Do you have to be ethnically Irish to be considered Irish?

Gradius

Snickers Man wrote: »

So in these days you can rise through the social classes thanks to universal education and equality laws,
you can change your religion (as you always could)
people are so racially intermingled that many people can pass themselves off as being of another race, despite the fact that they do not in fact have any heritage n the race they are claiming
you can even change your gender through "reassignment" surgery
.......but you gotta be a freckly, hurling playing, bony elbowed red haired blue eyed dancing-at-the-crossroads native to be properly Irish?

Gimme a break!!!

It's all trollocks.

Being different is amazing, how dare you not celebrate it!?

Simultaneously

We're all the same, how dare you differentiate me?!

It's a vapid dead-end idealogy that is basically used as a weapon to disenfranchise certain people and empower certain people.

"Disenfranchise"...could there possibly be a better example of dis-enfranchising people than convincing them that they essentially don't exist?

Dangerous stuff.

Gradius

antfin wrote: »

Are you suggesting that racial characteristics in humans is akin to breeds of dogs with that analogy?

No, I'm not suggesting, I'm pointing out the cold, hard, inescapable truth of existence.

Yes, different breeds of dogs behave differently, look different, have different characteristics, suffer from different ailments and so on. Similar, but not the same. Just like people with some added complexities on top.

Monkey arris

If you're born somewhere that's where you are from. We are quick enough to claim Athletes, actors and Presidents.

antfin

Gradius wrote: »

No, I'm not suggesting, I'm pointing out the cold, hard, inescapable truth of existence.

Yes, different breeds of dogs behave differently, look different, have different characteristics, suffer from different ailments and so on. Similar, but not the same. Just like people with some added complexities on top.

Comparing dog breeds to human racial characteristic has been proven to be not a suitable comparison. Historically, at best it's been used as a misguided unscientific basis to implement, legitimise and enforce racial division and at worst it's been used to justify extreme racism. Biologicially it doesn't make any sense. The genotypic and phenotypic variation in humans is far lower than dogs.

Wibbs

riclad wrote: »

i think anyone who is born here and has parents living here for years is considered irish in the eyes of the law.

The law is not a great arbiter of truth or reality as history has shown.

i don,t think being irish could be considered part of an ethnic group.

OK, but would you be so quick to say that of being Ethiopian, Japanese, Indian, Roma, or San? Or African Americans? Or more locally Travellers? I'm quite sure people in those groups wouldn't be nearly so quick to discard their ethnicities, indeed they're far more likely to celebrate it, but it seems this notion of being so quick to discard ethnicity is very much of a White Western trend and almost only ever applied to White Westerners.

Snickers Man wrote: »

So in these days you can rise through the social classes thanks to universal education and equality laws,

To some degree yes and more in the West.

you can change your religion (as you always could)

Depends on your culture. In Ireland easy peasy, in Iran not so much.

people are so racially intermingled that many people can pass themselves off as being of another race, despite the fact that they do not in fact have any heritage n the race they are claiming

Hardly. In places like America where there has been some mixing on the edges of different populations(often unwillingly in the past) yes, but for the vast majority of the world's peoples that's most certainly not the case. A native of Sudan could not pass themselves off as a native of Sweden or vice versa. Now you can and do have Sudanese White people and Swedish Black people, but their ancestry is not a native one to those respective geographies.

you can even change your gender through "reassignment" surgery

No, I'm afraid you can't. Legally yes, socially depending on culture, but not biologically or medically.

Gradius

3DataModem wrote: »

Those who celebrate accidents of birth are not to be trusted.

There's no "accident" involved in being born. People don't spontaneously come into creation with no rhyme or reason.

Your birth is the result of myriad factors, the environment of your parents, the history that led to that environment, the collective effort of possibly generations of people's decisions, were your parents educated, the entire history attached to the development and dissemination of that educational system across populations. Or the absence of those same factors, and thousands of other concious/subconscious/unconscious decisions.

Being born is not an accident, it's a result.

Gradius

antfin wrote: »

Comparing dog breeds to human racial characteristic has been proven to be not a suitable comparison. Historically, at best it's been used as a misguided unscientific basis to implement, legitimise and enforce racial division and at worst it's been used to justify extreme racism. Biologicially it doesn't make any sense. The genotypic and phenotypic variation in humans is far lower than dogs.

So dogs are more different than people? Much of a muchness.

A long winded way of stating the same thing, people are different. I'm glad you agree with reality, for your own sake.

AlejGuzman68

As a foreigner to your shores, what do you define as being Irish ethnically? Is it just being born here or being able to trace your roots to hundreds of years here? But also have to take in account of Viking raids and other conquests from other nations. Every nation is a mishmash of another nation. To be ethical means a certain breed line which doesn't exist. In this day and age no one is a pure ethical standing,imo.

Gradius

AlejGuzman68 wrote: »

As a foreigner to your shores, what do you define as being Irish ethnically? Is it just being born here or being able to trace your roots to hundreds of years here? But also have to take in account of Viking raids and other conquests from other nations. Every nation is a mishmash of another nation. To be ethical means a certain breed line which doesn't exist. In this day and age no one is a pure ethical standing,imo.

The challenge of an argument should never be placed on the defence of reality, it is up to the challenger to prove their position.

If someone tells me that oxygen is made of marshmallow, the onus is not on me to disprove that bullshyt by jumping through hoops.

Therefore the question for you.

Do you consider yourself Irish?

If not, how do you distinguish that fact? How do you define your own people as distinct to Irish people, or German, or Chinese?

Gradius

The usual intellectual introspection and defence of absurdly unfounded beliefs

*crickets*

Wibbs

antfin wrote: »

Comparing dog breeds to human racial characteristic has been proven to be not a suitable comparison. Historically, at best it's been used as a misguided unscientific basis to implement, legitimise and enforce racial division and at worst it's been used to justify extreme racism. Biologicially it doesn't make any sense. The genotypic and phenotypic variation in humans is far lower than dogs.

Very much so. Though modern dog genetics are not very diverse at all(they were far more diverse 5000 years ago).

Phenotypic variation is high enough in humans, or put it another way if humans were observed by an alien species minus all our dodgy history around racism and treated like any other animal species they'd quite likely describe modern humans as different populations/sub species of each other adapted to local conditions through evolution. That makes as much sense zoologically.

You have the extremes in things like height between a native Dutch person or a Kenyan Masai and a Congolese Pygmy. The European populations have hair colours that run from nearly white, through red, brown and black, hair from laser straight to extremely curly, eye colours from silver, through blue, even purple to green and brown. That population alone shows far more diversity in eye and hair colours compared to all the people's of the rest of the world(where eye colour is nearly always brown and hair nearly always black). Then we have our very bones. A trained forensic pathologist would be able to spot a native African skull compared to a native Asian one or native European one in most cases. Even our teeth show subtle differences depending on population. And that's before population differences when it comes to health and diseases. Eskimos have more capillaries close to the skin and at the extremities than other populations as an adaptation to local conditions. They also have larger livers because of their traditional diet. Natives of Peru have larger blood vessels because of the altitude, those of the Himalayan plateau have a couple of adaptions to living at altitude, some of which seem to have come from an extinct human subspecies the Denisovans.

On that score alone we show quite a bit of diversity too. Europeans and Asians show admixture from Neandertals, Africans don't. They have some of their own local archaic admixture going on and that continent has the most human genetic diversity on the planet. Even within these groups there are differences. EG Asians and Europeans have different Neandertal genes. Asians also have Denisovan genes which neither Europeans nor Africans have(some populations like folks from New Guinea have remarkably high percentages). And this isn't "junk DNA" they're coding for proteins in the modern populations and those extinct groups are most certainly seen as sub species of modern humans.

So if you tested a random person's DNA and just looked for archaic admixture alone you'd be able to narrow down their background population origins pretty well. You'd see Asian, African, or European. New world populations would muddy the water of course, but even here you could have a stab at working out if they were more likely to be say Swedish American or Chinese American.

Humans are actually quite the diverse bunch and this should be celebrated not discarded on the back of political whim and attempts at social engineering, whether that be on the back of racism or rightonism. While the latter is far less damaging, it's also just as daft in many respects.

Wibbs

AlejGuzman68 wrote: »

As a foreigner to your shores, what do you define as being Irish ethnically? Is it just being born here or being able to trace your roots to hundreds of years here? But also have to take in account of Viking raids and other conquests from other nations. Every nation is a mishmash of another nation. To be ethical means a certain breed line which doesn't exist. In this day and age no one is a pure ethical standing,imo.

Actually Ireland's population is quite narrow in diversity on the genetic level compared to some other places in Europe. While there was some admixture from Vikings et al, the "Irish gene" as it were is quite local.

Potatoeman

AlejGuzman68 wrote: »

As a foreigner to your shores, what do you define as being Irish ethnically? Is it just being born here or being able to trace your roots to hundreds of years here? But also have to take in account of Viking raids and other conquests from other nations. Every nation is a mishmash of another nation. To be ethical means a certain breed line which doesn't exist. In this day and age no one is a pure ethical standing,imo.

Ethnically Irish is where your blood of from, it’s the same in every country. Look at Barack Obama, his nationality is American but his ethnicity is half Irish (because both his mothers parents are from Ireland) and half Kenyan (as his father was from Kenya). His mother isn’t genetically American as she is not a Native American. No white person in America is, though the native Americans did interbreed with the settlers so then you have to look at the genetic markers in their dna. Even at this level the research is still very uncertain, more so in areas that had invasions and migrations.

Gradius

Wibbs wrote: »

Very much so. Though modern dog genetics are not very diverse at all(they were far more diverse 5000 years ago).

Phenotypic variation is high enough in humans, or put it another way if humans were observed by an alien species minus all our dodgy history around racism and treated like any other animal species they'd quite likely describe modern humans as different populations/sub species of each other adapted to local conditions through evolution. That makes as much sense zoologically.

You have the extremes in things like height between a native Dutch person or a Kenyan Masai and a Congolese Pygmy. The European populations have hair colours that run from nearly white, through red, brown and black, hair from laser straight to extremely curly, eye colours from silver, through blue, even purple to green and brown. That population alone shows far more diversity in eye and hair colours compared to all the people's of the rest of the world(where eye colour is nearly always brown and hair nearly always black). Then we have our very bones. A trained forensic pathologist would be able to spot a native African skull compared to a native Asian one or native European one in most cases. Even our teeth show subtle differences depending on population. And that's before population differences when it comes to health and diseases. Eskimos have more capillaries close to the skin and at the extremities than other populations as an adaptation to local conditions. They also have larger livers because of their traditional diet. Natives of Peru have larger blood vessels because of the altitude, those of the Himalayan plateau have a couple of adaptions to living at altitude, some of which seem to have come from an extinct human subspecies the Denisovans.

On that score alone we show quite a bit of diversity too. Europeans and Asians show admixture from Neandertals, Africans don't. They have some of their own local archaic admixture going on and that continent has the most human genetic diversity on the planet. Even within these groups there are differences. EG Asians and Europeans have different Neandertal genes. Asians also have Denisovan genes which neither Europeans nor Africans have(some populations like folks from New Guinea have remarkably high percentages). And this isn't "junk DNA" they're coding for proteins in the modern populations and those extinct groups are most certainly seen as sub species of modern humans.

So if you tested a random person's DNA and just looked for archaic admixture alone you'd be able to narrow down their background population origins pretty well. You'd see Asian, African, or European. New world populations would muddy the water of course, but even here you could have a stab at working out if they were more likely to be say Swedish American or Chinese American.

Humans are actually quite the diverse bunch and this should be celebrated not discarded on the back of political whim and attempts at social engineering, whether that be on the back of racism or rightonism. While the latter is far less damaging, it's also just as daft in many respects.

Man, you're wasting your time. Good information and all, but you've fallen into the trap of tripping over yourself to prove what's already fact.

These people fart out any old thing and then disappear.

As I said above, there's a certain type of person, "true believers" you might call them, who have all the conviction but no defence of conviction. They state the absurd like "gravity doesn't exist" and then run off.

So, it's good to hammer them with reality and information and facts, but it's high time these kind of things just went back to being laughed at and/or dismissed out of hand.

Wibbs

Gradius wrote: »

As I said above, there's a certain type of person, "true believers" you might call them, who have all the conviction but no defence of conviction.

Yep. Such a pattern is a sure sign of a culturally current Accepted Truth(tm). There are plenty of such examples from history even recent history. Now unlike say slavery which was also a culturally current Accepted Truth(tm) and once just as firmly believed, this kind of culturally current Accepted Truth(tm) is far less damaging overall, or less obviously so anyway. In some who hold it it's very much in one direction and while claiming to be against identity politics and the politics of oppressor and oppressed it's mired in both.

antfin

Gradius wrote: »

Man, you're wasting your time. Good information and all, but you've fallen into the trap of tripping over yourself to prove what's already fact.

These people fart out any old thing and then disappear.

As I said above, there's a certain type of person, "true believers" you might call them, who have all the conviction but no defence of conviction. They state the absurd like "gravity doesn't exist" and then run off.

So, it's good to hammer them with reality and information and facts, but it's high time these kind of things just went back to being laughed at and/or dismissed out of hand.

That's a slightly dismissive comment. The previous poster added a very insightful and educated piece to the discussion, which you consider a waste of time. It's a scientific fact that dog breeds are not akin to human racial characteristics, that's accepted as fact in biological disciplines for at least the last 30 years. The sociological debate of distinguishing ethnicity from national identity leaves far more room for opinion and ambiguity, there are no facts in this space and to state it as such illustrates an insular and closed-minded mentality that is not accepting of outside influences. Just because some people don't feel like convincing you, a stranger on the internet, that their opinion might bare as much weight as your own you dismiss it.

Personally I assess if someone is so closed minded as to be unwavering in their opinion to the exclusion of all other opinions and if I perceive it to be as such I don't bother engaging further with those people as I'm not compelled to justify my own opinions. You can accept that as a win for yourself.

Gradius

antfin wrote: »

That's a slightly dismissive comment. The previous poster added a very insightful and educated piece to the discussion, which you consider a waste of time. It's a scientific fact that dog breeds are not akin to human racial characteristics, that's accepted as fact in biological disciplines for at least the last 30 years. The sociological debate of distinguishing ethnicity from national identity leaves far more room for opinion and ambiguity, there are no facts in this space and to state it as such illustrates an insular and closed-minded mentality that is not accepting of outside influences. Just because some people don't feel like convincing you, a stranger on the internet, that their opinion might bare as much weight as your own you dismiss it.

Personally I assess if someone is so closed minded as to be unwavering in their opinion to the exclusion of all other opinions and if I perceive it to be as such I don't bother engaging further with those people as I'm not compelled to justify my own opinions. You can accept that as a win for yourself.

A very insightful comment? No, it wasn't. It was vague and fuzzy and at the same time completely incorrect: "No such thing as ethinicty in this day and age". That's pure fantasy.

"It's a scientific fact that dog breeds are not akin to racial characteristics, that's accepted as fact in biological disciplines"? That's claptrap. It's the addition of "serious" words like "scientific" and "biological" to somehow add weight to a whole load of nothing. The point was that people are different, inherently, evidently, observedly, and for those reasons the ANALOGY is perfectly functional and correct.The point stands, unchallenged and unacknowledged by you.

You then state that there is far more ambiguity as to nationality, ignoring ethnicity wholesale, and also adding nothing to these supposed arguments.

1) you're making no defence of anything. You're saying nothing.

2) accusing me of being steadfast and closeminded.

3) using that as an excuse to avoid defending anything and saying nothing.

It's trollocks. Has it occurred to you that the reason I'm so resolute in my position is precisely BECAUSE there's sweet FA in terms of argument against that position?

"There's no such thing as gravity, and because you seem so closeminded to the idea of there being no gravity I'm not going to defend my position of there being no such thing as gravity"

Circular insanity.

antfin

Gradius wrote: »

A very insightful comment? No, it wasn't. It was vague and fuzzy and at the same time completely incorrect: "No such thing as ethinicty in this day and age". That's pure fantasy.

"It's a scientific fact that dog breeds are not akin to racial characteristics, that's accepted as fact in biological disciplines"? That's claptrap. It's the addition of "serious" words like "scientific" and "biological" to somehow add weight to a whole load of nothing. The point was that people are different, inherently, evidently, observedly, and for those reasons the ANALOGY is perfectly functional and correct.The point stands, unchallenged and unacknowledged by you.

You then state that there is far more ambiguity as to nationality, ignoring ethnicity wholesale, and also adding nothing to these supposed arguments.

1) you're making no defence of anything. You're saying nothing.

2) accusing me of being steadfast and closeminded.

3) using that as an excuse to avoid defending anything and saying nothing.

It's trollocks. Has it occurred to you that the reason I'm so resolute in my position is precisely BECAUSE there's sweet FA in terms of argument against that position?

"There's no such thing as gravity, and because you seem so closeminded to the idea of there being no gravity I'm not going to defend my position of there being no such thing as gravity"

Circular insanity.

You read what you want and misquote all you like. I'm saying ethinicity is very different from nationality. I am also saying that human characteristics are not the same as different dog breeds as you tried to draw similarities (without a shred of evidence of how human races are the same as dog breeds). I am not saying everyone is the same and I love cultural difference both in my nation and every nation I visit as it enhances the human race. What I am saying however is national identity can change intergenerational regardless of ethnicity and if a person is born in Ireland they are then entitled to say they are from Ireland therefore they are Irish regardless of where their parents are from. If they choose to add their heritage to that identity that's also fine by me. Do you consider it logical that if stopped at the border of a country while travelling, a person born in Ireland of an Irish father and a Chinese mother should not be allowed to state themselves as being Irish? How then do they answer that question?

Gradius

antfin wrote: »

You read what you want and misquote all you like. I'm saying ethinicity is very different from nationality. I am also saying that human characteristics are not the same as different dog breeds as you tried to draw similarities (without a shred of evidence of how human races are the same as dog breeds). I am not saying everyone is the same and I love cultural difference both in my nation and every nation I visit as it enhances the human race. What I am saying however is national identity can change intergenerational regardless of ethnicity and if a person is born in Ireland they are then entitled to say they are from Ireland therefore they are Irish regardless of where their parents are from. If they choose to add their heritage to that identity that's also fine by me. Do you consider it logical that if stopped at the border of a country while travelling, a person born in Ireland of an Irish father and a Chinese mother should not be allowed to state themselves as being Irish? How then do they answer that question?

Pointing out that an analogy is not the exact same thing as the subject at hand is not a point worth making. That's what makes an analogy an analogy.

"I'm saying ethnicity is very different from nationality".

So an ethnically Irish person is Irish, and a Chinese person born in Ireland or with an Irish passport is only lawfully Irish, and they are not the same. That's what you're saying, correct?

antfin

Gradius wrote: »

Pointing out that an analogy is not the exact same thing as the subject at hand is not a point worth making. That's what makes an analogy an analogy.

"I'm saying ethnicity is very different from nationality".

So an ethnically Irish person is Irish, and a Chinese person born in Ireland or with an Irish passport is only lawfully Irish, and they are not the same. That's what you're saying, correct?

No I am saying a person born in Ireland of one Irish born parent and one Chinese parent is entitled to call themselves Irish, not compelled but entitled.

Gradius

antfin wrote: »

No I am saying a person born in Ireland of one Irish born parent and one Chinese parent is entitled to call themselves Irish, not compelled but entitled.

Let's disambiguate the language and theoreticals here and cut to the mustard. Forget the half this and quarter that.

If ethnically Irish are, in your words, different from people who hold only Irish documentation...then they are different from each other.

Right?

Gradius

Gradius wrote: »

Let's disambiguate the language and theoreticals here and cut to the mustard. Forget the half this and quarter that.

If ethnically Irish are, in your words, different from people who hold only Irish documentation...then they are different from each other.

Right?

I suppose I'll just answer my own question then.

Different things are different. Cows are not satellite dishes, bricks are not colours. It is self-evident

More than that, it is genuinely insulting to insinuate otherwise.

antfin

Gradius wrote: »

Let's disambiguate the language and theoreticals here and cut to the mustard. Forget the half this and quarter that.

If ethnically Irish are, in your words, different from people who hold only Irish documentation...then they are different from each other.

Right?

Firstly, I don't consider "ethicnally Irish" to be a thing. Ethnically, the Irish are indisthinguishable from many other nationalities, particulary our fellow inhabitants of the British Isles. Secondly, everyone is inherently different! I am different from every other person in Ireland and I haven't seen any clones floating about. I wouldn't define nationality by any genetic predisposition towards a physical characteristic whether it's height, hair colour, eye colour or skin colour. It would be like saying that only tall people can call themselves Dutch! A person born in Ireland and living in Ireland is entitled to call themselves Irish, in my view. I don't believe in excluding others due to differences.

KaneToad

You don't even have to be female to be considered a woman. So, no.

atilladehun

Where do you draw the line. The gang that settled in mount sandel could consider anyone who arrived after them a bunch of foreign invaders.

The Celts that lived here (invaders to the ancients who created many of our ancient structures) had a broad DNA diversity, that's before the Vikings and Norman's.

Those invading rulers are the ones that named the place Ireland and considered all the island inhabitants Irish.

This is pretty much the case all over the world.

Celebrating cultures through arts, language and characteristics can be great and bring people together. Everyone is invited.

Making people feel like 'other' is a crappy waste of everyone's time.

antfin

atilladehun wrote: »

Where do you draw the line. The gang that settled in mount sandel could consider anyone who arrived after them a bunch of foreign invaders.

The Celts that lived here had a broad DNA diversity, that's before the Vikings and Norman's.

Those invading rulers are the ones that named the place Ireland and considered all the island inhabitants Irish.

This is pretty much the case all over the world.

Celebrating cultures through arts, language and characteristics can be great and bring people together. Everyone is invited.

Making people feel like 'other' is a crappy waste of everyone's time.

That's it exactly. Some people seem happy to exclude but not be excluded. Take the main factors of "ethnicity" and logically follow it through and it's not possible to define where you draw a line. Ancestry - there are very few people in Ireland that can claim to have a 100% definite ancestral line born solely of ancient Irish origin. Culture - many of our customs are shared with the Scottish and English, so if you only engage in customs that are common to all and not uniquely Irish are you still "ethnic Irish". Language - I don't speak Irish, nor do my parents, through lack of interest rather than opportunity to learn it, can I no longer call myself Irish?

Gradius

antfin wrote: »

Firstly, I don't consider "ethicnally Irish" to be a thing. Ethnically, the Irish are indisthinguishable from many other nationalities, particulary our fellow inhabitants of the British Isles. Secondly, everyone is inherently different! I am different from every other person in Ireland and I haven't seen any clones floating about. I wouldn't define nationality by any genetic predisposition towards a physical characteristic whether it's height, hair colour, eye colour or skin colour. It would be like saying that only tall people can call themselves Dutch! A person born in Ireland and living in Ireland is entitled to call themselves Irish, in my view. I don't believe in excluding others due to differences.

You don't consider ethnicity to "be a thing".

I'm sorry, but these ridiculous assertions are mickey mouse. As another poster says below, you can be a woman if you're a man, vice versa. There are many other seriously questionable "beliefs" and they all share the same foundations.

1) "Belief" trump's fact. And that's the end of discourse.

2) very little in the way of any argument. As per the comment quoted, it quickly veers away from reality to personal beliefs. See point 1) above.

3) by attaching a belief to purely emotion, it gains some popular support. Like cats meowing on the internet, it's a cute notion. But it will always boil down to 1) above.

"Ethnicity isn't a thing."

"I don't personally believe in gravity"

Like wishing everyone in the world had tons of money, it's all very commendable. The thing is, it's commendable for a 7 year old.

Infantilisation. The corruption of truth, the dismissal of science.

When confronted with a simple yes/no question, using your own words, you swing wildly in to 1) above.

That's the thing. When you start out from a position of untruth, it is simply a matter of time until you're pigeon-holed. And then it's onto the emotional feel-good 7 year old stuff to escape.

Gradius

atilladehun wrote: »

Where do you draw the line. The gang that settled in mount sandel could consider anyone who arrived after them a bunch of foreign invaders.

The Celts that lived here (invaders to the ancients who created many of our ancient structures) had a broad DNA diversity, that's before the Vikings and Norman's.

Those invading rulers are the ones that named the place Ireland and considered all the island inhabitants Irish.

This is pretty much the case all over the world.

Celebrating cultures through arts, language and characteristics can be great and bring people together. Everyone is invited.

Making people feel like 'other' is a crappy waste of everyone's time.

There's another way to weasel out of argument too.

Present an obscene extreme of the question, offer fook all else, and then disappear.

"Those Chinese shouldn't be shooting people within these precise parameters. Is it right or wrong?"

To which the non-answer goes "well sure, people have been shooting people forever."

That's not an answer or argument. Also, note the plea to emotion, the "feels". That attachment is Paramount.

Would you be making the same comments about essentially erasing the character and existence of aboriginal people in Australia?

You would in your shyte

antfin

Gradius wrote: »

You don't consider ethnicity to "be a thing".

I'm sorry, but these ridiculous assertions are mickey mouse. As another poster says below, you can be a woman if you're a man, vice versa. There are many other seriously questionable "beliefs" and they all share the same foundations.

1) "Belief" trump's fact. And that's the end of discourse.

2) very little in the way of any argument. As per the comment quoted, it quickly veers away from reality to personal beliefs. See point 1) above.

3) by attaching a belief to purely emotion, it gains some popular support. Like cats meowing on the internet, it's a cute notion. But it will always boil down to 1) above.

"Ethnicity isn't a thing."

"I don't personally believe in gravity"

Like wishing everyone in the world had tons of money, it's all very commendable. The thing is, it's commendable for a 7 year old.

Infantilisation. The corruption of truth, the dismissal of science.

When confronted with a simple yes/no question, using your own words, you swing wildly in to 1) above.

That's the thing. When you start out from a position of untruth, it is simply a matter of time until you're pigeon-holed. And then it's onto the emotional feel-good 7 year old stuff to escape.

Did I say anywhere that I didn't believe ethnicity to be thing? Read what I said not what you wish I said! I said "ethnic Irish" in my view is not a real thing. It's okay if you can only read some words, just go really slow and you'll understand the context and specifics of what I actually said. Also, I'm not a grammar teacher but a basic rule on the use of quotation marks is when you directly 'quote' something not paraphrase or misquote or twist language to what you want to it say so please don't misquote me again and then preceed to build your incoherent argument around contradicting something I never said.

That said you seem to not be engaging in a goodwill debate or offering any level of respect so I'll bow out here and wish you good luck.

Gradius

antfin wrote: »

Did I say anywhere that I didn't believe ethnicity to be thing? Read what I said not what you wish I said! I said "ethnic Irish" in my view is not a real thing. It's okay if you can only read some words, just go really slow and you'll understand the context and specifics of what I actually said. Also, I'm not a grammar teacher but a basic rule on the use of quotation marks is when you directly 'quote' something not paraphrase or misquote or twist language to what you want to it say so please don't misquote me again and then preceed to build your inherent argument around contradicting something I never said.

That said you seem to not be engaging in a goodwill debate or offering any level of respect so I'll bow out here and wish you good luck.

"I'm a 7 year old and have no argument so I'll bow out here"

I like how you specifically don't believe in Irish ethnicity. Terribly convenient. Those beliefs, that's what it's all about. La la la.

I will say, your point on grammar was stimulating