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Post by hibernicus on Aug 4, 2021 21:03:25 GMT
Here's an example of pro-choice rhetoric eating its own. The arch-woke Justin Trudeau proclaims, as his like have done so often before, that men have no right to oppose abortion because it only affects women. He is promptly jumped on by his supposed chums, who declare that the Gospel of Transgender requires all to affirm that men can get pregnant just as women can. This would be humorous were it not a revelation that it's not about reason, it's all about power expressed through the manipulation of language: thebridgehead.ca/2021/08/03/abortion-rights-group-condemns-justin-trudeau-for-forgetting-that-men-get-pregnant/Some of the anti-vaxxers who have been waving placards reading "My Body, My Choice" have likewise discovered that logic and rational consistency don't apply, the concept of the common good which had been declared tyrannical when used to defend babies' lives is suddenly rehabilitated, and that when it suits them our public authorities can mutate from John Stuart Mill to James Fitzjames Stephen overnight.
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 10, 2021 17:11:13 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 20, 2021 21:38:46 GMT
Just in from a pro-life demonstration by the Life Institute outside Leinster House. Rousing speeches from Niamh Ui Bhriain, Michael Collins TD and Peadar Toibin TD. Unfortunately some of the other speakers were only semi-audible as they didn't stand close enough to the microphone. Strong Aontu presence; a couple of Marian images, about which I have mixed feelings. Some Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal. I doubt if it will attract much attention but it's important to come out in the cold and bear witness. As Dean Swift said; they may put us on the rack but they can't forbid us to roar.
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Post by Young Ireland on Oct 20, 2021 22:02:43 GMT
Just in from a pro-life demonstration by the Life Institute outside Leinster House. Rousing speeches from Niamh Ui Bhriain, Michael Collins TD and Peadar Toibin TD. Unfortunately some of the other speakers were only semi-audible as they didn't stand close enough to the microphone. Strong Aontu presence; a couple of Marian images, about which I have mixed feelings. Some Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal. I doubt if it will attract much attention but it's important to come out in the cold and bear witness. As Dean Swift said; they may put us on the rack but they can't forbid us to roar. Sounds like it went well, Hibernicus. Was there a large crowd? I couldn't go myself unfortunately as I am recovering from a cold.
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 20, 2021 22:16:32 GMT
There was quite a good crowd, but not on the scale of the pre-referendum rallies. I'd say a few hundred - there was a contingent from Donegal. The bulk were down to the south side of the gate, around the platform. I was with the smaller group at the north side of the gate, and there was another group across the road at the corner of Kildare Street and Molesworth Street. The road was partially but never fully blocked. There were also several National Party members in their uniform green sweater, giving out leaflets which hyped their opposition to abortion while neglecting to inform potential recruits of their other policies. Those I could do without.
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Post by Young Ireland on Nov 26, 2021 21:01:21 GMT
Here's a question I've been thinking about for a while - to what extent did the rise of the far-left in the wake of the crash contribute to the loss of the Eighth? Obviously the Savita case and the subsequent misinformation was a big factor, but I'm amazed no one on either side has picked up on it, given that the leadership of the pro-abortion movement and the far-left have significant overlap.
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 28, 2021 23:26:44 GMT
The far-left have been on the case since the X Case, if not earlier. They do have some importance in getting boots on the street in demonstrations, in provoking trouble which is then cited as proof that pro-lifers are troublemakers, and in pushing the Overton Window by raising certain topics as issues for public debate, but I would say they are secondary. They reflect the secularisation of sections of the working class (partly because they appeal to an anti-system vote) but they are too hardline to play their cards skilfully in Dail politics, and also a sense that Irish society is more impersonal and more vulnerable to events beyond your control (that's the major impact of the crash). Hannah Arndt said that totalitarianism appealed to the lonely, and I think that's part of their appeal. I would identify as much more important (a) the secularisation of the professional classes, especially the younger generations, and the consequent dominance of the professions and administration by people who are basically pro-abortion and chipped away at the Pro-Life Amendment over time (b) the discrediting of the Catholic Church (not that it's necessary to be a Catholic to be pro-life, but it has become so associated with Catholicism that part of the appeal of being pro-abortion has been that it's a way of being anti-Church) (c) the bedding down and taking for granted - partly through popular/mass culture, imported and local - of the sexual revolution, which leads to a cultural assumption that sex is not inherently linked to pregnancy and increases pressure for abortion to deal with "accidents". These three are interlinked, and I suspect there are others.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Nov 30, 2021 14:04:10 GMT
Here's a question I've been thinking about for a while - to what extent did the rise of the far-left in the wake of the crash contribute to the loss of the Eighth? Obviously the Savita case and the subsequent misinformation was a big factor, but I'm amazed no one on either side has picked up on it, given that the leadership of the pro-abortion movement and the far-left have significant overlap. It's an interesting thesis and there is a lot of truth in it. But factor in the following analysis. I once heard an academic political analysist, I think it was the late Basil Chubb but I could be mistaken, give the opinion that on socio-moral issues the Irish electorate could be split into three thirds in constitutional referenda. One third were absolutely liberal; one third equally conservative; and the remaining third could go either way. Against that, look at the voting margins in so many referenda. In 1983, the margin was two to one; so was 1986 on divorce. Each of the three referenda were the same in 1992, but I think that the pragmatists allied with the liberals on the travel and information votes and, very uncharacteristically, the liberals and conservatives allied on the substantive issue to vote no and the pragmatists were the third who voted yes. The same sex marriage and repeal referenda had the same margin, but with the pragmatists decisively backing the liberals as on the travel and information questions in 1992. In 1995 and 2001, there were knife edge votes on divorce and on abortion. Notably, the pro-life camp was divided in the latter and many prolifers didn't vote. I think the battle is for the middle third and that this was lost in recent years. But positively, the reversal isn't permanent. But, and it's a big but, the liberal third is far, far more influential and well endowed than the conservative third (if that's not a gross understatement). I don't think the far left is near as influential as you might think, but lots of ex-far leftists mutate into professional and influential positions.
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 18, 2021 22:42:41 GMT
I think that's a bit oversimplified, Askel, because there's a longterm demographic shift that diminishes the 'conservative' support and increases the 'liberal'. In 1983 the electorate, the adimistration and the professional classes were still dominated by people whose attitudes and beliefs were formed prior to 1970 (bear in mind the argument that in Ireland the sixties happened in the Seventies). Over time those generations died off and were replaced by people whose views were influenced by; (a) the collapse of catechesis in the schools and of the prestige of the Catholic church in particular. The clerical abuse crises have been absolutely devastating. (b) the wider availability of global media and its taken-for-granted attitudes. Remember that in 1983 large areas of Ireland were single-channel TV and the provincial press, now a shadow of its former self, to a significant extent acted as a counterweight to the national media. (c) The society and particularly the economy places much greater emphasis on fluidity in a way that militates against forming lasting allegiances; flexibility is all. (d) The education system and the sense of an Irish narriative has come to be built around a narrative emphasising the dark side of the post-independence decades and built around the struggle for secularism and sexual freedom, much as British identity used to be built around an equation of Protestantism with freedom and prosperity and Catholicism with alien despotism. I think the far left's rise is partly a product of this - it does resemble the Marxist description of how 'all that was solid melts into air, all that was sacred is profaned' - and partly reflects the sense since the post-2008 economic crisis that nobody is really in charge and another crash may be just around the corner. We're now seeing a generation who are coming of age in a much more insecure society than during Celtic Tiger/ Rosy Scenario triumphalism. and whose expectations are higher than the earlier silent generations. It is also the case that there has always been an embittered far-left Irish tradition, but it was to a considerable extent exported to the diaspora through emigration.
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 18, 2021 23:17:02 GMT
Two rather depressing recent developments; the defeat of the Foetal Pain Bill in the dail and of a similar measure in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Stephen Donnelly's presentation of the "three-year review" makes it abundantly clear that it is based on the assumption that the aim is to have every abortion which involves travel to Britain take place in Ireland instead, and that the idea that "this service" as Mr Donnelly describes it, raises any moral questions is to be dismissed out of hand. As the US anti-euthanasia campaigner Wesley J Smith put it, "safeguards" are installed to persuade reluctant voters, but as soon as the measure is passed the "safeguards" become obstacles to be eliminated.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 19, 2022 0:44:59 GMT
I distrust claims of a "globalist conspiracy" but this article is a reminder that seriously wealthy people such as Warren Buffett are using their money and influence on an international scale to promote some very bad things which they think are good: www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/296529/
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Post by Young Ireland on Jan 22, 2022 21:48:23 GMT
A nasty straw in the wind: President Biden is indicating that even if Roe is overturned, he won't be backing down without a fight. Really, given that he proclaims his Catholicism at every opportunity, yet comes out with this, excommunication should seriously be considered if it hasn't been already: www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/anti-abortion-advocates-march-washington-hoping-it-s-last-time-n1287889Meanwhile, "Catholics" for Abortion have discovered that their views, tastelessly projected onto the cathedral during the pre-march vigil, have been received like a lead balloon: www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/250171/activist-group-projects-pro-choice-messages-on-washington-basilica-on-eve-of-march-for-lifeFinally, the Patriot Front's attempt to hijack the March was poorly received by those on it, and the organising committee pointedly denounced them, though not by name: religionnews.com/2022/01/21/at-march-for-life-a-mix-of-triumph-and-apprehension/
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 1, 2022 22:37:53 GMT
Jim Wells, the DUP MLA for South Down who has a sterling pro-life record and has long been at odds with elements within his party who see him as too principled on social issues, has been deselected. He has announced that he has turned down suggestions that he should stand as an Independent and is retiring from politics. Given that Mr Wells is a Protestant fundamentalist and has been a DUP activist for 46 years, I am sure Catholics would have significant disagreements with him and that there may be questionable aspects of his political record - but just now I want to pay tribute to him as a Good Samaritan who stood up for marriage and the unborn when so many professed Catholics took the wrong side. This is also a reminder that the DUP are not as monolithically socially conservative as they appear at first glance.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Feb 1, 2022 23:48:57 GMT
Jim Wells, the DUP MLA for South Down who has a sterling pro-life record and has long been at odds with elements within his party who see him as too principled on social issues, has been deselected. He has announced that he has turned down suggestions that he should stand as an Independent and is retiring from politics. Given that Mr Wells is a Protestant fundamentalist and has been a DUP activist for 46 years, I am sure Catholics would have significant disagreements with him and that there may be questionable aspects of his political record - but just now I want to pay tribute to him as a Good Samaritan who stood up for marriage and the unborn when so many professed Catholics took the wrong side. This is also a reminder that the DUP are not as monolithically socially conservative as they appear at first glance. I have no doubt that the DUP will very soon, when it comes to social issues, go the way of all the other parties in Northern Ireland-- sadly-- and that those social conservatives who pin their hopes on it will be disappointed-- sadly. It's salutary for Catholics to remember that some Protestants took longer to succumb.
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Post by Young Ireland on Jul 4, 2022 21:15:37 GMT
To try and bring some life back into this forum, I'm going to continue a long-standing tradition and give my comments of the recent Rally for Life that took place last Saturday.
Attendance was considerably smaller compared to previous rallies (I'd estimate around 3-5,000 in total), but those who did come along braved some very heavy showers along the route, which eventually gave way to sunshine. Archbishop Eamonn Martin was present, and Fr. McKevitt (who has now retired from Alive!) gave a short speech before the rally, as did an American priest whose name I wasn't aware of. Several preists were at the rally, inlcuding some traditional priests wearing cassocks. I also met Hibernicus and spoke with him briefly. He felt that the rally was perhaps too religious in tone, but perhaps this was due to the smaller crowd making this more obvious than previously. Whatever the case, there were at least a dozen of more Tricolour flags with the Sacred Heart in the middle, mimicing the practice among some French Catholics. I believe that TFP held a Rosary rally around Parnell Square as well before the main event.
The Rally itself was delayed for half an hour for some reason, but finally got going at around 2:30. As we made our way down O'Connell Street, there was little in the way of pro-abort counter protests, though a few passers-by did shout slogans at the crowd, but most complaints came from people annoyed at being unable to cross the road. Otherwise, the procession was mostly smooth and uneventful, ending at Custom House Quay as was the case in 2019.
There were a wide range of speakers present on the day, perhaps wider than at previous rallies. One thing that stood out was that there seemed to be much more of an effort to link-in with the movement in Britain this time around, with two speakers from London (one from Abortion Resistance and the other a pro-life doctor who helps distribute abortion-reversal pills to women who change their mind), as well as a message and advertisement for the UK March for Life in Birmingham in September. This is a very positive development, as a stronger pro-life movement in the UK will make things easier here and closer co-operation absolutely makes sense.
Obviously, we were all delighted at the overturn of Roe in the States, and this was a major theme of the rally, that where America led, both parts of Ireland would follow. A message of support from the US March for Life was played to the crowd.
Domestically, the speaking lineup was pretty much standard: Peadar Toibin and Carol Nolan (Mattie McGrath couldn't make it due to a bereavement), Vicky Wall from Every Life Counts, Dr. Cleary from Doctors for Life, Bernie Smyth from Precious Life in the North, Ben Scallan from Gript and finally Niamh Ui Bhriain from the Life Institute (apologies if I left anyone out!)
More reflections to follow in the coming days.
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