Who Died?

RetroBate · 24-02-2011 8:18pm #1

I'll be voting tomorrow but not because anyone died for the privilaege.

I'm sick of people telling me "people died for my privilege to vote".

Who were these people?

pjmn · 24-02-2011 8:21pm

Tom & Mary.

nice1franko · 24-02-2011 8:22pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising

imme · 24-02-2011 8:22pm

the dead generations.

you're exercising your right tomorrow, that's all you're doing, good on you:cool:

RetroBate · 24-02-2011 8:27pm

nice1franko wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising

I was waiting for this.

I've no doubt every single signatory of the Proclamation had voted at some time. Arguably the only thing they died for was our right to vote FF.

Pal · 24-02-2011 8:30pm

bit of a tasteless thread.

deserves a lock

mike65 · 24-02-2011 8:33pm

Yor dignity died! rabble rabble etc.

rodento · 24-02-2011 8:35pm

Guess they'd be turning in their graves if they saw the options we had today

RetroBate · 24-02-2011 8:42pm

Pal wrote: »

bit of a tasteless thread.

deserves a lock

Tasteless?

It's a genuine post.
There is a certain 'moment in history' theme to this election which has prompted a certain amount of histrionics from commentators and posters about how important it is to vote in this particular election.

Lots of people advocating it being made compulsory etc.

It's all too OTT in my view.
Democracy is not just about elections.

People need to get down off their high horses.

loldog · 24-02-2011 8:44pm

Among others, these people. Also this very day, people are dying in Libya for such rights as you enjoy. Also these people in Bahrain.

Don't ever take your rights for granted.

.

Im Only 71Kg · 24-02-2011 8:49pm

Charlie O'Connor & Conor Lenihan's political lives are going to die tomorrow.

Colmo52 · 24-02-2011 8:52pm

Fianna Fail.

Shelli2 · 24-02-2011 8:57pm

People died for your right to vote, but that also means it's your right not to vote. You vote to show support to your chosen candidate/party, if you don't want to support anyone that's also your right.

I'm still undecided, not one candidate so far has made me want to vote for them. I don't believe a vote not cast is a vote wasted, simply voting for anyone just to use the vote is more so a vote wasted IMO.

Eureka_Bg · 24-02-2011 8:58pm

Tunisia, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Yehmen, Libya?

And that's just this month.

Pal · 24-02-2011 9:03pm

RetroBate wrote: »

Tasteless?

It's a genuine post.

People need to get down off their high horses.

Sorry we don't see eye to eye.

Some years ago I went on the tour of Kilmainham Gaol.
That wall where they were executed will live with me forever.

My heart went out to those people.

still does.

billyboy01 · 24-02-2011 9:12pm

Eureka_Bg wrote: »

Tunisia, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Yehmen, Libya?

And that's just this month.

The Country's mentioned above and others can have my vote.
Having a vote is meaning less when you have no job, no money and no life!

Democracy:rolleyes:

s3129 · 24-02-2011 9:14pm

Shelli2 wrote: »

People died for your right to vote, but that also means it's your right not to vote. You vote to show support to your chosen candidate/party, if you don't want to support anyone that's also your right.

I'm still undecided, not one candidate so far has made me want to vote for them. I don't believe a vote not cast is a vote wasted, simply voting for anyone just to use the vote is more so a vote wasted IMO.

I agree 100%

xoxyx · 24-02-2011 9:25pm

Has anybody mentioned the Suffragettes yet? Emily Davison is a famous example of a person who died largely in consequence and support of a campaign for a right to vote. Sure, it would have happened sooner or later anyway and, don't get me wrong; I would never try to influence a person to vote on the basis that people have died in the past for the privilege. Neither do I support the Suffragette movement in full, although I applaud its ideals. Nevertheless, the fact is that the right to vote was once denied to many people who cared enough and thought it important enough to die for the cause. That's a pretty darn big deal. I don't know if I have a cause that I would be willing to die for. Do you?

But do remember, we did not always have the rights that we do. Not so many years ago, we did not all have what is now our right: to vote in a democratic election regarding the leadership of our country.

I don't think what we have now should be taken lightly is all.

(P.S. - I know the Suffragettes was an English group, but there is no doubt that their actions impacted largely on our Irish policies.)

RetroBate · 24-02-2011 9:33pm

xoxyx wrote: »

(P.S. - I know the Suffragettes was an English group, but there is no doubt that their actions impacted largely on our Irish policies.)

No, they weren't excusively English. There were Irish suffragettes too.

xoxyx · 24-02-2011 9:40pm

RetroBate wrote: »

No, they weren't excusively English. There were Irish suffragettes too.

Initially, I meant, the group which was first labelled as Suffragettes. I just thought I'd stick that sentence in just in case anybody mentioned that we were talking about our current home-grown situation. CMA!!!

RachaelVO · 24-02-2011 9:43pm

This is not really a tasteless topic, it's sounding (IMO) a bit like the OP is just a bit peeved with being told the same thing all the time and all this harking back to 1916. Being peeved doesn't stop the fact being that to have the right to vote people did revolt and with revolution there is deaths. There is a huge chance that some of you ancestry (is going back to 1916 ancestry???) fought and died for you to have the right to vote. Nonetheless it's a right we should be grateful to those who died as to them it was a something worth dying for!

Crow92 · 24-02-2011 10:43pm

All I could think of when I saw this tread was of Yeats

September 1913

What need you being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till,
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone?
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind,
The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman's rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread
They grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all the blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again,
And call those exiles as they were
In all their loneliness and pain,
You'd cry, "Some woman's yellow hair
Has maddened every mother's son":
They weighed so lightly what they gave
But let them be they're dead and gone,
They're with O'Leary in the grave.