Tollund_Man4
No bio...
User ID: 501
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
On the other hand, the vast majority of people cannot be bothered to put the effort into learning as much about nutrition as bodybuilders, yet because bodybuilders did the hard work and shared their findings the knowledge has percolated downwards to the point where a highschooler can pretty quickly learn what he needs to do to get big. Veganism is a bigger task but knowledge about common deficiencies you need to watch out for on a vegan diet seems like something that could spread over a few decades.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
Be friends with people who don't care about what I write online, and don't view being forcefully resigned to the working class as being all that terrible.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
It is bewildering to consider how little people (apart from the two formed and ongoing "Covid tribes" - lockdown/vaccine skeptics on one hand, zero-covidists still wearing masks on the other hand) care about Covid now, considering how large it loomed for two years
I think it will be a defining moment in Ireland in a non-obvious sense (i.e. aside from the economic damage, govermnent overreach etc). For all the crazies that were involved in the anti-lockdown movement (I say this as an unvaccinated person with many friends in the same boat), and for how weak open dissent was during that time, anti-lockdowners managed to organise enough to build a base of dissidents (in the sense of being enemies of almost every political party) that has outlasted the pandemic.
Protesting isn't very common in Ireland, and when it happens it's usually the farmers, socialists, or some American thing like BLM, but since the pandemic we have seen some pretty big protests against asylum seekers that draw from a completely new base, and with these new hate speech laws I expect to see more. I can't tell if the people protesting asylum seekers are the same people who protested the lockdowns (though this is a common accusation), but in any case dissidents are braver, more energetic and more organised than before. The organising has had to be done from scratch so it's still very poor, but if someone could find a banner to unite these seemingly separate groups there could be some real opposition to the last few years of Irish governance.
Pessimistically, they don't organise but it will still be a defining moment in that in likening future protests to the anti-lockdowners the government has the perfect smear to shut opposition down.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
Here's a somewhat phenomenological idea which I'm just going to throw out there: these people don't recognise anything American about their discourse because it's genuinely not quite the same until there are domestic right-wing American views to contrast with.
The experience of an Irish left-winger is of a civilised country which has shed itself of its own brand of backwards conservatism pointing and laughing at the most recent thing the insane Yanks have gotten up to. No one entertains the idea that there will be any disagreement about this so they voice it freely at work and the like. It's not until a domestic voice gives opposition that the re-enactment of America is complete, the conception of the normal Irish citizen just being a nice person is shifted into Americanised Irish left-winger vs Americanised Irish right-winger, a faithful re-enactment of America involves hating each other after all. It's no surprise that they accuse the right-winger of bringing American politics into it, until the right-winger started to play his role the fact that we were all just re-enacting America hadn't yet become clear.
The real original Irish discourse takes place between old school leftists and a newly minted radical right arguing over which side holds claim to the nationalist cause. This is the stuff that doesn't make any sense in an American context, Americans themselves aren't interested in it, and there is enough substantive thought (a benefit of having a revolution instigated by poets and playwrights educated in the Victorian style) that original debate can be had. It's where everything interesting in Irish political thought happens.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
Maybe I'm mistaken, but as I understand it the calculation problem which applies to full socialism applies to a lesser extent to all government intervention in the economy.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
And continental Europe is full of unreported illegal migrants; they just call them “failed asylum seekers”.
Not sure how it works in the rest of Europe but in Ireland those people are just called asylum seekers. Getting your third rejection on your appeal for the decision to refuse asylum doesn't change things for you, you just try again.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
Culture War in Ireland
The Enoch Burke saga is coming to a close, with the courts deciding not to prosecute him for trespass for repeatedly showing up at the school he was fired from over a dispute about gender pronouns (he aggressively questioned the principal on the matter and she claimed it was assault, it's not clear what really happened), though his fines have reached 74,000 euro and he has already spent time in jail for contempt of court. The Burke family are conservative activists so this wasn't just about him trying to get his job back, he was trying to draw attention to the issue and he succeeded massively given that this is the first big news item I can think of regarding this issue in Ireland. The principal has apparently quit in the meantime so I guess he can count that as a personal victory.
There was some violence around a refugee encampment this week as right-wing protestors clashed with socialists. A Turkish man came out and shouted 'this is my country' as the right-wingers were tearing down 'No War But Class War' signs and swung at them with a metal pole before getting beaten up. Apparently the Turk is deemed a terrorist by the Turkish government and he spent some time in Poland before coming to Ireland. It looks like the encampment has since been destroyed as the right-wingers burned it down in the night. Not the first time people have burned down asylum seeker accomodation but the other instances were in small towns rather than in the middle of Dublin. The police weren't present for any of this but I'm guessing we'll see some arrests down the line, though a lot of the people involved look like minors so I doubt there'll be real jailtime.
Sinn Féin have dropped their pledge to withdraw from NATO and EU defence agreements if they ever get into power. As far as I am aware all big parties are now pro-NATO and Ireland might end up joining at some point. Neutrality was once something we took pride in, and something that the Irish left valued especially, but the malleability in response to current trends that was exemplified by the lockdowns seems to only be accelerating. One consequence of joining NATO might be British troops training in Ireland, maybe we'll even see the Parachute Regiment show their face under a Sinn Féin government. I see this scenario as being much more inflammatory than the Brexit border issue but that risk isn't discussed in the media. The paramilitaries are basically incompetent nowadays but having obvious and hated targets appear can only help them.
A senator has spoken out against the new hate speech bill. Senators don't really have any power in Ireland (we had a referendum a few years back on abolishing the Seanad altogether) so it probably won't come to anything, but it's certainly another tributary in what could become an organised opposition to the way things are going.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
I cannot believe I, an Englishman, am looking with envious eyes and a hopeful heart at Ireland.
Regarding the street fights, with the rise of Antifa it didn't take long for right wingers to get violent too. A couple of hundred members of the National Party were attacked at a hotel last year during a conference with an acquaintance of mine being one of 5 hospitalised. Since then everyone knows a confrontation between the far left and right will probably get violent so they come prepared.
Arson has been going on for much longer. I can think of quite a few incidents in relation to this issue in the past few years. If a building has been earmarked for becoming an asylum centre, simply getting rid of the building works pretty well (especially in small towns where that might be the only suitable building for miles around).
A few examples: Kildare, 3 times in Donegal, Leitrim, Dublin.
Although I do remember it being widely unpopular?
Yes, 70% of people responded negatively in a public consultation on the law. When questioned, our Taoiseach (prime minister) said that the public consultation was likely swayed by organised groups of dissenters and dismissed it as unrepresentative, when asked why they did the public consultation in the first place if it was so flawed he answered "because this is a democracy" and that public consultations aren't the way things are decided.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
I could well be mistaken but I was under the impression that, while not inclined to be particularly favourably disposed to the British armed forces, nor were the Irish notably supportive of nationalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, and the anti-British feeling was only virulent among northern nationalists, not especially any more among Irish themselves.
This is all true, but you don't need to be generally anti-British to have qualms about their armed forces. A couple of years back the Irish government ran into some embarrasment over a planned commemoration for the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police. People in the Republic were still not comfortable with the idea of honouring a since dissolved organisation which committed atrocities 100 years ago, the government misjudged this and ended up cancelling the event. The memory of the British military is much fresher, and news stories about the extent of MI5 and British Army Intelligence Corps' collusion with paramilitaries during the Troubles still rile people up.
You'd have be, what, pushing 70 to be 18 at the time of Bloody Sunday?
That quote about 100 miles being a long distance in Europe and 100 years being a long time in America seems relevant. Some very old soldiers have been brought to court for their role in Bloody Sunday and the Ballymurphy massacre and that being in the news has brought a lot of memories back.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
Even the language war was lost ages ago.
The language was lost even before Ireland gained independence, Irish nationalism is based more on a hope of reviving it rather than asserting it as a fact that already distinguishes us.
So we may be at the start of a new "melting pot" in Ireland, where various white ethnicities meld into one larger white identity, the way it happened in America during the early 20th century. I suspect this process has just begun and will need time to play itself out.
That may happen but the Poles especially are very patriotic and a lot of them either have plans to go back one day or have already done so as Poland catches up economically. They're also surprisingly disinterested in Irish politics, unlike white immigrants in the US who changed the political landscape the Eastern Europeans have mostly kept to themselves (not in daily life, but politically). Having the rights of citizens of an EU member state a lot of them don't even see the point in applying for citizenship.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
Yeah I mean it's a principle of representative democracy that politicians aren't just delegates carrying out their constituents wishes, but representatives with the right to go against the crowd and hopefully be vindicated by the time of the next election.
Still, it's an honest politician that says 'I know you don't like it but here's why we must do it', it's more worrying when they deny the fact that people oppose these policies in the first place, or paint everyone who does as far right (he didn't do that here but they've been using that one more and more).
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
I think this is a big problem with Irish political tradition.
We have two main forms of immune system against bad policy: precedent, which up until recently was a strong conservative force in Irish politics (despite a revolution we kept the common law and many of the older British institutions), and an aversion to making the same mistakes that the British did.
We do criticise our own politicians for doing wrong, but still some threats just have no precedent in our history and we lack the general suspicion of government that allows the Americans to shout tyranny whenever the government crosses certain lines. If hate speech laws and whatever else the government passes in the next few years are going to lead to some soft form of tyranny, it will have to be a painful lesson we learn for the first time rather than something we wouldn't allow to happen in the first place.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
They are famously "as different as shit and shite". Why do two separate parties exist?
"What is the difference between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael?"
"We win more elections" - W.B. O'Carolan, Fianna Fail senator.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
I'll have to look into the Irish Freedom Party. I was pleasantly surprised with how intelligent Justin Barret seemed in his interview with Keith Woods but a National Party protest doesn't seem like something you'd want to risk showing your face at.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
Causes like communism, that moved hundreds of millions and turned the Earth asunder, are now just forgotten or reduced to cosplay attire.
Communism wasn't that big in the US in the first place, it seems like it being forgotten in the US isn't much evidence in favour of it being forgotten in the places where those hundreds of millions were moved.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
I really liked using You Need A Budget but I can't really justify the cost nowadays, anyone have recommendations on a free budgeting app (or perhaps how to go about building your own using Excel?).
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
I'll say yes but my perspective might be skewed by being friends with people who really like to indulge in it. It usually just makes me cringe, though I do see value in painful learning experiences.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
I'd imagine it does all bad things that alcohol normally does but it makes you feel better which is what counts. In the same way I've found getting drunk is a good cure for painful cuts and injuries, it's not that it actually cures anything directly but you get to ignore the pain while another day of natural healing passes.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
It's a good thing that 70% of these members are women. My initial advice may then seem counterintuitive: focus on befriending the men first. At least don't neglect them.
This works in normal nightlife situations too. I used to go out on nights out alone often enough and it was always fairly easy after I got introduced to a group by striking up a conversation with a guy while ordering a pint or something.
This isn't just about not being a loner, being the center of conversation among five guys will get noticed positively by women.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
'The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas' also explores this theme a bit with one of the protagonists living a normal family life as his father administers a concentration camp. The movie does show the Holocaust scenes though so it doesn't go as deep into that angle.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
Concerns re "cultural integrity" usually refer to concerns about the culture of immigrants per se, rather than the effect one way or the other of immigrants on crime, etc.
In a straightforward sense certain norms and ways of life become untenable with a high enough crime rate. If your culture is noted for being one where people help strangers and strike up conversations on the street then an increase in criminals who take advantage of that fact is going to change your culture in the direction of being hostile to strangers.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
It's not the best definition, although Danish crime statistics actually have a category for 'non-Western' so it's useful to stick to it when making comparisons.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
Fair, I don't know enough about Nordic cultures to pick something specific to them, I was thinking more my own experience of British/Irish.
Tollund_Man4
11mo ago
I can't see why you couldn't drink 8% all day though
If you're used to drinking 5-10 pints on a night out 8% will get you way too drunk. Source: Irish drinking culture met Belgian beer.
I'm not a vegan but there does seem to be a moral difference between killing something intentionally and it being an unavoidable aspect (even if it can be improved upon) of staying alive.
Certain hunter-gatherer groups might satisfy the latter when killing animals but for the rest of us eating meat is a matter of convenience and pleasure.
More options
Context Copy link