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Post by Young Ireland on Jul 26, 2016 21:10:06 GMT
"This is not to say that there are no Muslims who rape people, there most certainly are, but there are also plenty of Christians, indeed people of all faiths and none who rape people. Why focus solely on one group in particular?" Because there may be a particular problem with one group. I think we very often run foul of these fallacies: 1) To say that there is a particular culture inherent in a particular group is to demonize everybody in that group. That is true. For example, I think that rap culture is highly problematic for many reasons, but I don't think it is racist to say that, as many African-Americans would agree with that statement. (Many people into gospel music had this attitude towards the blues in the 1930s and I'd imagine that there are similar views around today.) On the other hand, it would in my opinion be racist if one pointed to rap culture and used it to portray black people as uncivillised savages. My problem with conflating Islam with rape is that in most cases, its invocation is generally intended to breed distrust of Muslims and create an athosphere of Muslims around them. Does Islam have problematic attitudes towards women? Yes. Could those attitudes be twisted by the unscrupulous to justify rape? Yes. Does it thus follow that all Muslims are potential rapists, which is clearly what much of the commentary about Islam and rape on the extreme right implies? No. It is no more logical to say that Muslims are prone to raping women than it is to say that Catholic priests are prone to abusing children. We would not accept it if some secularist claimed that Catholics cannot be trusted around children because to the abuse scandals, so why should should it be acceptable to whip up predjudice against people by using isolated incidents to appeal to people's basest and natural emotions.2) The fact that argument X was made in a particular case and is considered to have been incorrect, proves that argument X cannot be true of a different case. ("You are making all the same arguments about gay marriage that people made about inter-racial marriage.") That argument doesn't really stand up to be honest: for one thing an inter-racial marraige has what a gay "marraige" does not: the ability to procreate. On the other hand, it is perfectly legitimate to highlight equivalent scenarios and compare them with the present situation. In fact, Our Lord used that technique quite a lot in His teaching and parables. (The parable of the unjust debtor is one example among others).3) The fact that you can garner examples of a particular behaviour from lots of different groups, time periods etc. means that it is not more typical of some than others-- perhaps much more typical. See my point above.I generally agree with what you are both saying about Islam and Muslims. Religious freedom is important in its own right and I think it's stupid to pick a fight with a billion people. But let's not be too pious about it....we should be realistic, I think. Islam IS different and this conversation has to be conducted in a cool-headed manner. I agree that any discussion on this should be cool-headed. But it has to be on both sides, which means that raw appeals to emotion like "Muslims are sexual predators!" "All Muslims are terrorists!" etc. should not have any place in this discussion. It is also important to be able to face up to the fact that this crisis has resulted in an alarming increase in open racism and denial or minimisation of this will only make things worse in the long run. I think that the fact that much of the organised anti-refugee agitation has fairly strong links with the Kremlin, who appear to be using the refugee crisis as an opportunity to destabilise Europe and to legitimise their authoritarian rule domestically ("See all the problems the effeminates in Europe are having with the Muslim hordes? Be grateful that you have a strong leader in President Putin who protects you from the savages.") is apropos to the discussion. So I have no problem engaging in a reasoned discussion of the refugee crisis and the integration of Muslims into wider society, as long as those on the other side are willing to do the same.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 24, 2017 21:14:19 GMT
As I often remark, Fintan O'Toole is often very good as an investigative reporter when he sticks to the facts, and very silly when he gets into grand cultural theorising. His recent column arguing that the Northern Ireland general election should be fought on Brexit with UUP-SDLP-Alliance co-operating to remove the DUP from government and uphold the NI vote to Remain is an example in point. Here are some of the things that are wrong with it: (1) The DUP can't be excluded from government unless it gets fewer than 8 seats, which is unlikely. Under the Belfast Agreement each party is entitled to a number of ministries in proportion with its seats in the Assembly. It can refuse to take up these ministries (as the SDLP and UUP are currently doing) but the other parties cannot keep them out against their will.
(2) The only realistic target O'Toole might have in mind would be to have a non-DUP First Minister, but the only party really in a position to do this is SF. (THe suggested tripartite alliance couldn't do it unless they embarked on a complete merger; it's been established that a two-party alliance can't be counted as one party.) O'Toole is not willing to advocate this because SF are such tainted goods and even he must realise UUP voters would never vote to put in a SF first minister in preference to a unionist.
(3) The UUP is not a Remain party; it supported Remain but allowed a Conscience vote and several of its representatives campaigned for Leave. If it tried to whip them, it would drive them to the DUP which is the opposite of what Fintan wants.
(4) The Gibraltarians voted overwhelmingly to Remain; that doesn't mean they would rather reioin Spain than leave with Britain.
As a side-note, the DUP's iobbery and incompetence could be very bad news for social conservatives in the North. The weaker they get the less able they will be to block new moves on abortion and the like, and the more the other parties will distinguish themselves from the DUP by emphasising their secularity.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 26, 2018 20:37:04 GMT
Fintan O'Toole recently published a column in the IRISH TIMES denouncing pro-lifers for exploiting the handicapped by claiming legalised abortion leads to the elimination of children with Down's Syndrome. His column is only available to subscribers, but its main arguments are (a) it won't happen because in countries with legal abortion not all Down's children are aborted (b) You have no right to complain unless you do more to improve conditions for people with Down's. (Apply these two points to critics of, say, Filipino President Duterte's campaign of shooting drug users and I wonder what Mr O'Toole would think.) For bad measure, O'Toole refers to the Love Both campaign as "suspiciously well funded", the insinuation being it must be drawing on foreign donors - how different, how very different, from our own dear pro-choicers! The IRISH TIMES follows up this narrative about the wickedness of pro-lifers by getting Down's Ireland (to which I have given money in the past and may do in the future) to suggest that raising the issue of selective abortion of babies with Down's is disrespectful, and reporting the responses of various pro-life groups to this comment in a manner which implies pro-lifers are like cockroaches scuttling into hiding when the light is turned on. Meanwhile, the letters column in the IRISH TIMES features various exponents of academic doublespeak declaring that "the rights of the disabled must not be made to conflict with reproductive rights" (but what if they do, O Sophists?) and "what about disabled women who want to access abortion"? REv Patrick G Burke of the Church of Ireland and some others have been pointing out the doublethink at work, but I wonder how much impact their truth-telling will have? www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/down-syndrome-group-calls-for-respect-during-abortion-referendum-1.3366953So once again we see MOLOCH'S HERALD trying to centre the debate on how wicked pro-lifers are for pointing out painful truths, and ignoring the minor detail that these are in fact true.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 26, 2018 20:50:44 GMT
Addendum: An American father of children with Down's Syndrome comments on the exchange. He is dismayed at DS Ireland letting itself be used in this manner, but warns that pro-lifers should not paint life with DS in too rosy a light. His analysis of the motivation behind "eradicate Down's" and the weasel words of the pro-aborts is spot on. www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/01/looking-down-syndrome-in-the-faceAt present I will continue to give to DS Ireland because it helps people with Down's, in spite of this blunder. I urge you all to do the same.
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Post by romuald on Jan 28, 2018 14:43:26 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 23, 2018 21:47:19 GMT
A fortnight ago Fintan O'Toole published a piece attacking advocacy of Irexit as a fantasy (which I think is correct) and pointing out that the logical result of leaving the EU would be to go back in with the UK (which is also correct, though a lot of green Irexit supporters don't realise it). He then declares that this is ridiculous because while Brexit is inspired by resentment at imaginary oppression, Irish independence was driven by desire to escape from real oppression by chinless wonders who looked down on us as a bunch of alien bogtrotters. How interesting to see Fintan O'Toole wrapping the green flag round himself and invoking the 800 years of oppression, when he has been lecturing us for decades on how Irish nationalism was a fantasy and pointing out our post-independence ability to produce our own class of chinless wonders to misgovern us. Perhaps he will soon be treating us to cover versions of the Wolfe Tones' ditties.
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Post by irishconfederate on Feb 24, 2018 0:49:42 GMT
A fortnight ago Fintan O'Toole published a piece attacking advocacy of Irexit as a fantasy (which I think is correct) and pointing out that the logical result of leaving the EU would be to go back in with the UK (which is also correct, though a lot of green Irexit supporters don't realise it). What do you mean by the part where you wrote that you think the advocacy of Irexit as being a fantasy? And wouldn't it be an illogical result of leaving the EU to go back in with the UK? The self-possession and the exercise of it that is required of a country to leave the EU would point towards a certain amount of self-belief and desire for a generous amount of self-governance. Any country that could pull off an exit potentially could have the wherewithal to work towards carving out whatever future it wants.
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Post by maolsheachlann on Feb 24, 2018 14:30:11 GMT
A fortnight ago Fintan O'Toole published a piece attacking advocacy of Irexit as a fantasy (which I think is correct) and pointing out that the logical result of leaving the EU would be to go back in with the UK (which is also correct, though a lot of green Irexit supporters don't realise it). What do you mean by the part where you wrote that you think the advocacy of Irexit as being a fantasy? And wouldn't it be an illogical result of leaving the EU to go back in with the UK? The self-possession and the exercise of it that is required of a country to leave the EU would point towards a certain amount of self-belief and desire for a generous amount of self-governance. Any country that could pull off an exit potentially could have the wherewithal to work towards carving out whatever future it wants. The implication of this argument is that we were a vassal state of the UK between 1922 and 1973. Fine by me. I would rather economic dependence than political thralldom. Economic dependence may be transitory, but it's devilisih difficult to get out of political structures. It took us centuries to extricate ourselves from Britain, and just look at how hard the UK are being made to work to get out of the E.U.
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 24, 2018 20:25:11 GMT
We were indeed a satellite state of the UK between 1922 and 1973; we were dependent on it for most of what we couldn't produce and it bought most of what we exported. Indeed, the civil servants in the Department of Agriculture used to privately lament that, having been united to Britain at a time when agriculture was exposed to unilateral free trade, we had broken with them just when they began to subsidise and protect their agriculture. (The prospect of agricultural subsidies and price supports from Europe was of course one of the major motivations for our joining the EU.) Similarly, we have always been in a currency union since independence; until 1978 with Britain, then with the European Monetary System which developed into the euro. The rationale for this is that it allows us to borrow at the same rate as the bigger currency, and reflects the fact that we don't trust our politicians with the printing press - the disadvantage is that the bigger unit takes decisions without considering our interests (the UK government did not consult Ireland when it devalued sterling in 1931, 1949 -I think - and 1966; our government does have some input into European monetary policy but the limits of this were shown up in the monetary crisis). My reasons for thinking IRexit is a fantasy are that it seems unlikely that it could acquire the popular support that would be needed to push it through, and that our economy is so much bound up with the world markets and so heavily dependent on multinationals (many of which come here as a gateway to the European market), on exports, and on international supply chains. Brexit will do a great deal of damage because we export about the same amount to Britain as we do to the rest of the EU, and our agrifood industry (which is largely indigenously run) will be particularly badly hit. In this sense the idea of going with Britain on the grounds that what we sell to them is more integral to our economy has a certain logic, but that logic means going back to dependence on the UK. The BRitish problems are as much if not more about economics (market access) as about politics. An autarkic Ireland would have to become either Pyongyang or Singapore (to use those terms loosely; one problem the UK has is that the leading Brexiteers want Singapore and many of the Leave voters want Pyongyang, and the two projects can't coexist indefinitely) and this would require a political, social and cultural upheaval that I don't think the country wants or could endure. "BRitain or Europe" debates have been going on in Ireland for quite a long while. Arthur Griffith and Roger Casement's arguments for alliance with an European hegemon against Britain, and the arguments in 1790s Ireland about whether an invasion by Revolutionary France would be a good thing, sometimes sound amazingly contemporary.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 28, 2018 21:55:21 GMT
Fintan O'Toole had a rant about fake news yesterday, complaining about pro-life campaigners hiring a professional election adviser and about Lifesite trying to raise money for the campaign against repeal. Fintan of course omits to mention the presence of professional campaigners on the other side and the acceptance of overseas donations by pro-repeal campaigners (Colm O'Gorman of Amnesty has been quite outspoken in defending this - to be fair to him he says pro-lifers should be entitled to accept overseas donations as well.)
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 8, 2018 19:23:48 GMT
Fintan O'Toole had quite a good piece recently pointing out that moving bus routes away from the city centre will hurt the most disadvantaged, who predominate among bus users. (I'm a bus user myself,though I wouldn't say I'm disadvantaged.) This is an example of O'Toole at his best,when he sticks close to the ground. His piece wondering whether there might be something to be said for some older ideas of masculine honour towards women in the light of the rugby players' rape trial and the recent case of a French policeman who allowed himself to be taken hostage and killed by an Islamist to save the life of a woman hostage was also interesting, because it showed O'Toole questioning himself instead of resorting to penny-in-the-slot political correctness as he so often does. O'Toole can be annoying, but he's not negligible.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 11, 2018 20:08:32 GMT
Fintan O'Toole's column yesterday was sophistry at its worst. Basically, he claimed that since the Pro-Life Amendment had failed to prevent a shift in public opinion in favour of abortion,it had achieved nothing and even pro-lifers ought to be willing to get rid of it. Of course the Amendment was never meant to achieve everything on its own (though some of us may have expected it to do more on its own than it could) nor can it survive indefinitely in opposition to public opinion. It is simply meant to keep the political and judicial elites from declaring abortion to be a "right" without the people's consent. If the people choose evil:
But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 26, 2018 21:10:26 GMT
Fintan O'Toole's column this week discusses how when he was a student he assisted a teenager to obtain an abortion, and how this clarified his views because he doesn't feel it makes him accessory to murder. This is interesting in two respects. First of all, he goes out of his way to emphasise that this was not a "hard case" - no rape, no handicap, no suggestion that the mother would be disowned by her parents. This makes it very clear that he sees abortion as essentially a backup contraceptive and thinks it wrong to expect the slightest self-sacrifice or inconvenience to preserve an infant life once called into being. Second, how would Fintan O'Toole react to a county councillor saying that once he took his first bribe he realised that it couldn't possibly be wrong because it didn't feel like a big deal and was just a normal way of doing business? (This is not quite a clear parallel because O'Toole's justification involves saying how happy and successful the girl was afterwards - in other words he is a consequentialist, not simply a subjectivist. But his position involves assuming that the consequences for the child don't count.) www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-how-i-discovered-what-i-felt-about-abortion-1.3471554
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Post by assisi on Apr 27, 2018 8:55:23 GMT
Fintan O'Toole's column this week discusses how when he was a student he assisted a teenager to obtain an abortion, and how this clarified his views because he doesn't feel it makes him accessory to murder. This is interesting in two respects. First of all, he goes out of his way to emphasise that this was not a "hard case" - no rape, no handicap, no suggestion that the mother would be disowned by her parents. This makes it very clear that he sees abortion as essentially a backup contraceptive and thinks it wrong to expect the slightest self-sacrifice or inconvenience to preserve an infant life once called into being. Second, how would Fintan O'Toole react to a county councillor saying that once he took his first bribe he realised that it couldn't possibly be wrong because it didn't feel like a big deal and was just a normal way of doing business? (This is not quite a clear parallel because O'Toole's justification involves saying how happy and successful the girl was afterwards - in other words he is a consequentialist, not simply a subjectivist. But his position involves assuming that the consequences for the child don't count.) www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-how-i-discovered-what-i-felt-about-abortion-1.3471554I find this type of revelation interesting from another angle. I have a hunch that there are many people in Ireland and elsewhere, who were Catholic at one time but who have committed serious sins at some stage in their life and perhaps continue to persist in these. Now there are 2 choices from a Catholic viewpoint. First, you can repent of the sins and turn your life around. Or, second, you can keep the sin going or try to justify it and accommodate it with your own conscience. If the second path is chosen, then for some people there is a need to assuage their sin by trying to eradicate that which stands in opposition to their activity, the Church. It becomes a task they embrace vigorously as the Church and its morality are a constant reminder of the sin. Therefore, belittle the Church, sideline the values, or better still change the Church to suit your sins and values, and you can feel better about yourself. I reckon many anti-Church people would vehemently disagree with this, and it is almost impossible to prove, but I believe it to be widespread.
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Post by hibernicus on May 4, 2018 21:13:28 GMT
I don't think he is rationalising away a sense of guilt. He believes that maturity is achieved by deliberate transgression, by accepting only those rules that are authentic for you rather than subscribing to others' shibboleths. (Anyone who transgresses Fintan's "authentic" rules, on the other hand, is a very bad child.) Second-hand Sartre, basically.
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