amuck-landowner

So... After just two weeks, I am already proven right

maounique

Active Member
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40149649

Each attack will be used for more "regulations" and censorship, more police, more weapons, more war.
UK seems to have forgotten what the war on IRA did just a generation ago, not to mention two.
Same then as now, being tough on catholicism (islam now), the iron fist of justice against the terrorism, more police and army in the streets, police crimes and brutality, did not bring peace, only negotiations and reason could bring peace and freedom for everyone.
Of course, then and now, we do not negotiate with terrorists, if we do, we lose the elections, we have fewer scapegoats, however, if we really want peace and safe streets, we should stop the wars. On Islam, on drugs, on child porn, whatever, let reason and specialists tackle the problem, ideology, religion, guns and violence, ever bigger sentences and death penalties never worked, will not start working now all of a sudden.
On the current path, we will build more walls to keep the refugees created by our wars and support of various regime's ethnic cleansing and dictators, will spend more on wars, will kill and put in jail more "collateral damage" and will have less peace and security, democracy and rights for us and our children, more violence in the streets, more poverty, more dictatorship.
We want business as usual, fine, vote religion, vote war, vote racism and xenophobia, more walls and ???exists, it is all worth it, to quote "the Voice of London" "England prevails!".
 

graeme

Active Member
You were right about what?

The circumstances of the peace in Northern Ireland were very different, and the ideology of the IRA was simple nationalism, nothing like the oppressive and expansionist ideology of ISIS.

While things like the invasion of Iraq contributed to current terrorism, the underlying problem has been that we have been, and continue to be, at peace with, and regard as allies, people who fund the spread of Salafism/Wahhabism.
 

maounique

Active Member
You were right about what?

I was right the attacks will be used to remove more rights and for more surveillance, being tough on democracy and the rule of law will win votes, legal discrimination and depriving various categories of people of their rights, based largely on race and religion. The majority will support it, then they will turn against a minority within that majority that still supports democracy and the rule of law, then some parties will be deemed too "librul" and supporting terrorism and outlawed, and "England prevails" and will follow the turkish "model".
We are only starting here, the more wars we will start and wage against own citizens and various countries and populations, the more rights we will lose and the terrorists will succeed in terminating democracy and the rule of law, what they were after in the first place. The timing shows that clearly, the conservatives were about to lose...
Who does not see it will pay the price, who sees it, will still pay the price, as it will be silenced or worse by the "majority". There is no turning back, the big part of people do not think and will blindly follow their religious leader's propaganda.

the ideology of the IRA was simple nationalism
That was a sectarian conflict and still is. By that logic, salafism is nationalism too, jihad is nationalistic, the islamic state is nationalistic, after all, they want to make their own country and unite all the "true" believers in the same state, their caliphate. You could also say Muhammad was nationalistic too, he put the base of a political empire...
No, the conflict in Ireland is sectarian, it always was, the NI is still predominantly protestant and consider they can only live under a protestant leadership, be it the queen or the archbishop, it stems from the religious wars and the schism initiated by Henry the VIIIth. We had and still have there similar features as in the middle-east, "peace walls", militarized border crossings, checkpoints etc.
Of course, due to EU many of these were rendered obsolete, but will grow back soon, unless the "unionists" which are actually separatists because ireland is catholic and they want to sit apart as being irish, on religious grounds only will lose the majority and will emigrate to Britain solely on religious grounds, anti-nationalistic, actually.
It is the same as in Bosnia, Yugoslavia in general, the people there are essentially the same, they are divided by religion, mostly. Some are christian (orthodox and catholic) some are muslims.
 
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graeme

Active Member
Religion is not the defining issue in Ireland. It is a matter of whether people identify as British or Irish. It is perfectly possible for a protestant (such as these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Irish_nationalists ) to be an Irish Nationalist, or an atheist for that matter. Similarly lots of British Catholics fought the IRA (there are plenty of Catholics in the British Army).

While I am outraged by reductions in civil liberties, it is downright silly to suggest the the UK is going to become like Turkey.
 

maounique

Active Member
From your link:
In 2008, only 4% of Protestants in Northern Ireland thought the long-term policy for Northern Ireland should be unification with the Republic of Ireland, whereas 89% said it should be to remain in the United Kingdom.
Not the defining issue? 89 to 4?
This reminds me again of Turkey, hey, some kurds are in the government party, hence, the issue is not an ethnic one, it is political, the PKK are a communist terrorist movement and all kurds which want autonomy within turkey or those outside which fight IS are also PKK because they dont like religion being communists.

While I am outraged by reductions in civil liberties, it is downright silly to suggest the the UK is going to become like Turkey.

A couple of years ago it would have been downright silly to think Trump might be POTUS one day, or some 10 years ago that Russia will occupy parts of Ukraine, after it guaranteed it's borders in international agreements undersigned by all the security council members. 1 Month ago it would have been downright silly to imagine an UK PM attacking human rights, even more, in an election campaign hoping to win more votes with it.
Things are changing at a break-neck pace, when I was saying some 5 years ago surveillance is omnipresent legally as well as illegally people were calling me a nut case too.
We are used to always retreat, we will always have a safe place to fall back to, who cares what happens in eastern europe, middle-east, who cares about the collateral damage of our righteous bombs, who cares about UKIP or Le Pen, Putin and Erdogan, AfD, PEGIDA, etc, let them build walls, let them dismantle the EU, my village wont be affected, actually, through the protectionist laws and the tougher controls at the walled borders, ethnic and religious profiling, drug trafficking, immigration, smuggling, guns for the gangs managing all those won't come in, same as nothing enters gaza through the walls and the double blocade, egyptian and israeli, ffs, people smuggle whole cars not to mention rockets through that...
 
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graeme

Active Member
4% is very high compared to the proportion of Christians who support ISIS. 4% is not a trivial number. You mention UKIP as a significant force, and polls show they have a 4% share of the vote. Then, given that 5% and 89% = 93%, that implies 7% do not know. That adds up to a quite significant 11%.

By your logic the Falklands war was a religious conflict because the Argentinians are mostly Catholic and the British mostly protestant.

Dismantling the EU sounds like rather a good idea. Did you notice that the Brexit campaign proposed less racist immigration laws, treating people from all over the world equally, rather than favouring Europeans?
 

raindog308

vpsBoard Premium Member
Moderator
That was a sectarian conflict and still is.

No, actually, it was a nationalist conflict.

No, the conflict in Ireland is sectarian, it always was, the NI is still predominantly protestant and consider they can only live under a protestant leadership, be it the queen or the archbishop, it stems from the religious wars and the schism initiated by Henry the VIIIth.

You don't have to take the word of random guys on vpsBoard (though this one actually has a degree in history). Quoting Wikipedia:

"The conflict was primarily political and nationalistic, fuelled by historical events. It also had an ethnic or sectarian dimension, although it was not a religious conflict."

Mainstream historians usually start discussing the origins of the Irish troubles with James I, not Henry VIII.

Your post is completely nonsensical because the most passionate anti-British force - the IRA - evolved into a Marxist organization and none of their literature during their peak periods was religious in nature. For your argument to make sense, we'd expect the IRA to require that its members be Catholic. They did not. Compare to ISIS.

I'm not taking sides or defending anyone in that conflict, but to simplify it down to Catholics vs. Protestants is completely wrong. Yes, obviously there is some religious overlap, but the conflict would have still happened if everyone involved was the member of the same religion, which is why your argument fails.
 

maounique

Active Member
but the conflict would have still happened if everyone involved was the member of the same religion, which is why your argument fails.

That is exactly why it would have not happened, because, if the NI population would have not been protestant in majority, they would have not stayed in the UK in the first place, therefore we would have not had the reason for the conflict to happen.
NI is in UK because the perception is the majority of the people want to be there. Past decades, RI was and even now still is economically worse off than UK and there is an economic reason, I do not deny that, however, that is almost gone now, NI and RI people are relatively equal in income, education, welfare, etc, so things are changing, that reason, if not already gone, is disappearing fast. The real reason they wish to stay in the UK is sectarian, they are afraid of being ruled by a majority catholic country, still, RI is also increasingly secular and when that change will be completed, then there would be no reason for 6 separate counties in Ireland left, but, right now, the main reason for NI being part of UK is sectarian.
Once again, I do not deny there are other reasons too, I accept some people may feel brittish, regardless of religion, some are collaborationist, some really feel part of the brittish culture and society, a very rich and thriving one in many aspects, compared to the much smaller Irish one, I can understand that, but still, whether we like it or not, the surveys are clear, the vast majority of protestants want in UK compared with the vast majority of catholics, which want in RI.

a Marxist organization

As for the Marxist or not, that is being used as a beating stick for many, from Jeremy Corbin and Bernie Sanders to the PKK.
Sure, as someone which lived under "socialism" for 14 years+, I know the dangers and don't even need to have lived under such dictatorship, just need to look at Venezuela or North Korea (which is stalinist, by the way, a different thing).
As economics go, I am on the right, with the only amendment a very basic minimum income should be guaranteed, not for the welfare, but because it helps the economy.
That being said, nobody should be dismissed because of the economic thinking they are expressing, the welfare state can exist, can be prosperous.

Under the pressure from a looming Soviet Union and it's agitation for the communist parties in the western europe, many countries managed to grow economically while also not leaving their citizens homeless and eating from the dumpsters, universal free healthcare can work, even alongside paid for and privately insured one, minimum income can be guaranteed, there can be quality publicly funded education, even free universities for foreigners such as those in germany, etc.

The staunchly conservative governments in UK, from Maggie Thatcher to Theresa May did not manage to dismantle the publicly funded healthcare system which is ranked among the best in the world, for example, while in the US, proposing a similar thing brands you as a communist because the big pharma and insurers lobbysts make billions out of sick people and return a cut to the politicians.

Is UK marxist for having a publicly funded healthcare system, a minimum wage, worker rights (true, some forced upon them by the EU and which will be dismantled soon) and other things such as co-operatives, for example?
Of course, compared to US, everyone is on the left, but marxist?

Did you notice that the Brexit campaign proposed less racist immigration laws, treating people from all over the world equally, rather than favouring Europeans?

There is no immigration law for europeans, that is a different thing, the freedom of movement and settling are part of the EU, while immigration is for people from outside EU. It is like saying that Walles is racist because it favours people from UK (English, Scotts, Irish) to settle there, compared with Canadians, for example.
 
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maounique

Active Member
And...
Shooting yourself in the foot seems to be a favourite past-time for the britons, from calling a referendum on brexit and an election to grab the UKIP's votes and losing both, to promissing in the open to go back 300+ years on habeas corpus and other, more recent laws and principles in the name of fighting terror...
The Tories lost it completely. They did not only get UKIP's votes, but their propaganda too, and now allied with a bunch of nutjobs that are still debating whether the world is newer than 10k years or not. They promised they wont go back on LGBT rights, but you may never know, so many U-turns lately, not only on LGBT, but maybe they will go back on Darwinism too.
UK is rudderless now, the pragmatic germans dont know whether to laugh or to cry, it is a train wreck in slow motion.
 
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