Disappointed in David Norris

19-09-2014 09:59PM

Slot Machine wrote: »

Ahaha! That's because he's gay, right? Because gay men suck on testicles, right? I get it! Nice joke! Nice!

What age are you?

Slot Machine · 19-09-2014 10:10PM

Nodin wrote: »

.....you're getting that one wrong, tbh.

I hope so. I'm terribly cynical when it comes to AH, though. There's no end of the "witty' posters who think the gay jokes are funny to anyone but insecure adolescents.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

What age are you?

I know tone doesn't travel well through text but I don't think I could've made the sarcasm any more obvious.

Nodin · 19-09-2014 10:13PM

Slot Machine wrote: »

I hope so. I'm terribly cynical when it comes to AH, though. There's no end of the "witty' posters who think the gay jokes are funny to anyone but insecure adolescents.
.

Example 1
http://www.learn-english-today.com/idioms/idiom-categories/descp-people/descr-pp7-plum-sit.html

Example 2
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/plummy

LorMal · 20-09-2014 12:21AM

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patronize[/URL]

keeponhurling · 20-09-2014 12:26AM

FFS, can't believe we didn't abolish the Seanad.

Who cares what he thinks of 1916 now , it's disgraceful he gets paid to muse on these things

What the hell are they even supposed to be discussing ?

Ranchu · 20-09-2014 12:26AM

Norris wanted to gate off a street in Dublin City centre. For that alone he's a ****.

foxtrot101 · 20-09-2014 12:35AM

If Norris had managed to become President the 1916 centenary commemorations would have been interesting.

20-09-2014 12:47AM

Slot Machine wrote: »

I know tone doesn't travel well through text but I don't think I could've made the sarcasm any more obvious.

You're right, you couldn't have.

keeponhurling wrote: »

FFS, can't believe we didn't abolish the Seanad.

**** that. I can vote next time.

policarp · 20-09-2014 01:00AM

MakeEmLaugh wrote: »

Very disappointed in what David Norris said yesterday. He described those who participated in the 1916 Rising as 'traitors'.

"If one looks at 1916, I believe Yeats was correct in his first impression of some of these people when he said that they were vainglorious. Indeed, they were... They were afraid that history would write them out. They were seen by the British as traitors to the Empire but they were traitors to their own cause because Eoin MacNeill, the commander-in-chief, had cancelled the Rising and yet they ignored that... It is really quite ridiculous."

Not that I'm disappointed because those are his views. If those are his views, I completely respect his right to have them.*

What I don't respect, however, is transparent inconsistency and dishonest.

In 2011, while running for President or Ireland, Norris said the following.

"I never said the men of 1916 were terrorists. That's not true, it's a slur, and it's not fair on me. Terrorists are people who use civilian casualties to advance a political end. The men of 1916 produced the proclamation, addressed equally -- in an age when women didn't have the vote -- to 'Irishmen and Irishwomen', that's wonderful!"

Cleary, Norris was lying when he said this. He didn't believe it. He said it to advance his own political status.

I voted Norris #1 in the last presidential election, and while I don't regret that decision, I don't think I'd vote him #1 if he ran again.

*Nor is it that I necessarily disagree with Norris' comments - I'm not one of those who defend 1916 as a unavoidable step in laying the foundations of the Irish state.

David Norris is an advocate for Israel.
His partner was one of them folks.
So treat his words with suspicion.

Clankatron · 20-09-2014 02:19AM

policarp wrote: »

David Norris is an advocate for Israel.
His partner was one of them folks.
So treat his words with suspicion.

So maybe you could explain the recent video I saw where David Norris has a go at the Israeli ambassador for about twenty minutes, over Israel and that whole murdering innocent people in their droves thing?

If anyone can link to it, that would be nice.

Aongus Von Bismarck · 20-09-2014 02:27AM

Norris is hugely intelligent, but prone to moments of profound stupidity. He's also wonderfully eccentric. The country needs more of his sort. His latest outburst against Israel had a touch of the Sinead O'Connor giving out about the Catholic Church vibe to it.

20-09-2014 02:38AM

policarp wrote: »

David Norris is an advocate for Israel.
His partner was one of them folks.
So treat his words with suspicion.

Bit short-sighted tbh.

I was waiting for a bus a few years ago and he spent 10 minutes talking to a Wino. I know he wasn't talking it on board and I don't blame him for that. But I know he saw that as him being connected to the people. There's nothing modest about the man and he has no reason to be modest or to actually understand the lower classes. He'll give good quotes, he'll give bad quotes. If you look at the sum total of his speeches it reads like an intellectual autist.
Not a nice thing to say, I'm not saying he's autistic, but I think he has an imagined empathy a lot more than he has an actual empathy.

evo2000 · 20-09-2014 03:12AM

What did he say that wasnt true in his speech? i think alot of people just have an awful time accepting the truth.

foggy_lad · 20-09-2014 03:35AM

Is he still getting a disability payment from trinity while working and getting a full salary as a senator?

Did he really give an interview for one of the daily/Sunday rags where he said he had been around the world several times over, travelling first class all expenses paid and no expense spared, and wined and dined like a king OR Queen at the expense of the Irish taxpayer?

Bafucin · 20-09-2014 04:13AM

Nationalists and those involved in the armed conflict where not always one and the same. He did not say he did support independence.

That being said I think human rights violations at the time meant the Irish people had no one to defend them.If by traitors he means to the crown...well a traitor is someone who betrays someone who has a right to trust them or to whom they have sworn and given allegiance. I don't think any Irish nationalist gave that loyalty or owed it.

I hate DeValera as a figure though. He was practically a dictator. I would have liked to see what a Collins govt would have looked like. To be honest subsequent figures and govts DID spectacularly betray the Irish people. But human rights much improved but I recognize that moral conservatism and deep religious nonsense particularly supported by DeValera and the church was a deep deep inhuman betrayal.

Yeats supported the 1916 rising though so I don't know what he's on about.

WilyCoyote · 20-09-2014 06:13AM

policarp wrote: »

David Norris is an advocate for Israel.
His partner was one of them folks. **
So treat his words with suspicion.

** An Israeli paedophile who sexually abused a young Palestinian under-age boy.

And Norris tries to get him off the hook by writing on his behalf on Irish Government stamped paper.

A Bertie Wooster type with an idiotic false accent.

DEFTLEFTHAND · 20-09-2014 06:39AM

WilyCoyote wrote: »

** An Israeli paedophile who sexually abused a young Palestinian under-age boy.

And Norris tries to get him off the hook by writing on his behalf on Irish Government stamped paper.

A Bertie Wooster type with an idiotic false accent.

He is a Bertie Wooster type, there's nothing false about him, only he isn't a layabout like Wodehouse's Bertie was, living off his families money. No wonder the aristocracy went into decline after WW2, money ran out and these gents had never worked a day in their lives. There was no Daddy to sort things out anymore.

MakeEmLaugh · 20-09-2014 08:02AM

evo2000 wrote: »

What did he say that wasnt true in his speech? i think alot of people just have an awful time accepting the truth.

It isn't that anything he said in this speech was untrue. It's that he previously made statements which clearly exaggerated - if not wholeheartedly fabricated - any goodwill we had towards the Easter Rising or the 1916 proclamation.

In 2011, he described the proclamation as 'wonderful'.

In 2014, he began by praising former Taoiseach John Bruton (who I admire a great deal more than most posters on Boards.ie, but that's beside the point) for saying the 1916 Rising was unnecessary, and that the Redmondite path was the superior approach - the Redmondite path being incompatible with that of the IRB.

He then says, of the proclamation, "[it] continues some good things [but] when they refer to our 'gallant allies in Europe', they're actually talking about the Kaiser and his armies that trampled over little Catholic Belgium and engaged in war crimes. So I think it's no harm for us to put these matters in context and to re-establish the central, democratic and parliamentary tradition in which this house, from the days of Grattan, through O'Connell, through Parnell and through Redmond should be prepared to celebrate and honour."

Anyone who doesn't see the contradiction between his statements in 2011 and his statements in 2014 is lying to themselves.

losthorizon · 20-09-2014 09:54AM

artanevilla wrote: »

The Seanad has no democratic tradition. The people don't get a say in who sits there. It has an elitist tradition and Norris is the biggest elitist of them all.

You do realise we had a referendum just very recently about its status. I do have a vote in Seanad elections but still voted to get rid of it. But, most Irish people voted to keep it.

In the last 15 years or so the electorate here as shown that they really are clueless when it comes to political matters. Most simply are not interested and vote on promises which they think will but more money immediately into their pockets rather than thinking the subject through.

I actually kind of think Norris is right. Talks a lot of Baloney but as far as I am aware those were the facts.

DLMA23 · 20-09-2014 10:07AM

I lost faith in him after the presidential debacle, very dissapointed & I was genuinely rooting for him

MidlandsM · 20-09-2014 10:13AM

Shakespeare's Sister wrote: »

I don't know that I agree with him but David Norris has always struck me as a man who has no issue with being Irish, the opposite in fact.
He's from relatively "aristocratic" stock but so what - doesn't take away from the fact that he's a decent person and it doesn't make him any less of an Irishman. The "west Brit" slur is unnecessary.

I disagree. He always struck me as an ediot.

foggy_lad · 20-09-2014 10:16AM

He is a buffoon.

Grayson · 20-09-2014 11:18AM

Bafucin wrote: »

Nationalists and those involved in the armed conflict where not always one and the same. He did not say he did support independence.

That being said I think human rights violations at the time meant the Irish people had no one to defend them.If by traitors he means to the crown...well a traitor is someone who betrays someone who has a right to trust them or to whom they have sworn and given allegiance. I don't think any Irish nationalist gave that loyalty or owed it.

I hate DeValera as a figure though. He was practically a dictator. I would have liked to see what a Collins govt would have looked like. To be honest subsequent figures and govts DID spectacularly betray the Irish people. But human rights much improved but I recognize that moral conservatism and deep religious nonsense particularly supported by DeValera and the church was a deep deep inhuman betrayal.

Yeats supported the 1916 rising though so I don't know what he's on about.

The 1916 rising was a disgrace though. the leaders disobeyed orders. They marched out knowing that they had absolutely no chance of winning. They wanted the whole martyrs blood thing. They didn't really tell the rank and file that they were marching out to fail.

So they got slaughtered and when they finally surrendered, the leaders were pelted with rotten veg by the people of Dublin. They were pretty much universally hated.

The only reason that changed was because of the executions afterwards. If the 1916 rising was a success in any way, it was because of the actions of the British, not because of the actions of the 1916 leaders.

When we celebrate the rebellion in 2016 I'll be remembering the guys who went out and died because some idiots thought it was necessary for their cause.

Galwayguy35 · 20-09-2014 03:08PM

Those that voted to save the Seanad must be delighted, still the same despite all the promises the taepots in it were spouting when they were worried we were going to be able to get rid of it.

At least in the Dail we have a chance to vote them out, Norris has been screeching in the Seanad for years at taxpayers expense.

Hitchens · 20-09-2014 03:33PM

DLMA23 wrote: »

I was genuinely rooting for him

rephrase there cobber

WilyCoyote · 23-09-2014 01:46AM

MakeEmLaugh wrote: »

It isn't that anything he said in this speech was untrue. It's that he previously made statements which clearly exaggerated - if not wholeheartedly fabricated - any goodwill we had towards the Easter Rising or the 1916 proclamation.

In 2011, he described the proclamation as 'wonderful'.

In 2014, he began by praising former Taoiseach John Bruton (who I admire a great deal more than most posters on Boards.ie, but that's beside the point) for saying the 1916 Rising was unnecessary, and that the Redmondite path was the superior approach - the Redmondite path being incompatible with that of the IRB.

He then says, of the proclamation, "[it] continues some good things [but] when they refer to our 'gallant allies in Europe', they're actually talking about the Kaiser and his armies that trampled over little Catholic Belgium and engaged in war crimes. So I think it's no harm for us to put these matters in context and to re-establish the central, democratic and parliamentary tradition in which this house, from the days of Grattan, through O'Connell, through Parnell and through Redmond should be prepared to celebrate and honour."

Anyone who doesn't see the contradiction between his statements in 2011 and his statements in 2014 is lying to themselves.

The incongruities that he often indulges in also were picked up in a swimming pool in Hungary?
Eamonn Dunphy with a beard. At least Dunphy appears barefaced.

Disappointed in David Norris

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