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Post by hibernicus on Sept 18, 2012 21:38:23 GMT
O'Toole's smart aleckry is much more systematic than Myers' who is all over the place and seems mainly motivated by desire to provoke. O'Toole's most adolescent feature is his belief that if only we really wanted it we could have an Ireland Year Zero - sweep the table clean and build a new republic from scratch on a blueprint laid down by Fintan O'Toole.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Sept 18, 2012 21:58:10 GMT
I like to think of Fintan O'Toole as the last great Irish liberal. Liberals are a dying breed; today we have libertarians of the left and right. I prefer liberals myself. They have a genuine (though erring) vision of the good life rather than just an everything-is-a-nail principle to apply. From Fintan O'Toole to Ian O'Doherty is an undoubted decline.
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 19, 2012 21:06:06 GMT
O'Toole isn't a liberal - he's a socialist. He believes in rule by enlightened technocrats who think like Fintan O'Toole. Liberals place a higher value on individual freedom than he does. (This is the European usage of "liberal" - the American one would cover O'Toole as it includes many people who in Europe would be called social democrats.) O'Toole's principal virtue is as an investigative reporter - set him to follow the money, or to plough his way through an official report, and he comes up with very instructive results. It's when he takes up social theorising that he becomes insufferable (because he always tries to maintain not just that he is right, but that no-one can honestly disagree with him).
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Sept 20, 2012 11:35:42 GMT
Wasn't Fintan O'Toole a Workers' Party member for a time?
Some Americans would call him a communist.
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 22, 2012 18:02:14 GMT
Basically O'Toole's a technocrat - what the Americans call a progressive. He talks a lot about compassion for ordinary people, but he believes most people are too stupid to know what's good for them and ought to be governed by experts like himself. People of that sort were often attracted to communism when it was in vogue (some of them were attracted to fascism as well - George Bernard Shaw is a good example of someone who admired no-nonsense dictatorships by assuming they embodied the triumph of reason - he saw himself as the embodiment of reason - over annoying sentimentalists). BTW I remember President Higgins recently opining that state services were inherently superior to privately-provided services because they represent the people as a whole rather than selfish sectional interests. This was described by commentators as "classical republicanism" but in fact it's socialism, and it's interesting that no-one seemed to call it by that name - a sign of how far socialism, for better or worse, has sunk from being a serious political alternative.
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tobias
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Post by tobias on Oct 16, 2012 21:58:59 GMT
This thread seems to have gone a little off beam and strayed into a little rant on the Irish Times and some of its contributers. Fintan and Kevin get on my nerves at times but they both have the gift of expressing themselves in print with particular eloquence which I envy and which I singularly lack. Mind you, I only get the Times on Saturday so I probably miss all the nitty-gritty. Having said that, I thought the article "Thinking Anew" makes very good sense, as it does every week. Getting back to women and their modes of dress, I have said before that in my opinion it does'nt seem to matter how women attire themselves in relation to men. Women are attractive to men and that has always been the way,fortunatly for the human race. Peggy Lee put it very well in a song- "I can make a dress outa a flour sack and I can make a man outa you"! At the risk of repeating myself, whether wearing a flour sack or mini skirt or whatever is only a problem for men to come to terms with, not for women
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Post by shane on Nov 23, 2012 19:45:13 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 23, 2012 21:20:24 GMT
Note that the repeal of the relevant exemption would presumably allow cases to be brought against the Catholic Church as well. This is exactly the sort of Erastianism (subordination of church to state in matters of doctrine) that the Oxford Movement protested against and which has been the besetting fault of Anglicanism where it is the state church: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorham_judgment
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 26, 2012 18:07:05 GMT
To get back to the original subject of the thread, CRISIS magazine has a piece up presenting Todd Akin [the Republican senate candidate in Missouri who lost the seat after claiming that women who are "really" raped don't get pregnant because of some sort of self-defence mechanism in the body] as a martyr to the cynicism of the Republican Party leadership. This sparked off a lively debate in the combox, and I would like to single out the following comment because many women (not just pro-choicers) WILL legitimately and in good faith react this way to that sort of stupidity, and someone who does not understand why they feel that way will end up compounding the initial stupidity and doing considerable harm: EXTRACT Laura • 3 days ago Some men just don't get it. The problem with the comment was a very, very deep one, primarily a lack of understanding on the part of men as to why this comment caused such a visceral reaction among women. It caused a very visceral, deep reaction from me. It came from left field and part of the 1940s "icky" mentality and ignorance of "women's things." It's of the era that thought women don't need an education because they "enjoy" being secretaries. A time when men were ignorant about women's menstrual cycles and female issues. A time when men were the top of the food chain and women were subservient. It evokes a feeling of second-class citizenship because that man has no understanding of a woman's body AND feelings in this day and age. I am not expressing this well. I've been searching for an analogy, and cannot find one, that would make today's man understand why this remark created such hatred and vitriol from women. The majority of men these days are not that ignorant. Most men understand a woman's body and how it works and don't have the old standoffish ignorance, nor do they view women as "things." His comment was a throwback to a neanderthal time and that just blew women out of the water. There was no way to recover from that ignorance. And he is the type of person that exemplifies not even caring to know how a woman's body functions. It was total, total, total male arrogance at its worst! It says, "I don't know how it works and I don't care to know how it works." Then, on top of it all, he makes the situation worse by not stepping down. Pure male imperiousness from the 1950s!! Women were slammed by this remark. They thought men like this no longer existed - and mostly, they don't. He totally came out of left field, then continues along the same vein by refusing to quit! What the hell was wrong with this man? This remark was and is so upsetting to me that I still froth at the mouth and cannot express myself coherently to you. And I am not a woman's libber by any means. But to all you men who are mystified by the havoc his remark created - and it seems to me by the comments I read here, guys still don't see the actual problem - it isn't what you think it is. It was a vicious punch in the gut to women and an emotional slap-down. And guys today aren't like that. Don't you guys see? He's not LIKE you. There is something WRONG with him. END www.crisismagazine.com/2012/todd-akin-and-the-shame-of-conservatives
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 22, 2012 17:00:26 GMT
Pope Benedict's Christmas message, including the much-reported critique of "gender theory" rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2012/12/popes-christmas-address-gender-theory.html#moreEXTRACT The Chief Rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, has shown in a very detailed and profoundly moving study that the attack we are currently experiencing on the true structure of the family, made up of father, mother, and child, goes much deeper. While up to now we regarded a false understanding of the nature of human freedom as one cause of the crisis of the family, it is now becoming clear that the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question. He quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: “one is not born a woman, one becomes so” (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient). These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term “gender” as a new philosophy of sexuality. According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society. The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious. People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27) no longer apply. No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves. Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned. From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be. Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed. But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation. Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain. When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being. The defence of the family is about man himself. And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears. Whoever defends God is defending man... END This being Rorate Caeli, the combox contains a goodly number of troglodytes denouncing the Pope for praising inter-religious dialogue and quoting a rabbi. There are a few more intelligent posters discussing why this type of Mad Radtrad feels the need to attack the Pope whatever he does or says.
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Jan 22, 2013 13:36:49 GMT
Any news on the Williamson front these days?
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 22, 2013 20:06:44 GMT
He's too busy bashing the Pope and Bishop Fellay to have time for denouncing women - or so I presume. I haven't been following his Dinoscopus letters on the Web, as life is short.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jan 23, 2013 16:51:18 GMT
Rad trad reaction is predictable and especially seen on Rorate Coeli. Fr Z has a few of them too - our old pal 'Supertradmum' gets her tuppence worth in on both, for example.
But a propos - Michael Kirke has an interesting reflection on the Pope's talk in Position Papers for January. If it's in Veritas at all, it won't be there for long.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2013 22:50:24 GMT
One of my old lecturers used to discuss how women's work in the home since the sixties was seen as drudgery and unskilled so that any profession related to that sort of work was viewed in the same light. So basic skills were delegated in such jobs and upskilling was the only way to be seen as a profession and raise salaries. In order to be seen as contributing to society and intelligent then a women had to work. Only then would she be seen as an equal and productive, but not at home, despite her brains. I question this lie. He also questioned what we have gained, tiny terraced houses mortgaged for 2 people working 30 years and the children farmed out to others for minding. Is that a win? Over the last 2 years I have noticed two things. Firstly, women taking up the recession offer to go part-time in order to stay at home more with their children. These would be families who had not bought during the house price spike. There seems to be no stigma to this at all, it's seen as a lucky opportunity. So the value is acknowledged. I have also noticed a lot more young men pushing prams during the day in the local parks. I can only assume they are not working or work from home. Having spoken to others it seems that the time spent at home is seen as a great thing, I wonder why this is not acknowledged more in terms of lauding it as equal to a career at least? Why must women "have it all"? Why are we always trying to find ways and shortcuts so that women can do both? I know so many women who would rather be mothers and wives alone but the cost of living means they must work. Why not find shortcuts through that predicament oh think tanks and government consultants? Will housewives ever be seen as an honourable state again in Ireland? Or must it be confined to working class mothers and yummy mummies or seen as a throwback to a long-gone Catholic Ireland? If you want to go be a super scientist and/or a mum then more power to such a woman. I just take issue with, as my lecturer did, the idea that being a wife and mother alone is a cop-out, especially if a mother chooses it. How can we not have a contraceptive culture when the pressure to produce for the state (not your family) and survive financially here is so overbearing? takimag.com/article/women_work_and_freedom_nicholas_farrell/print#axzz2J7aLepLd
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 29, 2013 18:19:37 GMT
In looking for information on the Palmarians discussed from another thread and looking more on other sites about them it seems that they have now banned 3rd level education for women and moving down to second level now (aged 16). This is all unsubstantiated from the internet of course.
If true, I wonder how damaging it must be for these women if and when they eventually do go out into the world and deal with those living a different lifestyle and not being struck down by a bolt of lightning. Their faith in God and men will be shaken badly if not destroyed. We sometimes forget that we are called to be the light, salt and leaven in the world. We can only attract others to the truth of Christ by being that salt, light and leaven, by being the branches to His vine. Shrivelling up and cowering from the world does not seem to be the sign of a redeemed people.
I understand that they (Palmarians) may want/advise people called to marriage to marry early and be fruitful. However that education policy, if true, shows a distinct lack of trust in the truth, in women and in the world God made. When the Catholic women I know go out, get an education, engage the world, marry, have all the children God blesses them with they become that joyful contradictory sign in the world. They're better than any PR campaign. Is it any wonder Christians are often mocked and derided when the only light some of us show to the world gives the appearance of battening down the hatches?
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