[Wolfe Tone]

Originally Posted by feicim

It could be a coincidence (personally I don't think it is) but 3 of the 5 piigs countries (greece. ireland and portugal) languish at the bottom of the european I.Q. table. source
Whereas the Dutch and Germans are up at the top of this league table (along with Italy which kind of ruins the trend).


It pains me to say it, its blatantly obvious from looking at our history, that Ireland has never been run right since the formation of the state.

Maybe the greece and portuguese and Irish are great easy going people, but as they say ignorance is bliss. Maybe there is a bit of thickness that goes hand in hand with this, that renders the irish electorate as a whole, incompetent in important matters such as voting in a government capable of doing a good job and getting them to run the country properly.

In answer to the OP's question, no I don't think we are capable of looking after ourselves. Our history and current events back this up.

TLDR The Irish are retards



ffs

[zig]

Originally Posted by zig

I see what you're saying but firstly, I by no means meant we were a failed state, and didnt imply handing back to the Brits at all at all. But yes , we're probably not much worse than other states, but sometimes I wonder is that because of our British history combined with 'piggybacking' off the EU for quite some time now, hence, not being able to look after ourselves.

I might also add that Im well aware I could be wrong with the above, and am still undecided myself on the answer to my question.

Maybe if we had been independent for the last 1000 years or whatever we may have been a completely different extremely prosperous country.

[sollar]

No we can't look after ourselves yet imo, we still treat our country as if we are under the rule of a foreign occupier. People still look at politicians and members of the public defrauding and cheating the state as if they are geting one over on a foreign administrator.

[eoinoleary]

maby we have made a balls of plenty of stuff but as for punching above our weight per capita we are far above pretty much everybody....they celebrate paddys day all over the world for christs sake...how many "america day" or god forbid "Britan day" parades do you see going down the main streets of cities the world over annually...maby we would have better infrastructer if we remained within the uk but i for 1 would rather have pothole filled roads and be goverened by a bunch of gombeens than be ruled by some galavanised ****e in london or anywer else for that matter....they may be gombeens and corrupted ****s but there ours and we elected them and have the freedom to unelect them...so thanks but ill have my ****ty roads and buildings anyday...infrastructure is no reward for the lack of soverinty and self determanation...

[sollar]

The big problem is that we do elect gombeens and shysters. We tolerate an awful lot of skullduggery in this country.

[feicim]

Originally Posted by eoinoleary

maby we have made a balls of plenty of stuff but as for punching above our weight per capita we are far above pretty much everybody....they celebrate paddys day all over the world for christs sake...how many "america day" or god forbid "Britan day" parades do you see going down the main streets of cities the world over annually...maby we would have better infrastructer if we remained within the uk...

The fact that enough irish people populate these far away countries in big enough numbers to have parades etc is a testament to how badly the country has been run forcing many millions to leave the country.

Originally Posted by eoinoleary

i for 1 would rather have pothole filled roads and be goverened by a bunch of gombeens than be ruled by some galavanised ****e in london or anywer else for that matter....they may be gombeens and corrupted ****s but there ours and we elected them and have the freedom to unelect them...so thanks but ill have my ****ty roads and buildings anyday...infrastructure is no reward for the lack of soverinty and self determanation...

+1 on this, but the facts are the irish only elect gombeens into government.

Its all good and well not being ruled by a foreign state but what of the millions who had to leave their home country because it let them down? Them and their descendants are being ruled by "foreign states". They had to flee to a foreign state because their own wasn't able to look after them.

[feicim]

Originally Posted by MUSSOLINI

TLDR The Irish are retards



ffs

You summed that up nicely cheers.

Not all of them, but enough of them are to cause problems for everybody.

If voting for a party because of family allegiences formed during the civil war isn't retarded I dont know what is.

[PomBear]

Originally Posted by feicim

You summed that up nicely cheers.

Not all of them, but enough of them are to cause problems for everybody.

If voting for a party because of family allegiences formed during the civil war isn't retarded I dont know what is.

It's not as if the parties didn't take full advantage of this,

[LostinBlanch]

On a slightly different note, I am currently reading a book called the Survivors Club by Ben Sherwood. It examines what behaviour helps some people survive disasters while the majority don't. Reading excerpts from Dr John Leach, who specialises in the area of survival psychology, about his experiences of the Kings Cross Underground fire in 1987 that killed 31 people. Many of those who died

marched right in to the disaster, almost oblivious to the crush of people - some actually in flames - who were trying to escape. One woman even approached a manager and asked matter of factly: "Does this mean my train has been cancelled?" Second, many of the underground authorities were simply overwhelmed. One official was simply frozen in fear, unable to do a thing with tears streaming down his face.

Dr Leach termed this behaviour of the passengers who followed their normal routines "The incredulity response." They simply didn't believe what they were seeing, there was no way there could be a fire in London's biggest underground station. So they went around thinking "this isn't really happening" and acting as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Something also referred to as normalcy bias. They ignore what is happening and don't do anything about it, and according to Dr Leach:

Denial and inactivity prepare people well for the roles of victim and corpse.

It's not a million miles away to draw parallels with the current situation here, add that to Sands analysis of the political setup and this to me says why we're here.

[conorhal]

Originally Posted by Fo Real

A lot of people still cling onto the childish notion that because we are geographically an independent island that we should therefore be a politically independent nation.

As it stands, one sixth of the island is ruled by the UK, while the remainder is ruled by the Catholic church and a selection of gombeens. The Republic of Ireland is only staying afloat thanks to life support from the EU and IMF. Our economic sovereignty has already been eroded. We don't really govern ourselves as Europe decides our laws for us, despite the charade of referenda (as seen with the Lisbon treaties). We rely too heavily on foreign multinationals for employment and our representatives regularly journey abroad to beg other countries to invest in Ireland.

I look across the water at London and look at the huge influence it has on the world - culturally and politically. Indeed, not too long ago it ruled most of the world. Yet it too is only a small island, but one that punches well above its weight.

In short, of course we'd be better off if we remained part of the UK. This short 90 year experiment with independence has been nothing but a disater.

Every time an acorn falls out of a tree and hits you on the bonce, do you run around shrieking about how the sky is falling?

This attitude really sickens me, yes we're a state in a state right now and yes we have been monumentally failed by an incompetent and self serving political class, but instead of running around like a load of Chicken Lickin's lets just step back a moment and take a breath.

Firstly, there was nothing particularly appealing about British rule unless you were part of the Anglo Irish ascendency or the professional classes that served them.
If you were my like great grandparents for example, life was hard at the turn of the century. Checking the newly published 1911 census I can see that my illiterate great grandmother was living in a tenement house with seven other families. On the other side of my family tree my great grandparents fared a bit better, farming a small share hold down in Cork, but the census lists tenants that lived in stone huts on the farm that my grandfather remembers as poverty stricken farm hands who wore sack cloth and never owned a pair of shoes. That was life under British rule and I think it's fair to say that things have improved substantially since then. Lets not forget that the greatest mass migration of Irish emigrants and the greatest decline of our population through war and famine took place under the stewardship of Brittan.
Lets not forget that in the 70's Britain was the one that had to go cap in hand to the IMF, they have been where we are now, several times in fact so take off those rose tinted glasses of empire.
When I look across the water at that once great nation in decline I really don't see what they could possibly have to offer that we cannot do for ourselves.
Your argument about small nations is pretty facetious too. There are may successful small western nations like Denmark, Norway or Finland for example that don't sit around wittering on about selling off their independence to the highest bidder.

If you actually use a little perspective you might manage to notice that we're not Haiti or Afghanistan so we must have done at least a few things right because, from the kind of ferocious poverty that I gave an example of above, we have over the last 90 years become a prosperous first world nation with many blessings to count. Things may be bleak now, but we can rebuild this nation and we do have a future if only we have the courage to seize it, and the best place to start is by ignoring the Chicken Lickins like you.

[Kensington]

Originally Posted by Liam Byrne

What may have happened is that we've finally realised that SOME Irish people are completely untrustworthy and should be let nowhere near responsibility, and to be fair, that's something that has dawned on use about lots of other professions, from bankers & developers to priests.

What we, as a society, need to learn is how to prevent the scum reaching the top.

If we manage that, then we'll have learned a valuable lesson.

Unfortunately, I don't think we can learn that lesson.
There was a thread in After Hours a few weeks ago about a student lying his way into Harvard. It summed up the Irish way of thinking pretty well - quite a few of the responses were along the lines of: g'wan ya boyo ya, fair play to him, showing it to the administration! If that's what a large fraction of this country is thinking, then is it any wonder we are governed by a bunch of corrupt, lying scum who handsomely reward other corrupt, lying scum with bailouts and vast amounts of protection?

Originally Posted by eoinoleary

maby we have made a balls of plenty of stuff but as for punching above our weight per capita we are far above pretty much everybody....they celebrate paddys day all over the world for christs sake...how many "america day" or god forbid "Britan day" parades do you see going down the main streets of cities the world over annually...maby we would have better infrastructer if we remained within the uk but i for 1 would rather have pothole filled roads and be goverened by a bunch of gombeens than be ruled by some galavanised ****e in london or anywer else for that matter....they may be gombeens and corrupted ****s but there ours and we elected them and have the freedom to unelect them...so thanks but ill have my ****ty roads and buildings anyday...infrastructure is no reward for the lack of soverinty and self determanation...

I think feicim hit the nail on the head - Paddy's day is a sign of how many Irish people have left this country seeking a better life. It's not because the rest of the world thought long, long ago that the Irish are great craic altogether, sure we'll join in on their annual celebration! It's the vast amounts of Irish all over the world who have emigrated - and continue to emigrate - that carried on celebrating Patrick's Day in their new homes.

The fact Patrick's Day is so big is an indicator to me that something is deeply, deeply wrong with this country that we have enough Irish emigrants to make our annual celebration have a worldwide influence to the extent that it does.

As for "they may be corrupt but at least they're ours", my mind boggles. We'll never get any better with an attitude like that. Not that it's exactly accurate anymore - the EU and IMF are pulling the strings now.

[zig]

Interesting side note , NI seems to be going through a pretty major water crisis, I know the republic is as well, but it seems as if its nothing like the North,(just basing this on news coverage).
I know its only another tiny observation in this whole debate but still, its something to pat ourselves on the back for.

[Amhran Nua]

Originally Posted by feicim

It could be a coincidence (personally I don't think it is) but 3 of the 5 piigs countries (greece. ireland and portugal) languish at the bottom of the european I.Q. table. source
Whereas the Dutch and Germans are up at the top of this league table (along with Italy which kind of ruins the trend).

For pity's sake, that's run by Lynn of Uni Ulster, among whose stances are anti-immigrant rhetoric because Africans have lower IQs apparently, also author of the same farcical study indicating women have naturally lower IQs, eugenicist and racist, completely ignoring that IQ tests need to be standardised across populations and are not applicable across different societies, among many many other flaws in methodology and conclusion.

Zig, wtf?

[zig]

Originally Posted by Amhran Nua

Zig, wtf?

presume this is directed at my original post, spurring a debate doesnt mean I necessarily agree with it, its just it wasnt the first time Id heard these comments ,i.e. "hand the keys back" etc,so I thought a thread would about it would be interesting, just to see peoples point of view.

[feicim]

Originally Posted by Amhran Nua

For pity's sake, that's run by Lynn of Uni Ulster, among whose stances are anti-immigrant rhetoric because Africans have lower IQs apparently, also author of the same farcical study indicating women have naturally lower IQs, eugenicist and racist, completely ignoring that IQ tests need to be standardised across populations and are not applicable across different societies, among many many other flaws in methodology and conclusion.

Zig, wtf?

His methods may have flaws depending on the context of what you are trying to prove.

I'm not talking about immigrants or africans or women or any of these things you mention. That was not my point (at all, not sure why you brought it up in this context).

But the correlation of IQ and wealth on european countries pretty well matches the economic and political realities of real life today in Europe. (greece, ireland, portugal at the bottom, Germany on top). That is the point that I was making.

Standardising across populations and societies might make the results more relative but economic and political realities don't understand or work to suit the principles of standardised relative realities.