Re: Northern Ireland (was Re: Nanotech Restrictions)

From: Michael S. Lorrey (mike@datamann.com)
Date: Wed Apr 26 2000 - 17:04:49 MDT


Thats the typical british demand for capitulation. Trading "Guns for peace"
seems to be the MO for some people on this side of the puddle too. Essentially
the British want the Catholics to lie down like dogs before they will agree to
discuss the idea that they possibly might acknowledge Catholics as potentially
qualified to be human beings, so long as they totally subjugate themselves to
the state and abdicate their individual human dignity. You folks tried that here
in the US a coupla centuries ago too, as you might recall....Tell me, if the IRA
had given up its guns decades ago, do you even think the Catholics would be even
treated halfway as decently as they are today?

DOUGLAS WHITWORTH wrote:

> Somehow South Africa managed to " find itself" for long enough to reach
> anagreement that was acceptable to all parties. This has not happen in
> Ireland, who can hardly claim to have suffered to a comparable extent. That
> this has not happened in N. Ireland in the last few years is not the fault of
> either the British people or their Gov't (who, for the sheer financial saving,
> would like to pull out of ireland). Until all parties really consider giving
> up their guns a satisfactory trade off, they will never have a stable peace.
> Its a case of " guns before peace." and the political imaturity of the
> protagonists (and I am avoiding deliberate finger-pointing ) in being unable
> to accept the inevitability of compromise in any meaningful negotiated
> solution in any dispute. Douglas
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Charlie Stross
> To: extropians@extropy.com
> Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2000 5:25 PM
> Subject: Re: Northern Ireland (was Re: Nanotech Restrictions)
> On Wed, Apr 26, 2000 at 12:08:27PM -0400, Michael S. Lorrey wrote:
> >
> > As for myself, a Catholic Scottish American whose family got
> relocated to Nova
> > Scotia from the Gordon's Highlands, I've got little or no
> sympathies for the
> > headaches the Protestant British have brought on themselves, while
> at the same
> > time I have no sympathies for the marxist ideology of most IRA
> members. Frankly
> > you deserve each other.
>
> Who is this "you" you're talking about, white man? I'm a Jewish Brit
> of
> Polish descent who lives in Scotland and votes for Scottish
> independence
> at every opportunity.
>
> And if you'd bothered reading up on the field you might have come
> across
> the interesting statistic that something like 85% of the GB
> population
> favours pulling the GB out of NI and letting the buggers kill each
> other ... stereotyping people by attributing the foreign policy of
> their
> government to them as personal opinion isn't exactly a good way of
> figuring
> out what's going on anywhere, is it? Or would you like me to blame
> you
> for Janet Reno's actions on the grounds that, being American, you
> must
> logically support her?
>
>
>
>
>
> -- Charlie
>



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