More right-wing US nonsense

mr_angry

Hi everyone,

I was recently e-mailed by a friend of mine with a link to this article by Mr. John Derbyshire of the NRO.

Admittedly, when I first read it, I nearly laughed out loud. But afterwards, I thought about the implications of this article. What if impressionable people were to read it, and assume it to be true?

So, do you think this article should be allowed to be published without the right to an editorial reply on the same page, or at least some commentary from people with a real knowledge of what this country is like?

Lafortezza

Just had a quick scan of it, very disturbing all right.

In mr. angry's link, the article writer links to this where Lawrence Wright is talking about the Saudi people's attitudes

"None of them is capable of imagining much in the way of human motivation, certainly not at the national level, beyond money and blood-lust."

wtf

Vader

Some of my favourite bits:

Their very failure, though, and the massive inferiority complex it leaves them with, gives rise to a threat of sorts, as of course we found out on 9/11. To get a good analogy for the scale of that threat, carry out the following thought experiment.

I cannot think of any Western leader who dealt with the Arabs as Oliver Cromwell dealt with the Irish.

Nor were [Irelands] rulers and people ever corrupted by great wealth that required no effort on their part to generate it

All of this rooted in a nagging sense of inferiority, of social and cultural failure, that failure believed to be the result of historical wrongs committed by malign foreigners, those wrongs constantly magnified by telling and re-telling. )

I know Irish history as well as any of these crackpots, in fact considerably better than most of them, and am in fact generally sympathetic, but I know psychopathology when I have it hissed into my ear.

Britain was considerably corrupted by this moral threat at last, making concession after concession to the IRA terrorists, even dismantling the Northern Ireland police and security forces and freeing terrorist murderers, while the terrorists kept all their arms, and would probably be using them now but for the collapse in sympathy for terrorists everywhere in the civilized world after 9/11.

Folk like me, who pass comment on public affairs for a living, think about this constantly. Not that many other citizens don't likewise. I am only saying that when opinions are your business, this is one point on which you must have an opinion

Is he starving to death then in total poverty?:rolleyes:

Big al

its typical BNP thinking but surely it is more right wing UK nonsese?

Zappa

Far right nonsense for sure

mr_angry

Really I just robbed the title from the other ongoing thread in Politics, in the hope of presenting a balanced view. i.e. both sides are as bad, and as dangerous as each other when brought to extremes.

Big al

yes, but i started that other thread because it is just plain stupid, as others have pointed out the pictures on that site could be taken from anywhere. I was just pointing out that it was being anti us for the sake of it. While this is been anti irish for the sake of it, he seems to forget who built the english motorway system easly enough. I have no problem with balance but Sean Walsh is no more balanced that this John Derbyshire.

personally, i think he's spouting rubbish. However the last two paragraphs does make some sense. But i don't think he realises that if Arab nations truely wated to destroy the US, they have the resources to purchase/develop WMDs, whereas Ireland has never had the resources needed for the invasion and conquering of all of England. And alot more Arabs hate the US, than Irish people hating the english.

He just made the references to Irish people, so he could cause a stir, and people would read what he says...

ReefBreak

Have I missed something here? It's a right-wing article for sure, and the website is defiantly pro-Bush, but it's certainly not BNP-style Far-Right. Taken on it's own, it's a ok-ish opinion piece, not great, but certainly not ridiculous.

His comments on some Muslim countrys' attitudes to women is definitely true.

I didn't see anything that was Anti-Irish, just anti-IRA and anti-Terrorism, which is a GOOD thing. Remember that he starts out by saying:

Imagine you are a citizen of a single nation with some decent cultural achievements to its credit in the past — at very least, in the decorative arts, in poetry and literature, and in the transmission of knowledge from the ancient world to the late-medieval.

This can be applied to Ireland. And he finishes with:

Irish terrorism is not dead yet, but if anything kills it at last, it will be the prosperity and sophistication of the modern Irish republic, her ancient and peculiar sense of nationhood dissolved by globalized economics, her religious intensity vitiated by the easy hedonism of Euro-culture, her aching sense of dwelling in the shadow of a richer, stronger power dispelled by the equalization of wealth and the shrinking of distances.

My favourite bit was:

I write with some feeling here, having been buttonholed several times too often by Irish — or, much more commonly, "Irish-American" — bores apparently capable of droning on and on about the Saxon Yoke and the wickedness of Elizabeth the First until the crack of doom. I know Irish history as well as any of these crackpots, in fact considerably better than most of them, and am in fact generally sympathetic, but I know psychopathology when I have it hissed into my ear.

I've spent some time in the US, so I definitely feel his pain.

I didn't see anything that was Anti-Irish, just anti-IRA and anti-Terrorism, which is a GOOD thing.

Personally i think the comparison between ireland and the Arabs is a bit much for me to swallow. Simply because i don't think much of the Arab nations or their cultures. If he wants to make comparisons to the IRA, he's welcome to. But i'd rather he didn't compare Ireland and Arab Nations and express similarities. Narrow minded i am sometimes.

mr_angry

Britain was considerably corrupted by this moral threat at last, making concession after concession to the IRA terrorists, even dismantling the Northern Ireland police and security forces and freeing terrorist murderers, while the terrorists kept all their arms, and would probably be using them now but for the collapse in sympathy for terrorists everywhere in the civilized world after 9/11.

Personally, I think its this quote which underlines exactly how little he knows about Irish society and the peace process here. Yet he feels he is in a position to describe Irish society and history to other less informed people. This was very, very poorly researched.

From an Arab point of view, he's made massive generalisations about them. Whats more, without saying it directly, he indicates that until Arab society converts to American society, they are going to remain in some way inferior.

No, I respect Human Rights totally, but Arab societies have to be given time to evolve properly, and we in the West have to accept that other societies operate differently to our, supposedly more enlightened, ways. Its not that long ago that America had legal slave labour and Ireland was effectively ruled by the Catholic church. Had anyone tried to change us, I'm pretty sure we would have resisted, at the time.

I have no problem with balance but Sean Walsh is no more balanced that this John Derbyshire.

I believe that was my point. Balance (albeit extremist).

Big al

I believe that was my point. Balance (albeit extremist).

I'm agreeing with you! There are looneys on both sides, and they do a good job of shouting down the rest of us.

sovtek

As I said in the other thread that posted this article...
Not that I think the IRA a nice bunch of guys (nor do I think the same of the ANC) but he conveniently forgets that the IRA hasn't used their weapons in the 8 years before 9/11.
Of course the loyalists have all disarmed and stopped killing innocent catholics...much less other loyalists.
Nevermind that racist crap about Saudi's being lazy, members of a failed culture and blinded by envy of America.

I don't see this as a "balance" of the other "left-wing" article. As the other is a possibility, while this is a cynical piece of garbage IMHO.

TomF

I posted a reference to this article on this board January 14th, subject " The Arabs as "The Irish of the World"?

dathi1

There's nothing rightwing or otherwise about this guy here...he's just some gob****e comparing Arabs and the Irish and how Irish nationalism / Arab Nationalism is bad and British / Yankee National Imperialism is good. Good guys bad guys simplistic view of the world. Gob****e rating: 10 out of 10.