Vast majority happy Ireland is in EU, uninterested in further integration

SiegfriedsMum

Scofflaw wrote: »

That pretty much rules out any role for evidence in forming your view of this particular matter, I suppose, given it was a decision made by politicians in consultation with civil servants and the only evidence available is therefore records of the doings and words of those people.

You seem to want to stay in this cul de sac. It's quite evident we disagree about what constitutes evidence, and I've already outlined my views on the so called evidence you produced, so to repeat why I dont think they are very good as evidence once again, seems pointless.

Scofflaw wrote: »

I don't disagree, by the way, that many Irish people believe this, it's just that they're incorrect, and are transferring elements of the 2010 decision back to the 2008 decision. As far as I can see, a good number of the people who believe it find it convenient because it allows them to forgive FF, and FF themselves aren't discouraging the belief, even though Lenihan was quite clear at the time about the unilateral nature of his actions.

Quite a lot happened between 2008 and 2010, and to imply there were no discussions between the EU, ECB and Ireland, and others, over that time, resulting in forcing Ireland to pay the bondholders, is hard to believe.

Some people often think others are wrong, and if you want to judge "a good many" who think that to be FF, then thats your choice. Even if thats true, and not just an attempt at smearing those with whom you disagree, it's doesn't make their views invalid, and in my experience isn't even true and many who I have spoken to about this are not FF.

I have no doubt that there were those, at the time, who tried to prove (correctly in that case for all the good it did them) that Marie Antoinette never said "Let them eat cake". However, as Victor Hugo noted, "All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come".

You seem to want to remain in the cul de sac arguing that the evidence you have produced is of top quality, and seem to want to keep arguing that you want me to accept the newspaper articles and statements crafted by PR agencies for clients who have a vested interest, is good quality evidence, and see unable to accept that we jsut aren't going to agree.

I think whats interesting is looking across the EU and seeing less and less enthuaism for any more integration amongst the people, and also seeing how the political systems in many countries are reaching breaking point, as the political classes both domestically and at EU level seem unable to control events or plan and are seen as worse than useless. There is a real danger of a political vacuum into which in Ireland the likes of Sinn Fein will rise, and in other countries their equivalents of Sinn Fein will rise, and lets hope that the worst excessess of that can be avoided.

View

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

You seem to want to stay in this cul de sac. It's quite evident we disagree about what constitutes evidence, and I've already outlined my views on the so called evidence you produced, so to repeat why I dont think they are very good as evidence once again, seems pointless.



Quite a lot happened between 2008 and 2010, and to imply there were no discussions between the EU, ECB and Ireland, and others, over that time, resulting in forcing Ireland to pay the bondholders, is hard to believe.

Some people often think others are wrong, and if you want to judge "a good many" who think that to be FF, then thats your choice. Even if thats true, and not just an attempt at smearing those with whom you disagree, it's doesn't make their views invalid, and in my experience isn't even true and many who I have spoken to about this are not FF.

I have no doubt that there were those, at the time, who tried to prove (correctly in that case for all the good it did them) that Marie Antoinette never said "Let them eat cake". However, as Victor Hugo noted, "All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come".

You seem to want to remain in the cul de sac arguing that the evidence you have produced is of top quality, and seem to want to keep arguing that you want me to accept the newspaper articles and statements crafted by PR agencies for clients who have a vested interest, is good quality evidence, and see unable to accept that we jsut aren't going to agree.

I think whats interesting is looking across the EU and seeing less and less enthuaism for any more integration amongst the people, and also seeing how the political systems in many countries are reaching breaking point, as the political classes both domestically and at EU level seem unable to control events or plan and are seen as worse than useless. There is a real danger of a political vacuum into which in Ireland the likes of Sinn Fein will rise, and in other countries their equivalents of Sinn Fein will rise, and lets hope that the worst excessess of that can be avoided.

So. all this boils down to "No, I have no evidence to back up my assertions but I'll hold them anyway since, as they are mine, that ipso facto makes them true".

Such claims belong in a Conspiracies Theory forum not a Politics forum.

Scofflaw

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

You seem to want to stay in this cul de sac. It's quite evident we disagree about what constitutes evidence, and I've already outlined my views on the so called evidence you produced, so to repeat why I dont think they are very good as evidence once again, seems pointless.

Which leaves you with no evidence for your claims...

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

Quite a lot happened between 2008 and 2010, and to imply there were no discussions between the EU, ECB and Ireland, and others, over that time, resulting in forcing Ireland to pay the bondholders, is hard to believe.

Nobody is claiming that, though. Quite the reverse, in fact.

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

Some people often think others are wrong, and if you want to judge "a good many" who think that to be FF, then thats your choice. Even if thats true, and not just an attempt at smearing those with whom you disagree, it's doesn't make their views invalid, and in my experience isn't even true and many who I have spoken to about this are not FF.

I have no doubt that there were those, at the time, who tried to prove (correctly in that case for all the good it did them) that Marie Antoinette never said "Let them eat cake". However, as Victor Hugo noted, "All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come".

You seem to want to remain in the cul de sac arguing that the evidence you have produced is of top quality, and seem to want to keep arguing that you want me to accept the newspaper articles and statements crafted by PR agencies for clients who have a vested interest, is good quality evidence, and see unable to accept that we jsut aren't going to agree.

Er, no, I accept that we aren't going to agree. However, I don't see it as outrageous , or a cul-de-sac, to point out that your disagreement is with both me and the evidence.

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

I think whats interesting is looking across the EU and seeing less and less enthuaism for any more integration amongst the people, and also seeing how the political systems in many countries are reaching breaking point, as the political classes both domestically and at EU level seem unable to control events or plan and are seen as worse than useless. There is a real danger of a political vacuum into which in Ireland the likes of Sinn Fein will rise, and in other countries their equivalents of Sinn Fein will rise, and lets hope that the worst excessess of that can be avoided.

While I think that's a real danger in other countries, I'm not sure it's really all that clear and present a danger here, because of the aforementioned people who will drift back to supporting FF by way of various apologetics and false narratives such as the "the ECB made us do it all" one you're following, and who, like you, have little or no faith in evidence. The danger, to me, seems more that Ireland will come out of the other end of this crisis with no real changes and no real lessons learned, ready to do it all again - just as we did after the crisis of the Eighties, when similar predictions of the end of mainstream were made (that time, Labour were the beneficiaries).

cordially,
Scofflaw

SiegfriedsMum

View wrote: »

So. all this boils down to "No, I have no evidence to back up my assertions but I'll hold them anyway since, as they are mine, that ipso facto makes them true".

Such claims belong in a Conspiracies Theory forum not a Politics forum.

If you think I have said I have no evidence, thats what you think. It's kind of unusual that both Scofflaw and I agree that a substantive number of Irish people hold the views we have been discussing, and part of the "evidence" I have for that is my own anecdotal evidence. Then you come barging in and rather crossly telling us we should be having this discussion in another forum for conspiracy theories. No one compelled you to join in the discussion, or ever to agree with any part of it. I have never seen the discussions you recommend and have no wish to do so.

As a footnote, the rather intemperate nature of your response seems out of place in a forum which is polite and tempered, and seems designed to raise the tempo of the discussion and I, for one, refuse to be drawn into an intemperate discussion.

SiegfriedsMum

Scofflaw wrote: »

Er, no, I accept that we aren't going to agree. However, I don't see it as outrageous , or a cul-de-sac, to point out that your disagreement is with both me and the evidence.

You consider newspapers articles to be "evidence" and statements crafted by PR companies on behalf of the ECB etc etc to be "evidence". I'm quite happy if you continue to believe thats good evidence, and we simply disagree about that. You can come back again and say that you have evidence, then I can repeat that again as many times as you wish, but no mtter how many different times you say it, or no matter ni how man y different ways you say it, that is unlikely to change.

Scofflaw wrote: »

While I think that's a real danger in other countries, I'm not sure it's really all that clear and present a danger here, because of the aforementioned people who will drift back to supporting FF by way of various apologetics and false narratives such as the "the ECB made us do it all" one you're following, and who, like you, have little or no faith in evidence. The danger, to me, seems more that Ireland will come out of the other end of this crisis with no real changes and no real lessons learned, ready to do it all again - just as we did after the crisis of the Eighties, when similar predictions of the end of mainstream were made (that time, Labour were the beneficiaries).

cordially,
Scofflaw

I suppose we can all try our hand at predicting the future, and you may be right, or not. I guess I am trying to look at the bigger picture across Europe and not just from Ireland's perspective, and also look at the lessons we should try to look at from History. The most obvious example is the 1920's when thre was widespread unemployement, poverty and disaffection across Europe, and we all know where that led, to the rize of facism, communism and Nazism, and to greatest misery inflicted on millions as a result, and lets all hope that that does not happen again.

View

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

If you think I have said I have no evidence, thats what you think.

It is pretty clear that despite being challenged on it you have yet to produce any evidence that validates what you assert "really happened".

You could of course easily prove me wrong by producing such evidence IF you had any but you don't, do you?

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

It's kind of unusual that both Scofflaw and I agree that a substantive number of Irish people hold the views we have been discussing, and part of the "evidence" I have for that is my own anecdotal evidence.

The fact that some others hold your views doesn't validate them. Many people believed the world was flat, yet their views were dead wrong.

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

Then you come barging in and rather crossly telling us we should be having this discussion in another forum for conspiracy theories. No one compelled you to join in the discussion, or ever to agree with any part of it. I have never seen the discussions you recommend and have no wish to do so.

As a footnote, the rather intemperate nature of your response seems out of place in a forum which is polite and tempered, and seems designed to raise the tempo of the discussion and I, for one, refuse to be drawn into an intemperate discussion.

Yawn, stop engaging in rhetoric and back up your claims. It seems to be a case that you hold your views despite the evidence available not because of it.

That is not the mark of a reasoned position rather that of people who ignore reality in order to hang on to their political theory.

Scofflaw

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

You consider newspapers articles to be "evidence" and statements crafted by PR companies on behalf of the ECB etc etc to be "evidence". I'm quite happy if you continue to believe thats good evidence, and we simply disagree about that. You can come back again and say that you have evidence, then I can repeat that again as many times as you wish, but no mtter how many different times you say it, or no matter ni how man y different ways you say it, that is unlikely to change.

The opinion of the ECB is not a statement crafted by a PR company - and that you view it in that light suggests we really are on to conspiracy theoretics here, because you're essentially saying that the legal opinion of the ECB is actually designed to mislead, and doesn't mean what it says.

As to newspaper articles - when they're reporting the public statements of the people involved in the decision, I would view those statements as evidence, yes. It takes a a degree more pointless paranoia than I can muster to assume that those public statements are inaccurately reported, for all that the statements themselves are carefully crafted before utterance.

However, again, I can't see why Lenihan would pretend that his actions were unilateral "economic nationalism" when - according to you - they weren't. Unless, that is, we're prepared to dive down yet another few fathoms into the murky waters of conspiracy and claim that "he had to because..." where "because" is some explanation in terms of the way the world "really works".

Lenihan's motivations seems to me to be rather more likely to have been national, party, and self-interest, and none of those give any reason to state that his actions were unilateral if they weren't. As a test, we can refer to the 2010 bailout decision, where the government wasted no time in making it clear they had been compelled by the ECB to honour the remaining senior bonds - what they left out on that occasion, and was revealed later by journalists, was that they had agreed with the ECB.

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

I suppose we can all try our hand at predicting the future, and you may be right, or not. I guess I am trying to look at the bigger picture across Europe and not just from Ireland's perspective, and also look at the lessons we should try to look at from History. The most obvious example is the 1920's when thre was widespread unemployement, poverty and disaffection across Europe, and we all know where that led, to the rize of facism, communism and Nazism, and to greatest misery inflicted on millions as a result, and lets all hope that that does not happen again.

Fair point, but we do have a couple of obvious advantages this time round - the memory of last time, and the EU, which was created in the hopes of preventing a recurrence of it. My predictions for Ireland, though, still stand - they are, after all, in line with Ireland's historical course while ideology and then war last swept the rest of Europe.

cordially,
Scofflaw

McDave

SiegfriedsMum wrote: »

The most obvious example is the 1920's when thre was widespread unemployement, poverty and disaffection across Europe, and we all know where that led, to the rize of facism, communism and Nazism, and to greatest misery inflicted on millions as a result, and lets all hope that that does not happen again.

Hardly 'obvious'. Although conditions are far from perfect these days, the conditions of the Twenties and Thirties are barely comparable to today's.

However alarmists are happy to big up the worst aspects of the last century and suggest in the process that there's a thin line between the past and the present. And a line likeliest to be breached by the Germans, the perennial ideological badboys for sceptics of the Euro project.

SiegfriedsMum

Scofflaw wrote: »

The opinion of the ECB is not a statement crafted by a PR company - and that you view it in that light suggests we really are on to conspiracy theoretics here, because you're essentially saying that the legal opinion of the ECB is actually designed to mislead, and doesn't mean what it says.

I’m afraid we simply disagree. If your view is that the ECB does no employ Public Relations people whose job is to portray the ECB in a good light, and through whom press statements are released, then that is your view.

Scofflaw wrote: »

As to newspaper articles - when they're reporting the public statements of the people involved in the decision, I would view those statements as evidence, yes. It takes a a degree more pointless paranoia than I can muster to assume that those public statements are inaccurately reported, for all that the statements themselves are carefully crafted before utterance.

Once again we disagree regarding the weight given to what is published in the news papers. Quite apart from the fact that most newspapers now regurgitate press statements uncritically, after the Levinson report it’s curious that someone of your obvious intelligence should claim not only to believe what he reads in the newspapers, but to think that it should constitute evidence.

Scofflaw wrote: »

However, again, I can't see why Lenihan would pretend that his actions were unilateral "economic nationalism" when - according to you - they weren't.

I agree with you here, and agree that it is likely the decision was taken by two weak ministers bumped into it by a concerted and planned attack by the Irish banks.

Scofflaw wrote: »

… we can refer to the 2010 bailout decision, where the government wasted no time in making it clear they had been compelled by the ECB to honour the remaining senior bonds - what they left out on that occasion, and was revealed later by journalists, was that they had agreed with the ECB.

It seems we are in agreement, as it’s what came after the fateful night of the bank guarantee which is where the same weak ministers came under pressure from the ECB and others to move the banks debt onto the balance sheet of the country. It is this action, and the subsequent actions to repay all those debts to foreign banks and others, which is the topic which I find generally well understood around Ireland. Not only is it inexplicable, it only really makes sense if the Irish government was under pressure from others, such as the governments of the French and German banks who, as it happened, were grossly indebted to Irish banks.

The fault is not so much the EU, ECB etc, but in reality that seems to be what a significant number of Irish people seem to think is at fault.

Scofflaw wrote: »

Fair point, but we do have a couple of obvious advantages this time round - the memory of last time, and the EU, which was created in the hopes of preventing a recurrence of it. My predictions for Ireland, though, still stand - they are, after all, in line with Ireland's historical course while ideology and then war last swept the rest of Europe.

It’s the sheer scale of the debt this time which is the worry. The last time the debts were (i) not as large (ii) were being reduced reasonably fast with high inflation (iii) were largely state debts and not personal debts and (iv) Ireland was in net receipt of EU funds. To acknowledge that the annual interest bill per person for the state debts is between €10000 and €20000 per annum is to understand the scale of the problem. For a father of four in Ireland today to come up with between €40000 to €80000 every year just to pay interest on his portion of the debt before any state employee can be paid, shows the scale of the resulting problem.

No problem is insurmountable, although given the calibre of leaders Ireland has traditionally voted for, it seems unlikely Ireland will not be bankrupted. The really inexplicable part of this is that the Government seems to only have a plan for balancing its budget, but seems to have no plan which it has or can explain to the people for growth.
In these circumstances, one can only fear for the future, and anyone who doesn’t recognise the potential for civil unrest, simply is ignoring the lessons of history.