jmm@bonnie.UUCP (Joe Mcghee) (09/13/84)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sdcc7!wa263 (a.k.a. bookmark) says: > Though I'm not sure how relevant it is to those of us who don't > have to deal with it, the government of Ireland (the Irish Free State, > not the north) openly sacrifices many of what we think of as personal > liberties to Roman Catholic orthodoxy. Would you mind siting the laws you are referring to as I did with the Special Powers Act? No need to be long winded - a few of the most glaring examples will do. If you can't site any examples, then you shouldn't make unsupported blanket statements like the one above. A few years ago the chief Rabbi of Ireland called the Irish government a model of religious tolerance. Religious training FOR ALL RELIGIONS is paid for by the government on a per capita basis. A Protestant member of the Irish Parliament, the Dail, joined him in inviting the people of Northern Ireland to join them in a unified state. > All Irish family law (marriage, divorce, birth control, pregnancy, > education, etc.) conforms to the strangled, perverse, medieval, disgusting > and restrictive teachings of the neurotic, authoritarian, and greedy > hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church. (You know what they are: no, no, > no, no, no, no....) Good. Now we've discarded that old dictum about money being the root of all evil. It's really the Vatican which is the root of all evil! A recent plebicite on the question of allowing abortion in Ireland was rejected by a large majority of the people. Presumably, if the people were suffering by not having abortion in Ireland, they would have voted it in by a wide margin, but they didn't. Contraceptive devices are available from physicians. People who want abortions, make a short trip to England to have it done. > Though I have little sympathy for the killers on either side > in Northern Ireland, if somebody gave me a choice between living under > the common law and statutes of the UK, and suffering under the > canon law enacted as the laws of the Irish republic, I'd pick the common > law every time. Too bad the Irish people and all those living in other British colonies never had the opportunity to choose English common law. Britain might have avoided a lot of problems if they had been granted it. The trouble is that the choice was never available. England governs itself by one set of laws and its colonies by an entirely different set of laws. Poynings Law (1495 to 1782), for instance, said that the Irish Parliament could not BEGIN DEBATE on a law until the ENGLISH MONARCH had ALREADY APPROVED the law in question. If the same system were applied in England, Englishmen would rise up in bloody revolution, as they have many times, and overthrow any monarch who dared to take such dictatorial powers to himself. Remember that Americans initially protested that they only wanted to be accorded all the rights of Englishmen, before they embarked on their revolution. > The common law is based on the notion that justice is a right, and > that the right of justice belongs to the parties. Irish law is different. > It treats justice as a privilege, which the parties apply to the government > for. The law exists not to serve, but to dictate. As I said above, you're comparing apples to oranges. You should compare Irish law to other present British colonies (Northern Ireland for instance) or to Irish law under British rule. Sad to say, Irish law today is somewhat of a holdover from British colonial laws in Ireland. The problem is not that the laws have been changed too much, but that they haven't changed enough from the laws under British rule. In Ireland and in Palestine under British rule the army could legally demolish the homes of those it suspected of being insurgents or rebels and frequently did. This law was not carried over into present Irish law because it was so distasteful to the Irish but it was carried over in Israel where it is still in use today against arabs. Republicans would like to remove all vestiges of British colonial rule and replace it with a system which is much more responsive to human needs. > I note, however, that the various ``emergency'' and ``anti- > terrorist'' laws that apply in Northern Ireland are themselves an affront > to the sensibilities of anyone who believes in personal liberties, civil > rights, and responsible government. Well, good for you! > John Stuart Mill (On Liberty, read it sometime) would be spinning > in his grave. I doubt that Mill would be spinning in his grave because much greater atrocities occurred in his time. He was considered a radical and was completely outside the mainstream of English political thought in his time. I imagine that upon hearing that another 100,000 Irish had starved, his whole day would be ruined and he would resolutely stalk off to pen another penetrating and incisive thesis on the ills of the economic system which he could then read in the comfortable drawing rooms of the wealthy elite. Mill was also one of the principal officers of the East India Company - one of the biggest money-making machines of the British Colonial Empire. > I'm also not convinced that the Protestants (so called), made > ever more rigid by the pressures of their situation, would enact laws > that were much fun to live under. History shows us that intolerant > groups can spring from any branch of the world's many religions. It's a logical trap to speak of Anglo-Irish conflicts in terms of religion. It leads nowhere. Ireland was first invaded when England was Catholic. It was taken with the sword and the gun. It is held with the gun. It is held for economic and political reasons - not religious reasons. > One reason the Provos can always find recruits is that the lousy > ``Protestants'' do their utmost to abuse, denigrate, and attack their > Catholic neighbors. They treat them rather worse than we treat blacks, > so it's no wonder the Catholics don't like it. Again, dwelling on religion is useless. Englishmen created the laws of Northern Ireland and Englishmen enforce them. The Ulster loyalists only play the roles assigned to them by Englishmen. Winston Churchill's father, Lord Randolph Churchill, had extensive financial interests in Northern Ireland and whenever it looked like the Home Rule Bill might pass parliament he would go to the Belfast to "play the Orange card" by stirring up anti-Catholic hatred among loyalists. He finally died of terminal syphilis as Henry VIII did. A fitting end to a troublemaker. > I think the bloody (both ways) Provos ought to quit their > pointless war, and melt right back over the border into the Catholic > State. And the ``Protestants'' ought to lay down their guns and show > a little tolerance for once. The Provos can't and won't "melt back across the border" because they are born and raised in Northern Ireland. A southern Irishman would stick out like a sore thumb in the north because the have a completely different accent and are recognized after a brief conversation. The loyalists will lay down their guns willingly when Russian generals become Wall Street brokers. Any mention of tolerance and loyalists in the same sentence is a logical absurdity. Winston Smith Ministry of Truth Airstrip One ( In real life: J. M. McGhee ) (No, I'm not even a Republican. I'm a Democrat :-). )
wa263@sdcc7.UUCP (bookmark) (09/14/84)
<- bug snack. Though I'm not sure how relevant it is to those of us who don't have to deal with it, the government of Ireland (the Irish Free State, not the north) openly sacrifices many of what we think of as personal liberties to Roman Catholic orthodoxy. All Irish family law (marriage, divorce, birth control, pregnancy, education, etc.) conforms to the strangled, perverse, medieval, disgusting and restrictive teachings of the neurotic, authoritarian, and greedy hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church. (You know what they are: no, no, no, no, no, no....) Though I have little sympathy for the killers on either side in Northern Ireland, if somebody gave me a choice between living under the common law and statutes of the UK, and suffering under the canon law enacted as the laws of the Irish republic, I'd pick the common law every time. The common law is based on the notion that justice is a right, and that the right of justice belongs to the parties. Irish law is different. It treats justice as a privilege, which the parties apply to the government for. The law exists not to serve, but to dictate. I note, however, that the various ``emergency'' and ``anti- terrorist'' laws that apply in Northern Ireland are themselves an affront to the sensibilities of anyone who believes in personal liberties, civil rights, and responsible government. John Stuart Mill (On Liberty, read it sometime) would be spinning in his grave. I'm also not convinced that the Protestants (so called), made ever more rigid by the pressures of their situation, would enact laws that were much fun to live under. History shows us that intolerant groups can spring from any branch of the world's many religions. One reason the Provos can always find recruits is that the lousy ``Protestants'' do their utmost to abuse, denigrate, and attack their Catholic neighbors. They treat them rather worse than we treat blacks, so it's no wonder the Catholics don't like it. I think the bloody (both ways) Provos ought to quit their pointless war, and melt right back over the border into the Catholic State. And the ``Protestants'' ought to lay down their guns and show a little tolerance for once. End of Diatribe by bookmark (No, I'm not even a Christian)