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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   28363 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 20, 2023

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This afternoon, an Algerian man who'd been resident in Ireland for years approached a crèche in the Dublin city centre and stabbed a teacher and several children, all of whom have been hospitalised. A man intervened and tackled him to the ground (I've heard unconfirmed reports that he was Brazilian, making this something of a wash from an anti-immigration perspective).

In a remarkable display of striking while the iron is hot, an anti-immigrant group organised a protest outside the Dáil (lower house of parliament) later this afternoon. Protesters clashed with police officers at the scene of the crime. Before long it escalated into a full-scale riot, the likes of which I've never seen before in Dublin. A bus was set on fire, as was at least one police car and a Luas (the light rail system serving Dublin). A Holiday Inn was set on fire. Shops have been smashed up and looted. I had to get a taxi home as the public transport has been suspended. Walking through the streets is eerie, they're largely empty aside from riot cops carrying riot shields very forcefully redirecting me. Helicopters are still circling overhead.

My gut feeling is that this is primarily the work of opportunistic scumbags rioting for the fun of it, for which a fairly small protest which got out of hand was merely the catalyst. On the other hand, I have heard a lot about the alleged "rise of the far right" in Ireland over the course of the last few years, and the fact that it happened so soon after Geert Wilders' election is certainly odd timing.

EDIT: See also @Tollund_Man4's more detailed write-up in the transnational thread.

My gut feeling is that this is primarily the work of opportunistic scumbags rioting for the fun of it, for which a fairly small protest which got out of hand was merely the catalyst

Does Ireland's history mean that there's a population of such scumbags who are unusually competent and causing trouble?

As someone else said they’re still somewhat younger than other Western Europeans as a population, so both relatively more youths and a police force that’s often taken a less-than-fully-zealous approach to organized crime.

police force that’s often taken a less-than-fully-zealous approach to organized crime.

This bit does sound like a historical holdover, since certain respectable political parties both north and south of the border have friends in interesting places.

Seeing rumours that the Algerian guy was homeless and literally brain damaged. He was also in court last year for possession of a knife and criminal damage.

Seems like a good candidate for a scissor statement (not sure how to word this, a scissor case?), is the guy the most blameless a person can be in this situation and the tragedy a result of poor homeless and healthcare services or should he have been deported the moment he ended up in court? Technically the latter couldn’t happen because he was a citizen but that just pushes back the question to whether we should be more careful in handing out citizenship.

Strangely enough the standard law & order viewpoint that would have prevented this tragedy (a mentally ill guy waving knives around should probably be in jail if no other institution is available) is being touted by the left and centre while the (far) right are the ones defending rioters. To be fair to the right wingers there are plenty of videos of people confronting non-Irish looters during the riot, but their name is going to be tarred by association with looters whether they like it or not. The Irish left’s idea of law & order isn’t great for free speech either.

Seems like a good candidate for a scissor statement

I think toxoplasmosis is the more apt scottism.

I heard about this on CBC radio, and they were far worse than what was linked downthread (also worse than their article. Unfortunately, their archives are terrible and six hours is too long for "live" repeats online, so I'll have to go from memory so it took a while to find it in The World at Six for November 24 2023, 9:30 p.m. EST, starting at 17:08 with the key quote at 19:05:

Police say false information spread quickly through Social Media that the attacker might have been a foreigner and the misinformation appeared to fuel the frenzy of destruction that followed.

I'd guess that the police did say that, and the people criticizing the baby-stabber likely don't have a flawless record for precision in their language, so CBC technically passes the "very rarely lies" test. Too bad that's worth zero points in my books.

Creche? Are we in Baldurs Gate 3?

It's also a term used in BattleTech by the Clans, where the young are raised and trained.

My thoughts exactly. Creche is only a word I've ever heard from video games. First from Black and White like 20 years ago, and more recently from BG3.

Creche is just what they call preschool/daycare in Ireland.

What?

First and only time I ever encountered the word crèche was in the game Baldurs Gate 3, where it refers to a base for the species Githyanki. Then I saw it here.

Didn't know they used the word, a French word apparently, for daycare in Ireland.

Not just a base, a base where they raise their young, hence why it is called a crèche. Time does not pass normally in the Astral plane so Githyanki establish creches on the material plane so the children can grow to adulthood.

Its also used in the UK as well and I think Canada and South Africa and probably anywhere British English holds sway.

Canadian here, and I'd never heard it until this year when it was suddenly popping up all over, and never for a school or daycare located anywhere other than Ireland or Faerun.

In the UK I think it’s often used for daycare that isn’t entirely a traditional paid nursery. Like a corporate daycare for employees’ children, or something during a multi-day event to drop off kids.

I’ve never heard of it in the UK, it was always nursery or nursery school.

Interesting, we have a corporate creche so maybe I heard it there.

I learned about the Children’s Creche from Alpha Centauri. Base improvement. +2 growth and +1 morale.

Proper care and education for our children remains a cornerstone of our entire colonization effort. Children not only shape our future; they determine in many ways our present. Men and women work harder knowing their children are safe and close at hand. And never forget that, with children present, parents will defend their home to the death.

~ Col. Corazon Santiago, Planet: A Survivalist's Guide

Edit: @erwgv3g34 beat me

Baldur's Gate 3? You filthy casual.

The Peacekeepers seem to be suffering some dreadful drone riots recently

It's a little known fact, but France and its language does actually exist outside of the Forgotten Realms.

Yes, it appears French exists in the mythical land of Ireland.

I saw some news articles online about this in Australia earlier today.

What I found really conspicious was that in virtually all the articles there was absolutely no description of the perpetrator of the stabbing other than 'man' or at best 'older man', which was the spark that cause the protest/riot (depending on your political persuasion). There was also no mention that I can recall of the perpetrator being tackled and restrained by a member of the public, and certainly not that he was Brazilian. You'd be forgiven for thinking that the crime was committed by an Irish native.

Except, of course, the second half of all these articles all quote a bunch of Irish politicians and other public figures condemning the riot as the actions of a hateful, far-right mob, or similar words to that effect. Which kind of gives the game away. Do they think by merely mentioning the background of the stabbing perpetrator they will give credance to the 'hateful far-right riot', like invoking a spirit?

It's one of many cases where the news media (at least here in Australia), technically report the story factually accurately, but but omits some details and is framed in such a way to only lead you to one conclusion. They can avoid claims of editorialising by claiming they are merely quoting and reporting on statements made by politicians, which is also true.

It's one of many cases where the news media (at least here in Australia), technically report the story factually accurately, but but omits some details and is framed in such a way to only lead you to one conclusion. They can avoid claims of editorialising by claiming they are merely quoting and reporting on statements made by politicians, which is also true.

I would like to hear a journalist's perspective on this some day. Is it taught? Is the intuitive grokking of those rules – condemn the far-right mob, but don't explicitly spell out their casus belli, so the impression is that far-righters are just spontaneously violent – a job requirement? Am I too deep in a bubble and it's just common sense already to speak this way here and the other way around about George Floyd?

I suspect the tactic actually works – remember, 50% of people are below average, and the average ain't that high, and it's white people who are the target audience, so they just trust journalists to do a honest job.

I would be shocked if Journo-list wasn't still around, and journalists almost by definition are much better educated than they are remunerated and live in urban areas, so they tilt pretty heavily left anyways.

Either chatgpt has been around for much longer or Journo-list (or equivalent) still exists. It is creepy how quickly the same terms get used, even in opinion rags, to describe something.

Schooled. Journalism schools still exist, but I hesitate to say educated because at least from my conversations with the students they were not well rounded independent thinkers. They learn good technical writing of articles, but generally don’t get enough background in other subjects to allow them to understand what is actually happening.

I mean, isn’t that kinda not their job? Journalists are biased, but they’re definitionally reporters and not supposed to be running blogs.

Pushing a narrative is a problem, but they’re actually supposed to be writing articles along the lines of ‘experts say x about y’- it’s what we pay them to do.

Pushing a narrative is a problem, but they’re actually supposed to be writing articles along the lines of ‘experts say x about y’- it’s what we pay them to do.

How do they know who is a proper expert and who is a charlatan, without knowledge? They don't, so they take the safe and logical route: the 'experts' are those who follow the narrative.

I mean the problem with sending someone to report on a topic that knows little about the topic is that they don’t have any way to vet what each set of experts is telling them.

A scientifically literate reporter is probably going to have some insights into how diseases work and how germs spread and so on. Maybe not perfect but enough to know where the expert’s story might not add up, or what questions need to be answered or even whether the research referenced says what the expert claims it says.

A political science literate person who knows the history and main actors in Israel and Gaza is not simply going to uncritically report the two competing narratives and call it good. They’re in some sense going to examine the evidence in light of what is known about the parties and give as accurate of a picture of what’s actually true.

What I found really conspicious was that in virtually all the articles there was absolutely no description of the perpetrator of the stabbing other than 'man' or at best ' older man', which was the spark that cause the protest/riot (depending on your political persuasion).

The most I saw was national broadcaster, RTé, mentioning that he was an Irish citizen who “came to this country 20 years ago”. The exception is GRIPT, a small but quickly growing media company that mentioned that he was Algerian in the headline.

I really think the Aisling Murphy case is worth looking into, the media is making the exact same mistake as before by obfuscating the nature of the attack (it will be a true repeat if they’re brave enough to scold Irish men for toxic attitudes that lead to random attacks against teachers).

It was crazy how up in arms all of the women on my Instagram were about Aisling Murphy and how her murder was a huge indictment of Irish culture and how Irish men are socialised and how we need to #stopblamingwomen - up until the exact moment it turned out the killer was Slovak, and then they immediately shut up about it.

What I found really conspicious was that in virtually all the articles there was absolutely no description of the perpetrator of the stabbing other than 'man' or at best ' older man', which was the spark that cause the protest/riot (depending on your political persuasion). You'd be forgiven for thinking that the crime was committed by an Irish native.

The same here, only the tabloids and alternative media specified that the attacker was Algerian; "respectable" outlets like The Journal, the Times and the Independent don't consider his nationality or ethnicity worth mentioning at all. Whenever there's a horrible unprovoked crime like this, you can practically smell the "please let the assailant be Irish" energy emanating from broadsheet journalists and the PMC types on X and Reddit. I saw a comment about the stabbing on the /r/ireland subreddit, some dude said something to the effect of "Imagine hearing about a horrible crime like this and your first instinct is to wonder what colour the attacker's skin is. Despicable." You mean, exactly like you're doing right now?

Some years ago (probably on the old subreddit) I pointed out that this journalistic approach has a limited shelf life. Sooner or later, every reader will cotton on to the fact that whenever the MSM report on a violent crime committed by a white native man, his skin colour will be mentioned prominently (either in the headline or the lede); ergo, if you see an article about a violent crime which doesn't mention the assailant's skin colour or nationality, the only reasonable assumption is that he is black or Arab or Eastern European (optionally Muslim). (See also Scott's post, section IV, about how banning employers from asking interviewees about their criminal record actually decreased the rate at which employers hired black candidates.) They're going to have to come up with a different method for routing around this problem sooner or later. Perhaps five years from now, news articles will read "an assailant stabbed a victim" without mentioning any identity characteristics about either person at all.

Do they think by merely mentioning the background of the stabbing perpetrator they will give creedance to the 'hateful far-right riot', like invoking a spirit?

Well this is the thing: for modern broadsheet journalists, contempt for the common man is built into their psyche. If you've fully internalised the idea that any uneducated person can become radicalised overnight by exposure to far-right disinformation and "fake news" - well, imagine how much more potent an effect information and real news might have. The average journalist no longer sees their job as one of informing the public but educating it, and if that means selectively leaving the reader in the dark about certain pertinent facts, so be it. (Perhaps I'm being rather rose-tinted about journalistic standards in the past and this is all one big "always has been" meme.) Many journalists seem to think that even informing their readers what the Bad People believe is tantamount to signal-boosting their opinions, so they resort to this circuitous approach of informing the reader that Alice has transphobic™ opinions (or quoting a woke person who thinks Alice has transphobic opinions i.e. "delegated defamation") without actually telling the reader what those opinions are and allowing them to draw their own conclusions as to whether "transphobic" is an accurate characterisation.

every reader will cotton to the fact

They're pulling the wool over our eyes!

(Perhaps I'm being rather rose-tinted about journalistic standards in the past and this is all one big "always has been" meme.)

This video essay makes a pretty compelling argument that, yes, in fact the news was (more) unbiased and higher quality in the past and it's not just nostalgia.

Some of the examples are mindblowing. The example of the reporting on the Soviet Union's political affairs is remarkably unbiased and uneditorialised despite it being the literal height of the Cold War.

Sooner or later, every reader will cotton on to the fact that whenever the MSM report on a violent crime commited by a white native man, his skin colour will be mentioned prominently (either in the headline or the lede); ergo, if you see an article about a violent crime which doesn't mention the assailant's skin colour or nationality, the only reasonable assumption is that he is black or Arab or Eastern European (optionally Muslim)

Sadly i don't think this will ever happen. Remember, the bottom fraction in terms of intelligence has trouble figuring out that theyv would probably be hungry right now if they hadn't eaten breakfast this morning. They certainly aren't going to intuit chains of reasoning like this.

Remember, the bottom half in teems of intelligence has trouble figuring out that theyv would probably be hungry right now if they hadn't eaten breakfast this morning.

This isn't true. Even if the original study didn't have measurement errors(and my two cents is that the study you're referring to almost certainly added points to the prisoner's IQ scores- I can say from personal experience that there is an IQ cutoff for the question but it's a lot lower than 90. Maybe a high seventies or something) it showed the IQ threshold for simple conditional hypotheticals to be 90, which you'll notice is noticeably below average. The US average IQ is 98 IIRC with a standard of deviation of 15, so like 67% is above.

You're right. Bottom half was too aggressive. I'll edit it to say bottom fraction.

Eh, this is pretty uncharitable towards the lower half of the population

The "Muslamic ray gun" guy sounded like a low class idiot (which egalitarians gleefully pointed out), but his "stereotypical" view of things turned out to be closer than the people mocking him for his accent gave him credit for. They already have these views. If they keep reading and don't see it, they'll notice.

You also ignore that distrust of the media will lead them to people who will point it out explicitly for anyone too dumb. "Coulter's law" is not some obscure wisdom for >100 IQ nerds. It's one Google search or rightist YouTube video away, for those without the IQ or patience to read it's a real golden age.

(This is the same logic behind "low class conservatives are too dumb to use their smartphone to find out Bud Lights parent company and it's subsidiaries. ". Well, if you went on /r/conservatives there was a copypasta in every thread listing them. Even if they were that dumb -and they aren't- only one person needs to be smart.)

I've found that it's the fully bought in progressive, "right side of history" middle class - who should be higher IQ - who're really hard to convince if they can't find an NYT article stating something. It's them this omission works best on. If they say "X never happens" (about something contentious like say...race or gender) you can have a billion NYPost/whoever articles with proof they will simply shut down the minute they see the URL unless you can show a paper of record also touching the problem. This is why activists hate Jesse Singal so much for that Atlantic article.

A lot of the time the news isn't obscuring knowledge so much as denying it legitimacy. People know the Muslamic ray gun theory. It's just that educated people all just know it's merely another instance of justifying racism by appeal to protecting white women from dehumanized people of color.

But this only lasts so long as the system as a whole is legitimate and isn't under too much strain.

Which Jesse Singal article, the trans kids one?

Yes, he had an article where he touched on trans kids and the detransitioning issue.

Note that I said "every reader", not "every person". The people who read broadsheet newspapers are a selected group already.

Remember, the bottom half in teems of intelligence has trouble figuring out that theyv would probably be hungry right now if they hadn't eaten breakfast this morning.

I don't eat breakfast, and I often am not hungry by lunchtime. So "you will be hungry at Y o'clock if you don't eat breakfast at X o'clock" isn't always true. What you are trying to say is that there are some people who don't know how to play the game of answering problems like that, that the 'right' answer is 'supposed' to be "if I didn't eat breakfast, I would be hungry now" even if you are one of those people who skip breakfast and don't get hungry until later than you are 'supposed' to get hungry.

He's referring to a psychological experiment on inmates which showed prisoners with IQ's below 90 can't understand hypotheticals no matter how dumbed down eg "how would you feel if you didn't eat breakfast". I suspect that prisoners were either systematically less cooperative than average(likely) or their IQ tests were graded on a curve(also not implausible).

I don’t actually know, but that’s the context.

Yeah, I think it's likely both that (1) some prisoners were too dumb and (2) some prisoners were messing with the interviewers. Besides, I don't think that question is such a great test: it's just testing "do you know how to guess the teacher's password?"

Yeah, I might be hungry if I didn't eat breakfast. Or I might not. Or the question might make no sense because I always make sure to eat breakfast, so why are you asking me if I don't? Or I might be someone who always skips breakfast, so replying "I feel fine" is the true answer. The only 'correct' answer for the test-takers is "I would feel hungry" but that's not 'considering a hypothetical', that's 'can you guess what answer you are supposed to give?'.

I agree that if you're smart enough to be able to guess the 'correct' answers then you're not likely to be in prison, but then again you don't need to be too smart to figure out "what does this guy want me to say?", either.

As an experienced pedatn, I enjoyed the fact that the line morphed from the grammatically correct "How would you feel now if you hadn't eaten breakfast?" to the strictly incorrect "How would you feel if you didn't eat breakfast?"

Obviously look it's variation in dialect, blah blah prescriptivism, but I still found it funny

No. I was just speaking in shorthand. You don't have to say you would be hungry. "I probably still wouldn't be hungry even if i skipped breakfast because i often don't eat breakfast" is a perfectly fine answer as well. "Bad" answers are those that reveal that the person is incapable of embracing hypotheticals. Ie people who say things like "what are you talking about, i did eat breakfast"

ergo, if you see an article about a violent crime which doesn't mention the assailant's skin colour or nationality, the only reasonable assumption is that he is black or Arab or Eastern European (optionally Muslim)

Called by some "Coulter's Law":

The longer we go without being told the race of the shooters, the less likely it is to be white men.

Many journalists seem to think that even informing their readers what the Bad People believe is tantamount to signal-boosting their opinions,

To be fair Apophasis exists for a reason. Mere mention of an idea, even if surrounded by denunciation, can implant it in the minds of readers. See also: Don't stuff beans up your nose.

Here in the Washington DC area, everyone's taken it for granted for decades: carjackers, robbers and other violent criminals (except the occasional domestic murderer), and professional thieves/shoplifters, are never white.

Edit: And of course, you'll never find anybody drawing attention to that fact in public, as that would be "hate speech"; the metro area is 99% blue tribe.

Are there even working class or underclass whites in DC?

Not since 1965 or so in DC itself. School desegregation in 1954 caused the trickle of white flight to turn into a torrent, making for the "Chocolate City/Vanilla Suburbs" that obtained until:

1973 in Prince Georges County, when school busing was introduced to achieve racial balance and created an even greater surge of white flight there, and

The early eighties in the rest of suburbia, when the first wave of Central American immigrants started pouring into the affordable garden apartment complexes, displacing the whites from there and pretty soon taking all the fast food, landscaping and physical labor jobs. Nowadays, on the buses and at the bus stops in Fairfax County, you will not hear one word of English (even the drivers are all foreigners now! (And most of the taxi drivers are African immigrants and Afghanis.)), nearly all small shops are owned and staffed by immigrants, and Fairfax County schools are maybe 35% white, down from ~80% in my high-school years forty years ago. Less than that in Montgomery County and in the low single digit percentages in DC and Prince Georges.

Pretty much all the whites here are white-collar PMC types, and the white working class has decamped to remote trailer parks many miles from the nearest public transit.

Not really as local residents. There are some amount of folks who commute in from VA/MD and as far as WV for service work.

Mere mention of an idea, even if surrounded by denunciation, can implant it in the minds of readers.

Isn't this the whole reasoning behind "journalistic balance"? You present one side of the debate, the other side of the debate, then allow the readers/viewers to draw their own conclusions.

A healthy journalistic approach to the debate around trans women in prisons would look something like this:

Alice: Given the minimal risk that trans women pose to female inmates (as evidenced by studies A, B and C) and the elevated risk of sexual assault they face in male prisons (as evidenced by studies X, Y and Z), I believe it is appropriate to house trans women inmates in female prisons rather than male.

Bob: I disagree - I believe the risk that trans women pose to female inmates has been vastly understated (as evidenced by studies D, E and F). Furthermore...

Instead what we so often get is:

"Bob has become notorious in recent years for his outspoken views on trans issues, which have been widely criticised as transphobic and demeaning to trans people."

Me: "Wow, that sounds really bad. Shame that the article doesn't tell me what these views are." half an hour of Googling later "Oh. He thinks it's inappropriate to house trans women in female prisons if they haven't transitioned. This is a totally normal opinion that the majority of people believe, which doesn't remotely imply that you hate trans people or wish them harm."

As I said in the linked article, if a journalist tells you that Bob has Bad Opinions but refuses to tell you what those opinions are, that suggests that the journalist has remarkably little faith in their own opinions to win in the marketplace of ideas - on some level, the journalist thinks their own ideas are so weak and unintuitive that even mentioning an opposing view will make a convert of the average reader. Indeed, we already know this is the standard attitude of trans activists everywhere, given that their whole modus operandi is to smuggle in unpopular pro-trans legislation under the guise of gay rights legislation which the average voter actually does endorse.

This 'lying through omission' also becomes evident in the meta narrative where left leaning journalists from the ABC and SBS choose which stories they cover and which they do not.

it happened so soon after Geert Wilders' election is certainly odd timing.

The stabbing or the protest?

The protest.

A man intervened and tackled him to the ground (I've heard unconfirmed reports that he was Brazilian, making this something of a wash from an anti-immigration perspective).

Although they can't say it out loud of course, I'm sure that most anti-immigration Irish are probably not at all concerned about immigration from Brazil.

You'd be wrong actually - Brazilians have congregated heavily in certain areas of Dublin and are widely viewed as a scourge there (eg, the area I live in, where this attack and subsequent riot took place - literally 100m from my flat).

True, they are more economically productive than the median African or Arab, but have some cultural traits that make them rub Irish people the wrong way. For one, they are more crassly materialistic than even Nigerians, and are heavily involved in every sort of vice trade.

Second, their sexual mores are extraordinarily lax in comparison to the Irish, who would be one of the more chaste European nations - prostitution in Dublin is dominated by Brazilians, and a "Brazilian wife" gives rise to the same sort of sniggering that a "Thai wife" might elicit elsewhere. Brazilians have a reputation as being ruthlessly mercenary in matters romantic, and the visa-marraige-to-ugly-man-until-passport-divorce is a very true pattern I've seen in a mate myself.

Third, they are facilely _un_cynical in a way that grates on Irish people - I have yet to get through a conversation with a Brazilian without them telling me about their "dream of Europe" in such a gormless way as would make a beauty pageant contestant squirm.

What's interesting is that Brazilians actually embody many of the traits that Irish people claim to dislike in Americans, with none of the redeeming characteristics whatsoever.

Third, they are facilely _un_cynical in a way that grates on Irish people - I have yet to get through a conversation with a Brazilian without them telling me about their "dream of Europe" in such a gormless way as would make a beauty pageant contestant squirm.

Do Irish people object to the this because they think the Brazillian is bullshitting, or do they object because they suspect the Brazillian is being honest?

Very interesting way to pose the question.

I can't speak for the entire nation, but I would think it's a saccharine and narcissistic sentiment and stop consideration there - I wouldn't consider how deeply believed it might be by the speaker.

"You Irish sure are a contentious lot."

That's interesting, though. I wasn't aware of the Brazilian presence in Ireland at all.

I'm surprised at this. I haven't heard much bad said about the Brazilians myself but I'm not from Dublin so maybe it's different there. It's a different demographic than the average Brazilian in Ireland but the high population of Brazilians in Gort is considered more of a curiosity than a reason to avoid it.

It does seem we prefer our own tribal groups and immigration seems to stand as an exemplar of the power of elites to override the common will. I suppose Dublin should celebrate being a modern economy? But to be fair to the obnoxious Brazilians, pejorative things are said about immigrants of any stripe in the early days, but differences tend to become less salient with subsequent generations. The other things you talk about could be more related to a marginal economic existence, rather than hard-grained cultural/ethnic? I'm presuming the average Brazilian family doesn't have mum popping out for nightwork?

Ah look, I'm sure they're fine on their own terms - this isn't a critique any Brazilian should take seriously. I'm describing a mob of Brazilians versus any individual, etc.

Behold: classic Irish obsequiousness and indirectness and backpedalling coming out even on an anonymous board. I'm sure a Brazilian could take an equally good potshot at us - I've heard they find our lack of cosmetic surgery troubling and wrongheaded, for example.

As for poverty explaining vice - I don't think that's the case in an interesting way. Sure, poverty drives people to vice - but which vices, and which first, are culture. Brazilians in Ireland are generally here on bad-faith student visas (they must get a stamp from an "english language school" as a visa condition, making these schools de facto a private arm of Irish migration control - this incentive structure leads to exactly the outcome you'd predict) and I don't see, say, Indian students that dool the same visa scam turning en masse to dealing or prostitution.

Fair play, well I'm certainly not immune to arguments about different cultures having different features and I also believe you can privilege some as being more beneficial in some context.

I'm quite a fan of Fukuyama style political philosophy that looks at things like why India failed to have an imperial/hegemonic national system for very long prior to the English. There are many factors... or, why do English colonies seem to maintain institutional elements of governance better than Spanish ones.

And, purely from hearsay, Brazilians have more fun because they are sexually liberated and more fun-loving...

True, though some of the ones brave enough to set fire to buses might be.

There’s been a lot of tension between Brazilian couriers and Dublin’s feral youth these last few years. A lot of Brazilians work courier and food delivery jobs and a certain section of young Dubliners like stealing their motorbikes. I don’t know the number but a few Brazilians have been severely injured or killed by joyriders and thieves (or in one case by the police trying to stop the thieves).

It is interesting that in a lot of the videos about youths attacking people in gangs etc coming from Dublin in recent years the perpetrators were white, presumably natives (as first-generation white immigrants would mostly be older than 15/16/17 I imagine). Are these the same types that were rioting against the migrants yesterday?

In much of Western Europe the poor white peripheral underclass is somewhat geographically separated from the largely immigrant underclass in the capital (London, Paris and Berlin all have this dynamic to some extent, e.g. working class white English tend to be rare in Inner London). Is this less the case in Ireland?

I’m not a Dublin native but I think it would be very strange if turned out that the rioters weren’t mostly Irish.

There are lots of videos and newspaper articles about the absolutely wild behaviour of Dublin youth over the years, they’re definitely capable of burning down trams and stealing buses (not so different from Belfast youth in that regard though riots are still very rare in Dublin).

I’m not a Dublin native but I think it would be very strange if turned out that the rioters weren’t mostly Irish.

Ah, I meant to ask whether those who rioted yesterday were likely youths otherwise involved in organized crime (like that you discuss).

Yes, the same class of youth is given to trangress in both cases.

Amusingly, there actually was quite a bit of looting by Africans of sports goods stores - presumably caught up in the far-right spirit and violently enthused by the prospect of their own deportation.

This all took place extremely close to my flat (I live in a rough but very convenient/central part of Dublin), and I can attest the escalation was : angry protests by a cross-section of Irish working class (mammies with prams, old people, the youth, etc), followed by garda over-reaction, which tipped the crowd into a fury and attracted red-blooded young proletarians mainly interested in trouble. What's underexplored is that the police were on edge because there had just been a potential terrorist attack, and they were greatly concerned by the prospect of additional attacks.

Are these the same types that were rioting against the migrants yesterday?

I would say most of the people involved in the riot were young Irish men, aged from 14-22. Even saying they were "rioting against the migrants" is giving them too much credit: it mostly seemed like opportunistic destruction and looting for destruction and looting's sake.

Is this less the case in Ireland?

It's an interesting question. The suburb Blanchardstown is known for its large black migrant population, and there are many suburbs which have largely retained their white native working-class population (Inchicore, Drimnagh, Ballymun, Whitehall). As far as the city core goes, if you knocked on a random low-income apartment I'd say you'd have about even odds of finding a native working-class family or six Brazilian migrants sharing a bedroom. Dublin is radically different from, say, Paris: there's no equivalent of the banlieues in which a large community of second-generation migrants are geographically isolated from the city centre.

Insert Planet of the Apes meme, Catholics together stronk.

Up to a point. Slovaks are majority Catholic, but anti-immigration groups in Ireland aren't so keen on them in light of last year's murder of Aisling Murphy, a young teacher, by a Slovak.

Ah now, everyone knows he was a Gypsy, not a Slovak. Ironically it would mainly be over-the-hill, state TV watching, identity-is-citizenship types (ie not far right) that would fail to make that distinction.

And suddenly everyone makes sense.

It is extremely annoying when a someone complains about "Romanians" you don't know if they are just a xenophobe, or whether they are a normie trying to complain about Gypsies in a polite way.

Does anyone really have anything against actual Romanians? I don't think so. It's almost always the latter, and the difficulty is compounded by the High Wokish word for "Gypsy" (that is, "Romani") sounding so like "Romanian"

I agree with you, but when I hung out with Polish people in London there was a lot of grumbling about "Romanians" and I didn't know if this was bog-standard Gypsy hate or if there was some local derby kind of hatred I was missing the context of.

It is also a premise of the "Brexit was about immigration and so the referendum is a mandate to reduce it" crowd - which includes most of the populist right of the Conservative Party, as well as Nigel Farage - that normies were opposed to Eastern European immigration (including non-gypsy Romanians) and that this was why they voted for Brexit. I think these guys are wrong and that there is a reason both leave campaigns (Vote Leave was Cummings, Leave.EU was Farage) focussed their anti-immigration messages on Muslim immigrants.

On the other hand, I have heard a lot about the alleged "rise of the far right" in Ireland over the course of the last few years, and the fact that it happened so soon after Geert Wilders' election is certainly odd timing.

I think there are a few factors.

A big one is the CIA and State Department. They've traditionally viewed right wing parties in Europe as the enemy, and made efforts to keep them from winning. However they've been incredibly distracted the last few years by the Afghanistan withdrawal, China, and focussing on Ukraine / Russia as well as neighbouring countries in Eastern Europe. Note that the right wing party in Poland just lost.

Pro-Hamas protests have brought longstanding issues with integration of people from poor Muslim countries to the forefront. The excuse from the internationalist types has always been that they just need time, but after 20 years of hearing that people can see the situation has gotten worse, not better.

Another issue is a general economic decline in Europe. Things aren't awful, but they aren't great and there's less faith in the long term outlook. So people aren't feeling as generous as they used to.

"A big one is the CIA and State Department. They've traditionally viewed right wing parties in Europe as the enemy, and made efforts to keep them from winning."

Could I have a source? Even if nothing concrete?

Yeah the State Department and CIA spent decades funding the European far right as part of Operation Gladio and similar stay-behind operations.

We're no longer in those days, since the fall of the Soviet Union, keeping the EU from competing economically and militarily has been a constant goal of US foreign policy. Need I remind anyone what happened to Nordstream. And this arguably started much earlier with Suez and the liquidation of colonial empires in cooperation with the Soviets.

The West may be allies on paper but the relationship is more that of a client, and the then pro-capitalist far right of the cold war has become more nationalist and against external influences and fealty, which makes them incompatible with US goals for Europe. Which is why they're now funded by the no longer communist Russians instead of the Americans.

Aside from Nordstream, what does the United States do to depress Europe's economies? Nothing really comes to mind, apart from tariffs and stuff.

Destroy colonial Empires (they are still at it in Africa against France to this day), sabotage all attempts at military cooperation not under the aegis of NATO (countless examples), industrial and economic espionnage of all kinds, manipulations of all kinds to prevent and destroy competition with their industries, and most recently prevent a negotiated peace in Ukraine to manifest a ruinous war by means of Boris Johnson.

All fair play in the great game of course, but let us not pretend the US and Europe have converging interests.

Nordstream was a Ukrainian op

Downvoted while correct. This forum should really take out the downvote button entirely since it's just a "boo outgroup" button.

Says the American press after trying to pin it on Russia. And in a context of divided Ukrainian leadership.

I'm personally convinced it was the Brits, but who it exactly was that pressed the button matters little given they were most likely acting under American orders or with assent from them.

It benefits them tremendously, they have the capability and they specifically threatened to do it before the fact. You need a lot less to convict someone.

they specifically threatened to do it before the fact.

This is flatly incorrect. The US threatened to "shut it down" if Russia invaded, which was in reference to a secret agreement with Germany that the US would end sanctions on the pipeline if they promised to end it if an invasion happened. That agreement got invoked. The pipeline got bombed afterwards.

You're quoting Biden wrong. Here's what he said:

If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2, We will put an end to it.

Now sure, a good defense attorney would argue this refered only to peaceful sanctions, my client meant that he would economically ruin the man, not shoot him dead. But then the prosecution would follow with the countless previous times where the US didn't get their way and used force and covert operations to make their promises happen, including on allies, including acts of war.

Maybe Biden did mean it in the purely economic sense. But it's still conspicuous.

And if you add this to the fact it tremendously helps the US economically that this pipeline no longer exists and Russia and Germany are economically severed, and the fact they are currently in a proxy war with Russia, the circumstances don't look good for the defense.

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I'm personally convinced it was the Brits

Can you expand on this? I haven’t heard this theory before and I don’t see what we’d have to gain. Unless purely sucking up to the US? Even we aren’t that self-sabotaging, although I can’t say that as strongly as I once might have.

Personally I would give 80% odds it’s some combo of Ukrainian and American op, on the basis of opportunity plus cui bono.

It's funny you haven't heard of the Brit theory because it's the one claimed by the Russians: that the same navy advisors helping the ukies in the black sea did it.

There's some circumstantial evidence that Lizz Truss sent confirmation to Blinken right after the event.

I'll readily admit this is mostly a hunch because the evidence of any party being the actual operator of the sabotage is scant. It's all hearsay even for the Ukrainian theory. We know the Brits have been doing a lot of other US dirty work-related to this war, so it fits into a larger picture.

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A big one is the CIA and State Department. They've traditionally viewed right wing parties in Europe as the enemy, and made efforts to keep them from winning.

how long is this tradition? Are you counting communists as right wing?

Note that the right wing party in Poland just lost.

With no trace of CIA/State Department meddling, unless you assume that EU is CIA plant.

unless you assume that EU is CIA plant.

I mean... isn't it a bit weird how European political junkies have been swearing up and down, for years on end, that the Culture War spats we discuss here are strictly an American thing, and anyone serious finds them absurd here, only for European town halls to start raising the trans flag for the #TransDayOfRemembrance?

To be fair, it doesn't mean the CIA is behind it. My bets are on the UN and WEF.

UN

UN actually succeeding at something would be the most surprising part here.

I would rather blame Facebook and Twitter and Tik Tok.

UN actually succeeding at something would be the most surprising part here.

Again, it's a place where the elites mingle, and the power of these places is grossly underappreciated.

I would rather blame Facebook and Twitter and Tik Tok.

I invite you to check out my responses to SouthKraut. There's several things about how these issues developed that just do not fit into a bottom-up spread via social media.

I wouldn't let intelligence agencies take credit for that.

It's simply the internet, social media, smartphones, the globalization of the English language and the prevalence of American memes. People soak up all kinds of stupidity so long as it's in the water for them, and now that many people have a permanent window upon woke rot open in their palms, they'll naturally absorb it.

It's simply the internet, social media, smartphones, the globalization of the English language and the prevalence of American memes.

The problem I have with this explanation is that I'm yet to see any of this stuff get implemented bottom-up. Compare what's happening to how long it took mainstream parties to kind-of-sort-of start doing something about immigration for fear of giving more votes to populists. I stopped paying attention to electoral politics, but I don't remember any political upset, where some woke youth-oriented party got way more votes than expected, and forced the mainstream to adapt to the new zeitgeist. In fact, this is the very reason why I can understand European normies pooh-poohing concerns about the Culture War, this stuff basically came out of nowhere if you're following a bottom-up model.

That said, I wouldn't put (too much of) it on intelligence agencies either. I agree it's through soaking up culture, but it's not through Tumblr and memes, it's through elite universities, and various get-togethers where the elites mingle.

IMO it doesn't take much bottom-up for these things to happen. It's not just the youth, after all. Everyone has a smartphone, most people and almost all women are consuming social media, and this includes older people well into working age and also those who have great influence over or are decision-makers in organizations that now openly display the symbols of some woke agenda. The youth may be faster to get on board, but not by much - most want to be on the right side of history, and even middle-aged administrators will pick up on which is the right side in CURRENT_YEAR.

administrators will pick up on which is the right side in CURRENT_YEAR.

In my opinion this would, again, indicate this stuff is not bottom up at all. The bottom has no power to dictate which side is the right one, without overwhelming numbers.

I'd say the Bottom is in agreement with what middle management is doing here. My point is that everyone is more-or-less equally swayed, and that it's not a handful of key players pushing their agenda. There's simply no need for a conspiracy - when many push and nobody openly resists and the masses cheer because all groups consume the same media and absorb the same memes and know what the right thing to do is, then of course town halls are going to fly rainbow flags and whatever else, entirely without a shadowy organization needing to manipulate anyone.

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the holiday inn apparently housed immigrants?

seems interesting what Irish people are saying. for example UFC Champ Conor McGregor tweeting to the effect of “do something immediately”, and more PC ones saying this is alt-right

Is there a reason we haven’t seen this kind of reaction in UK or France?

Not the first migrant accommodation to burn in Ireland. Seems to be a safety hazard to house refugees in such flammable accommodation.

One big distinguishing factor is that Ireland’s immigration experience is much more recent.

It’s hard to find a red line to rally around when your country’s first experience of mass Muslim migration happened in your grandparents’ days and when you’ve already learned to avoid the ghettos. Anything short of a drastic acceleration is just boiling the frog.

Ireland has never had ethnic ghettos, Dublin youth excepted we’re not used to the violence that’s accepted as part and parcel of normal city life, a ratio of 1800 Irish to 700 MENA males isn’t something Irish towns are used to.

I’m doubtful that this was a terrorist attack, but yesterday it was unclear whether Ireland had just experienced it’s first ever Islamic terrorist attack. Even though Ireland does have a high proportion of foreign nationals it’s nearly all working class Eastern Europeans or middle class Western Europeans who don’t cause much trouble, having areas suddenly gain a large population of young African and Muslim males is jarring and easy to rally around (I know this guy is much older but tension has been building for a while). All this when house and rental prices are through the roof.

Is there a reason we haven’t seen this kind of reaction in UK or France?

Median age in France is 42, median age in Ireland is 38.

That’s not that big of a difference, certainly not enough to explain the difference in reactions.

There's a recent history of grassroots anti-government organization in Ireland, what with "The Troubles" and all. Also a stronger sense of tribe. That was the whole point of the Irish independence movement after all.

The UK is much more authoritarian and has a long history of sicking the police on people who oppose immigration from it's colonies, that's been expanded to broader immigration.

France likes to protest against it's government, but it's more formally organized with a lot of union involvement. There isn't any blue collar community organizing that can lead to a rapid response like this.

Macron isn't shy about cracking down on protesters in a hard violent fashion. As seen in the yellow vest protests a few years ago.

Is there a reason we haven’t seen this kind of reaction in UK or France?

You might differentiate between reactions to governments gleefully and joyously importing millions of migrants (Canada, Ireland) and governments that claim multiculturalism is flawed and borders need to be Under Control and numbers Will Come Down but then do nothing to make it so (UK, France).

Is there a reason we haven’t seen this kind of reaction in UK or France?

Never underestimate a Celt.

France and UK have lots of Celts...

riots are just a schelling point for dickheads

Surely they’re all loyal devotees of Keith Woods! Seriously, though, I think it’ll be interesting to see the profiles of riot participants. In the same way that most looters during BLM type riots don’t have a particularly staunch position on racial inequalities in criminal justice, so too is it possible that most of these rioters aren’t exactly devoted to the cause.

The Dublin youngfella can be very destructive when given the opportunity.

What association does Geert Wilders have to Ireland?

My general impression is that Holland and the anglosphere are much less separated than, say, the anglosphere and France, and that anti-immigrant groups in Europe generally root for each other's teams.

Now I've never seen right wingers engage in that kind of riot, which doesn't mean it can't happen, but does lower the likelihood relative to "some apolitical yahoos heard there was chaos and showed up to see if they could wreck stuff and maybe take some free shit".

I can’t say I’ve ever noticed any inherent concern amongst Irish people for Holland over any other European country. I think I’ve only met one Dutchman in Ireland my life, whereas I’ve talked to countless Spaniards, Baltics, Poles and Brazilians.

If there is a link it’s because the Irish right are very online. As insignificant as they are in the halls of power the far right are fairly effective at organising street protests and motivating young men (I doubt they made up the majority of this protest but I’m sure they attended and instigated as much as they could).

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