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Post by maolsheachlann on Feb 25, 2019 13:58:25 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 26, 2019 21:05:38 GMT
I agree in this case - assuming the facts are as alleged, there's no way (say) a pro-life campaigner would have got away with this degree of misrepresentation. In this instance, Kathy Sheridan appears to be the boy in the fable who cried wolf when there was no wolf, and when the wolf came found no-one believed him. As my citation of the fable indicates, Maolseachlainn, I disagree with your view that political correctness is entirely false. There are wolves out there (if you want to see real racists, for example, try browsing the comments threads on Politics.ie or looking at some of the individual commenters on Politics.ie). Political correctness is an attempt to smear a wide range of views as being morally equivalent to (say) Nazism, racism etc. Assuming from this that everyone who is accused of nazism, racism etc only plays into the hands of (a) the politically correct who will use it to persuade the uncommitted that the denier is shielding fascists, racists etc and must therefore be one (b) the real nazis, racists etc who like to claim that holocaust denial is a legitimate view persecuted by the politically correct (I know of actual examples of this). Let me put it this way. A few days ago a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf offered me her seat on the bus (I have a medical condition which makes me walk with a slight limp.) I accepted because I assumed she was getting off at the next stop, but she remained standing for several stops. I am not being politically correct when I object to people saying that all Muslims, including this woman, are throat-cutting terrorists. It would be politically correct (indeed delusional) to deny that there are throat-cutting Islamic terrorists and that society is entitled to defend itself against them and their accomplices.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Feb 27, 2019 10:38:57 GMT
I agree in this case - assuming the facts are as alleged, there's no way (say) a pro-life campaigner would have got away with this degree of misrepresentation. In this instance, Kathy Sheridan appears to be the boy in the fable who cried wolf when there was no wolf, and when the wolf came found no-one believed him. As my citation of the fable indicates, Maolseachlainn, I disagree with your view that political correctness is entirely false. There are wolves out there (if you want to see real racists, for example, try browsing the comments threads on Politics.ie or looking at some of the individual commenters on Politics.ie). Political correctness is an attempt to smear a wide range of views as being morally equivalent to (say) Nazism, racism etc. Assuming from this that everyone who is accused of nazism, racism etc only plays into the hands of (a) the politically correct who will use it to persuade the uncommitted that the denier is shielding fascists, racists etc and must therefore be one (b) the real nazis, racists etc who like to claim that holocaust denial is a legitimate view persecuted by the politically correct (I know of actual examples of this). Let me put it this way. A few days ago a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf offered me her seat on the bus (I have a medical condition which makes me walk with a slight limp.) I accepted because I assumed she was getting off at the next stop, but she remained standing for several stops. I am not being politically correct when I object to people saying that all Muslims, including this woman, are throat-cutting terrorists. It would be politically correct (indeed delusional) to deny that there are throat-cutting Islamic terrorists and that society is entitled to defend itself against them and their accomplices. I think we may broadly be in agreement on this, Hibernicus, but I think I would extend tolerance to a wider range of views. Shelving holocaust denial for a second, let's take the example of the radical feminist who believes all men are complicit in rape. (They exist.) I find this view deeply offensive, but wouldn't want to silence these feminists in any way. Let them have their books, their seminars, their courses, their blogs, whatever. Let them be invited to speak at universities and community centres. Are their views "legitimate"? I'm not sure what that means. The problem when we discuss free speech and censorship is that there are a whole range of responses which might be said to inhibit free speech. There is Stalinist execution on one extreme, and making a face when someone expresses an opinion on the other. And I don't think we can say that only one extreme is relevant-- I don't think anyone would accept that in their unguarded moments. Free speech is a climate, in my view, as much as a legal state of affairs. Regarding the Muslim woman who stood up for you on the bus. I agree it was a kindly act and I have no doubt she's a good person. But when you say "I am not being politically correct when I object to people saying that all Muslims, including this woman, are throat-cutting terrorists", I have to wonder who is actually saying this. This is the problem with political correctness-- nine-tenths of the time it is addressed against an INFERRED claim, not a claim that a person has actually made. PC discourse heavily draws on terms such as "implied", "tantamount to", "dangerously close to", "reminiscent of", etc. etc. Indeed, very often the unverifiable and unfalsifiable claim of "dog whistling" is made. Leaving that aside, what difference does the woman standing up for you on the bus really make? If Colm O'Gorman stood up for you on the bus (hard as it is to imagine him on a bus), would it make his views any more palatable? If a neo-Nazi stood up for you on the bus, would you soften towards him? How often are Islamic (and other) terorists described as very pleasant and kindly people by those who knew them in ordinary life? I don't personally have any animus towards Muslims or Islam per se, but someone who argues that Islam is intrinsically violent etc. would hardly find this small act of kindness relevant to that argument. (I remember being very struck by a passage in a biography of Hitler which said that he frequently insisted on meetings being paused so the stenographers could have a rest. Perhaps he was simply trying to minimize the number of potential assassins close to him, but who knows? When Ted Bundy worked on a suicide prevention hotline he apparently helped many people, and Mark Chapman was apparently quite idealistic and worked with refugee children.)
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Post by maolsheachlann on Feb 27, 2019 14:39:46 GMT
Political correctness is an attempt to smear a wide range of views as being morally equivalent to (say) Nazism, racism etc. I think it is also an attempt to discard any sense of perspective regarding Nazism, racism, etc. There seems to be some phony consensus that racism is the most heart-stoppingly awful evil in the world, which I find bizarre. As though somebody using a racial slur is a thousand times worse than someone calling another person fat, ugly, mentally retarded, etc. etc. I remember one of my lecturers in college saying she was opposed to the death penalty but some crimes tempted her to support it, and she mentioned some particular murder which was also a "hate crime". I found it weird then, twenty years ago, and I still find it weird. When people speak as though murder, abortion etc. somehow becomes worse if there is a racial dimension, I am baffled. Does this mean aborting white male babies with no diagnosed health conditions is somehow not as bad as aborting non-white babies, female babies or Down Sydrome babies? Many on the pro-life side seem to assume this, from their rhetoric.
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 27, 2019 21:51:02 GMT
Just one detail -when I referred to people who claim all Muslims without exception are complicit in terrorism I was thinking of several specific outlets -some professedly Catholic, some secular rightist - which have made exactly that claim. I prefer not to name them online, but I assure you I know what I am talking about. I can think of one prominent pro-abortion campaigner whom I moderated my verbal tone towards after seeing her in the street behaving tenderly towards her own children. That doesn't mean her views are any less monstrous, or that she hasn't done immense harm, and if she makes specific wicked statements I will point them out in a reasoned but it's all too easy to forget such people are still human, especially when we are discussing them here in the cyberworld and not face to face. I have to remind myself of that a lot, and it's lethal to forget it. I don't think racism is the most evil thing in the world -it is enough that it is very evil and I find it useful to pull it to pieces and point out how it works. (BTW while I have had quite a few bad attitudes in the past, I have never been a racist or an anti-semite, so my desire to expose these things has nothing to do with personal guilt feelings.)
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Post by maolsheachlann on Feb 28, 2019 10:15:10 GMT
Just one detail -when I referred to people who claim all Muslims without exception are complicit in terrorism I was thinking of several specific outlets -some professedly Catholic, some secular rightist - which have made exactly that claim. I prefer not to name them online, but I assure you I know what I am talking about. I can think of one prominent pro-abortion campaigner whom I moderated my verbal tone towards after seeing her in the street behaving tenderly towards her own children. That doesn't mean her views are any less monstrous, or that she hasn't done immense harm, and if she makes specific wicked statements I will point them out in a reasoned but it's all too easy to forget such people are still human, especially when we are discussing them here in the cyberworld and not face to face. I have to remind myself of that a lot, and it's lethal to forget it. I don't think racism is the most evil thing in the world -it is enough that it is very evil and I find it useful to pull it to pieces and point out how it works. (BTW while I have had quite a few bad attitudes in the past, I have never been a racist or an anti-semite, so my desire to expose these things has nothing to do with personal guilt feelings.) But there's a big difference between being complicit in terrorism and being "a throat-cutting terrorist". One could argue that everybody who voted for Sinn Féin during the Troubles (and who understood their links to the IRA) were complicit in terrorism, but it doesn't make them terrorists. I don't mean to be nit-picking, but I think these conceptual leaps are actually very important when it comes to a discussion of political correctness (not that I'm accusing you of PC here). It relies on accusations which are not specific or concrete, most of the time. I've just been reading Give Us Back the Bad Roads by John Waters and his description of Pantigate shows how this operates. Rory O'Neill tried to accuse him of homophobia without any actual specifics. They are doing it all the time. I didn't suspect you of a racist or anti-semite past, by the way. And I completely agree on the importance of remembering the humanity of our opponents, something that we are always in danger of forgetting.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Feb 28, 2019 11:59:53 GMT
More anti-white racism. A black MP complains about a celebrity tweeting for Comic Relief from Africa, saying "The world does not need any more white saviours." Imagine anyone said we didn't need any more black anything. Imagine the outcry that would follow. www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-47400300
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Post by maolsheachlann on Mar 27, 2019 15:17:19 GMT
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK-wljtCq34Gemma O'Doherty's anti-corruption and anti-globalist movement has had their freedom of speech and freedom of association closed down by left-wing bullies. Interesting that the leftist interviewed uses the term "beyond the pale" to justify undermining freedom of speech.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 1, 2019 20:55:45 GMT
I think Gemma O'Doherty's anti-vaxxer activities (I believe that is what is under discussion here) can do serious harm, but I don't like seeing hotels pressurised to deny her bookings. I also think some of her recent claims about certain events are off the wall. Let me make another suggestion about the difference between political correctness and legitimate comment/condemnation. I think the expressions of solidarity with Muslims which took place in New Zealand after the Christchurch murders were perfectly right and proper, and I am disgusted by the way some commentators who call themselves Catholic have cited Islamic violence elsewhere to insinuate that the victims brought it on themselves by being Muslims. John Zmirak predictably is one example: stream.org/iranian-christian-barred-from-britain-for-the-violence-of-the-bible/The fact that in the same piece Mr Zmirak highlights an abominable injustice perpetrated by British officialdom against an Iranian seeking asylum in order to escape being killed for converting from Islam to Christianity does not alter the fact that the article's treatment of Christchurch is utterly swinish. I am sorry to say that I can think of one Irish commentator who has commented on the same event in very similar terms, quoting the British anti-Islamic campaigner Anne Marie Waters without knowing, or possibly caring, that Ms Waters is an aggressive secularist who hates Christianity almost as much as Islam: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Marie_WatersOn the other hand, while the New Zealanders' hearts are in the right place, the means many of them have chosen by which to express solidarity -wearing the Islamic headscarf - is political correctness at its most ludicrous. The Islamic headscarf has a very specific meaning, and if you don't subscribe to it - as I suspect most of the demonstrators do not - they are simply play-acting. They should find some other way to express their admirable sentiments.
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Post by Young Ireland on Apr 1, 2019 21:32:06 GMT
I think Gemma O'Doherty's anti-vaxxer activities (I believe that is what is under discussion here) can do serious harm, but I don't like seeing hotels pressurised to deny her bookings. I also think some of her recent claims about certain events are off the wall. Let me make another suggestion about the difference between political correctness and legitimate comment/condemnation. I think the expressions of solidarity with Muslims which took place in New Zealand after the Christchurch murders were perfectly right and proper, and I am disgusted by the way some commentators who call themselves Catholic have cited Islamic violence elsewhere to insinuate that the victims brought it on themselves by being Muslims. John Zmirak predictably is one example: stream.org/iranian-christian-barred-from-britain-for-the-violence-of-the-bible/The fact that in the same piece Mr Zmirak highlights an abominable injustice perpetrated by British officialdom against an Iranian seeking asylum in order to escape being killed for converting from Islam to Christianity does not alter the fact that the article's treatment of Christchurch is utterly swinish. I am sorry to say that I can think of one Irish commentator who has commented on the same event in very similar terms, quoting the British anti-Islamic campaigner Anne Marie Waters without knowing, or possibly caring, that Ms Waters is an aggressive secularist who hates Christianity almost as much as Islam: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Marie_WatersOn the other hand, while the New Zealanders' hearts are in the right place, the means many of them have chosen by which to express solidarity -wearing the Islamic headscarf - is political correctness at its most ludicrous. The Islamic headscarf has a very specific meaning, and if you don't subscribe to it - as I suspect most of the demonstrators do not - they are simply play-acting. They should find some other way to express their admirable sentiments. I think her anti-vaxxer views were a part of it, but the straw that broke the camel's back was her claim that the Christchurch massacre was a "false flag" intended to produce a 9/11-like chill effect.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 1, 2019 21:49:01 GMT
The denial of hotel bookings was based on her anti-vaxxerism, I believe. That wasn't the first dotty false-flag claim she has made.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Apr 2, 2019 8:35:37 GMT
I think Gemma O'Doherty's anti-vaxxer activities (I believe that is what is under discussion here) can do serious harm, but I don't like seeing hotels pressurised to deny her bookings. This is the essence of the matter. Once people give themselves the authority to close down someone else's free speech because they don't like what they are saying, everybody's free speech is in danger. And also, it's inherently bully-boy activity and should make our gorge rise anyway, regardless of any knock-on effects.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Apr 2, 2019 10:06:09 GMT
I don't particularly like the direction Gemma O'Doherty's channel has gone, as regards conspiracy theories (and I use term completely neutrally and agnostically-- a conspiracy theory might be true or false). It's hard for me to comment on them because I don't actually listen to those ones.
But the motive for opposition to her is that she opposes globalism-- I think anything else is a pretext.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 6, 2019 18:16:01 GMT
More anti-white racism. A black MP complains about a celebrity tweeting for Comic Relief from Africa, saying "The world does not need any more white saviours." Imagine anyone said we didn't need any more black anything. Imagine the outcry that would follow. www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-47400300I think the MP was wrong because he made a churlish remark directed at a specific individual who was only trying to help, but in fairness to him it should be said that the phrase "white saviour" is a well-established phrase for a type of narrative which presents blacks as helpless victims needing to have all their problems solved by a white hero (and/or in which the blacks are simply presented as backdrop to the white hero's moral development): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_savior(The choice of HEART OF DARKNESS is a bit odd, since the whole point of the story is that Kurtz starts out seeing himself as a "white saviour" but is corrupted by the power he has assumed over the natives "for their own good".) It is necessary to be cautious in this regard when celebrating (for example) the genuine achievements of missionaries. I greatly revere Bishop Joseph Shanahan, but it is necessary to recall that his story is also the story of the Ibos' response to and participation in their own evangelisation, and I would like to know a bit more about what present-day Nigerians think of the missionary enterprise. A nice example of how "white saviour" can be overdone appeared on the BBC website recently. They published an article on the film THE MATRIX, arguing that it hasn't worn very well over time, and amongst other things they referred to the character played by Keanu Reeves as a "white saviour". They subsequently put up an apology after it was pointed out to them that Keanu Reeves is partially descended from Native Hawaiians.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Apr 8, 2019 9:47:17 GMT
More anti-white racism. A black MP complains about a celebrity tweeting for Comic Relief from Africa, saying "The world does not need any more white saviours." Imagine anyone said we didn't need any more black anything. Imagine the outcry that would follow. www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-47400300I think the MP was wrong because he made a churlish remark directed at a specific individual who was only trying to help, but in fairness to him it should be said that the phrase "white saviour" is a well-established phrase for a type of narrative which presents blacks as helpless victims needing to have all their problems solved by a white hero (and/or in which the blacks are simply presented as backdrop to the white hero's moral development): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_savior(The choice of HEART OF DARKNESS is a bit odd, since the whole point of the story is that Kurtz starts out seeing himself as a "white saviour" but is corrupted by the power he has assumed over the natives "for their own good".) It is necessary to be cautious in this regard when celebrating (for example) the genuine achievements of missionaries. I greatly revere Bishop Joseph Shanahan, but it is necessary to recall that his story is also the story of the Ibos' response to and participation in their own evangelisation, and I would like to know a bit more about what present-day Nigerians think of the missionary enterprise. A nice example of how "white saviour" can be overdone appeared on the BBC website recently. They published an article on the film THE MATRIX, arguing that it hasn't worn very well over time, and amongst other things they referred to the character played by Keanu Reeves as a "white saviour". They subsequently put up an apology after it was pointed out to them that Keanu Reeves is partially descended from Native Hawaiians. Perhaps a better approach, rather than tying ourselves up in such knots, would be to look past skin colour entirely-- which is what we are repeatedly told is the ideal?
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