treating it as a moral victory for the No side. (BTW when he says no-one produced a book analysing how the pro-life side operated, he seems not to be aware of Tom Hesketh's THE SECOND PARTITIONING OF IRELAND, from which Emily O'Reilly's MASTERMINDS OF THE RIGHT - which he does mention - drew extensively, unevenly, and without due acknowledgment.) He makes the very good point that what the recent pro-choice media offensive and the marriage abolition campaign have in common is the privileging of adult autonomy over children's well-being. www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/david-quinn/in-2015-we-voted-against-the-right-of-a-child-to-a-mother-and-a-father-34327836.html
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 1, 2016 19:36:17 GMT
During the holidays I have been looking back through some recent issues of MOLOCH'S HERALD and found myself suffering from IRISH TIMES poisoning. A typical detail - one of their entertainment columnists was referencing a TV showing of THE SOUND OF MUSIC and commented "This is a film about singing Austrian refugees from Nazism. In this alternative universe the Catholic Church actually helps them". These may not be the exact words, but it's the gist of them - in particular, the innuendo that in "real life" the catholic Church would have been on the side of the Nazis. Now anyone familiar with the real-life story of the Von Trapps, or with the story of the "church struggle" and the numerous Catholics martyred by the Nazis will know how far from the truth this was. It is certainly the case, and we should never forget it, that the Church's record under the Third Reich was not perfect, that there were Catholics of all stations who sided with the Nazis or who compromised with them to varying degrees - but this sneer is a denial of the historic record pure and simple. Now let us try a thought experiment. There is a play/musical called BENT, which has been filmed, depicting the persecution of homosexuals by the Nazis. Let us suppose that some person was to insinuate that because there were some homosexuals who were Nazis, the play's depiction of homosexuals being dispossessed, shot dead, imprisoned, tortured and subjected to extermination regimes in death camps was entirely fictitious. Wouldn't there be an (entirely justified) outcry? What chance would such a person have of contributing to mainstream media in future? You know the answer - yet MOLOCH'S HERALD publishes a similar slur without turning a micropixel, because the Churc is considered fair game.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 1, 2016 20:10:36 GMT
It is also noteworthy that many Irish and US media responded to the announcement of Mother Teresa's impending canonisation by rehashing Christopher Hitchens' denunciations of her (in some instances simply reprinting Hitchens' rants). Carol Hunt in the SINDO and Eamonn McCann in the IRISH TIMES add the fact that she opposed abortion, divorce and contraception as "proof" of her depravity. Blessed are you when men revile you and speak ill of you for My sake... I do not want to imply anything about Christopher Hitchens' eternal destiny (please pray for him) but the more I see him quoted in this context I find myself thinking of THIS film clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYPsoxpt0BU
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jan 7, 2016 14:32:42 GMT
I'm less interested in the point that Patsy McGarry is making here than the self-righteousness with which he is making it and the manner in which the agnosticism he professes flies out the window.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jan 7, 2016 14:34:23 GMT
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Post by Young Ireland on Jan 7, 2016 15:12:51 GMT
I'm less interested in the point that Patsy McGarry is making here than the self-righteousness with which he is making it and the manner in which the agnosticism he professes flies out the window. While that article is in many ways a case of the pot calling the kettle black, I do agree with his general point.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 9, 2016 18:15:34 GMT
One point which Humphreys glosses over is that Pearse's invocation of sacrificial religious language to support his version of nationalism was partly aimed at upstaging his nationalist rivals, who would have appealed to the same sort of religious and historical terms of reference. (Just to make things clear, I incline more to the anti-Pearse side on this, but I think what he was trying to do should be clearly understood). This sort of problematic political religiosity was fairly widespread in European nationalist movements, often in much more explicitly heterodox terms (for example, the widespread portrayal of Giuseppe Garibaldi as a Christ figure by radical supporters of the Italian Risorgimento, or the tradition of Polish nationalist messianism which portrays Poland as suffering to redeem humanity): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_of_Europe
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 25, 2016 18:48:56 GMT
Last Tuesday the IRISH TIMES had two pieces in interesting juxtaposition. The education page had a piece lamenting that the education system was increasingly seen purely in economic terms and that it should try to form moral citizens. The op-ed page had a piece lamenting that the Church had allegedly hijacked such a large portion of "the state's educational system" and calling on it to give up schools, which should be neutral, and try to promote its values by doing social work in the wider society. The fact that no-one seems to have noticed the incongruity between these two views (because if the schools are to instil moral values they can't be neutral, and if they can't be neutral the case for excluding the church disappears) says a great deal about the arrogance and complacency of the Tara Street Magisterium.
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