Multiculturalism

It may not make a difference as far as your ability to hear it goes, but it isn't a video but an audio presentation I posted.You have a completely different view of the events you are describing than I've heard, one I have reason to believe is very much Catholic propaganda, but I'm going to have to study this more, which I've been intending to do anyway for some time, before I can make a case one way or the other.If you have some reliable sources for your claims I'd like to see them.

You said you wanted to start a thread on this topic. If you do, I'll participate. Otherwise I don't have much more to say on the matter here.

Okedokey - when the other threads I'm in die off I'll have a shot at it.

Are you saying that you re not aware of the Hobby Lobby decision?

Of course, there is no issue with finding resources for this topic. Here is a pretty good one that deals with several of the issues that were implemented to turn Irish Catholics into second class citizens throughout their tenure as a part of England. SourceFrom the Source: So, in 1650 when William III came to power, the rights of Irish Catholics were starting to be taken away by an all Protestant Parliament. Limiting the access to things that can lead to wealth and education is forcing the Irish Catholics into positions of subsistence farming, especially considering they were barred from even owning the land that they farmed on. Rather, that land was owned by absentee landowners who lived in England.Instead of granting limited home rule to the Catholics as England considered doing, they instead partitioned the country into Northern and Southern Ireland in 1920. This was because of the fears of the Protestants and even served their purpose to remain a Protestant controlled country. Some other laws that have been in place, created by the Protestant controlled Parliament are as follows:and and The law which these three sections are from was implemented in 1702, far before the Troubles and the IRA taking action.So, they are basically saying that no Catholic individual has the right to own property. If they convert, they can own property, but if their children are Catholic, they must forfeit the inheritance of the property at the death of the Protestant father unless they also convert.From another law, written in 1709: So, now they can't receive any annuities that are tied to the land they work on either, further reducing the profitability of farming for the Irish Catholics.Here is one of my favorite ones, from 1745: So, the Irish Catholics were allowed to serve and die in the King's forces, but were prevented from acquiring any lands through their deeds in service of the king, while the Protestants did not have this same restriction. The Catholics can fight and die, but they'll be damned if they want to own land. SourceFinally, about the ability of England to have staved off the worst effects of the Irish Potato Famine. So, proper distribution of foodstuffs could have prevented a large portion of these mass starvation deaths, yet what was done with this food? However, the Protestant government did not cut off exports of Irish grain during this time, which left the Irish Catholic subsistence farmers with only the potato (suffering from late blight) as a means of sustenance. How about the Soup Kitchens that Britain set up in Ireland to help stave off starvation. Well, they were actually proving highly effectual in getting nutrients to those in need, but the British cut off the soup kitchens after only six months of operation and during the worst part of the famine (There was a terrible harvest deficiency in 1847, the year the British cut off soup kitchen support. The price of food was grossly inflated in Ireland during the time and the Public works projects the British implemented paid far too low of wages for the Irish Catholics to afford sustenance at these inflated prices. However, the Protestant Parliament continued to pay for these public works at a diminished rate that did not cover the rising cost of food.In addition, even during these troubled growing periods, Protestant landowners were evicting tenants from their homes at an alarming rate, leaving them with no options for survival and no means of escape from the starvation conditions. So, why didn't these Protestants help their fellow humans as they were dying in such large numbers? Some of them took the Laissez-faire mentality of extremely limited government interference: However, it wasn't only thoughts about government restraint that stayed the Protestants hands during the famine. There was also the concept of Providence, or divine judgment against the Catholics. These Catholics were facing starvation because of the doctrinal differences between them and the Protestants in charge. God was punishing them for not accepting the faith of the British invaders. I also cannot find the quote, but when another country offered 10,000 pounds in aid for the Irish Catholics suffering from the famine, the British government responded to them that the country should only donate 1,000 pounds because that was what the English had donated to the cause and for another country to donate more would make the British look bad. When I find the reference for this statement, I will add it to this (Although, it may be in the first reference I posted also) Source for third sectionFinally, take a look at the results of the Great Potato Famine in Ireland on the Wiki page about it. Especially check out the map that is pictured on the right showing the population fall in different regions of Ireland. Notice how very little of Northern Ireland was affected by this late blight? This was a completely avoidable tragedy where an entire eighth of the population was decimated by starvation that could have been mitigated by the Protestant Parliament in charge. Great Famine WikiAll of these items throughout the history of Britain's control over Ireland led to the strong feelings of distrust and hatred that eventually spilled out during the Troubles and the vast majority of these were to disenfranchise Catholics and force them into a position of servitude and second class citizenry. Again, while I don't agree with the IRA's violence as the solution in most cases, it is understandable that after hundreds of years of being browbeaten into submission that some would move toward violent solutions in retribution.

I'm reading this, Tempe, but I have to stop and object: I claim the violence is mostly, not exclusively but mostly, one-sided, Catholic against Protestant, and in any case always initiated by the Catholics, with which you agreed, while this article, like so many discussions one finds on this subject, obscures the actual causes, which has the effect of implying, no doubt falsely, that the conflicts are perpetrated more or less equally by both sides.Here's an example: From what the pastor said in the sermon I linked the vast majority of these, possibly all of them, would have been Protestants, but the general statement implies something else, doesn't it? In fact the very term "fighting" implies a false view if these are Catholic attacks on Protestants. Of course, if these crimes were committed by Catholics, or predominantly by Catholics, and if the "common person" suffering the loss of a sense of security and freedom happened to be predominantly Protestant, we could never ascertain that from this description, could we?I plan to go on reading, but would also point out that your post itself manages to imply that this is just a senseless religious conflict without any clear cause, but the fact is that drastic measures were taken by the Protestants against the Catholics for very good reason, whatever we think of the measures themselves. Bloody Mary had burned Protestants at the stake for simply being Protestants, in service to the Pope (whereas Protestant monarchs punished Catholics for actual treason against the crown), Catholics had plotted against Elizabeth 1, made twenty-something attempts to assassinate her, also plotted against James 1, requiring a small army of bodyguards for both monarchs, the attempts on James I including the Gunpowder Plot orchestrated by the Jesuits, which was aimed at blowing up Parliament along with the king. (abe: All this is in J A Wylie's History of Protestantism I think, I'll try to get to it to check it out. /abe)I don't know what James II did to deserve being deposed besides convert to Catholicism, with which the people were thoroughly fed up by then, but I might guess that it wasn't that simple. In any case, there were REASONS Catholics were restricted, it wasn't just an irrational religious conflict but an actual matter of violent actions by Catholics against Protestants. it was recognized that Catholics would not live peaceably with Protestants but were always enacting the Inquisition against them.There is also a popular piece of Catholic propaganda against Oliver Cromwell, for his suppression of the Irish, conveniently overlooking the fact that his mission was to stop the bloody attacks of the Catholics against the Protestants.As long as you and others keep ignoring such causes it's hard to address the possible excesses of the Protestant or at least government reaction to them.But I'll try to continue reading.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

P.S. I think the potato famine was extremely unjust as far as I've understood it, which I already said. What I wrote above relates to the earlier political situation that brought political repression against the Catholics, which is what I'm planning to continue reading about.

Tempe may have agreed, but I can assure you with no reservations that this is nonsense. The first violence of the Troubles was Protestant. The IRA's campaign of violence ended in 1962. The terrorist bombing campaign of the Loyalist Protestant UVF began in 1966. The IRA at the time was following a policy of peaceful class struggle, and it was only in 1969 that frustrated members broke away to form the Provisional IRA and returned to sectarian violence. Then what the pastor said was a lie. According to the data gathered by Malcolm Sutton (which you can see here), gathered from newspaper reports, coroner's records and other sources, the breakdown of all those who died in the Troubles between 1969 and 2001 is as follows:Northern-Irish Catholic: 1,522
Northern-Irish Protestant: 1,288
Not Northern Irish: 722and the breakdown of the organisations responsible:Republican paramilitaries: 2,058
Loyalist paramilitaries: 1,027
British security services: 363
Irish security services: 5
Unknown: 79Edited by caffeine, : No reason given.

Faith, I did not agree that the violence is always initiated by the Catholics. What I did agree to was that the IRA was responsible for terrorist attacks and more importantly to this point what I had read was that the IRA moved to violence in the Troubles first. Caffeine has said I was incorrect in this and I would be interested in reading more about the topic as I know I can never learn enough to understand something as complicated as the Troubles perfectly. I also did not agree that the violence was predominately committed by the Catholics, especially because I consider the behavior of the Protestant Parliament and the restrictive laws as a form of subtle violence (although instead of killing quickly, it kills hundreds of thousands at a slow pace). And this is an obvious lie, as both sides were fighting against one another. The Northern Irish Protestants did not practice Gandhi's idea of non-violent resistance, after all. The Troubles affected both groups nearly equally according to the numbers that Caffeine just posted. Those crimes were committed by both sides in a conflict for control of a country. The Protestants had subjugated the Irish Catholics for over four hundred years, do you honestly think they would let that power and control go without fighting back? Do you have any evidence (such as death records) to show that only Protestants died in the Troubles? And here is the biggest problem with your view on this topic and what got me involved in this thread. Yes, the Catholic Church was dangerous to Protestants and so you use the treatment during the Inquisition as justification for the treatment of Irish Catholics when Protestants took control from James II. However, the Protestants then went on a campaign of subtle, slow-killing violence against the Irish Catholics (Not the Catholic Church, but the Irish Catholic laypeople) and you refuse to see justification for why the IRA would react violently after the amount of suffering they had endured. If violence done to the people is your justification for Protestant treatment of Catholics, then why does this justification not follow suit for the violence done to the Irish Catholics? I don't agree with any of their decisions, not the original ones practiced by the Catholic Church during the inquisition, nor the laws implemented by the protestants to force Catholics into poverty and squalor, nor the violence committed by the IRA to gain freedoms back. However, I can honestly analyze the situation and see how each group was able to justify their reactions and gain traction. Your use of the Irish Troubles as an example of Catholics attacking Protestants ignores all of the history of the area and simply claims that the Protestants were right, so any violence against them was wrong. Again, if the Protestants were justified to subjugate their fellow human beings, then the IRA was justified in fighting for freedom.Here is a question, If the Protestants were so angry at the Catholic Church, why did they not take these actions against the Vatican and their power, instead of taking it out on the poor Irish Catholic community, the laypeople. They don't control the stances the Church takes on issues, these answers come from Rome. Couldn't the Protestants have found another route to challenge Vatican authority without treating other humans as disposable? Couldn't they have worked to show how the groups could work together and send a much stronger message to Rome? Instead, they chose vengeance against those weaker than they. As they say, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."Use a hypothetical again, You are a member of a Protestant church during the Inquistion (this will allow you to see it from a viewpoint you agree with). The Catholic Church has continued a campaign against your people, bringing violence and death along with them. Would you feel justified in rising against this authority, possibly risking martyrdom, for the freedom to worship in the way of your forebearers? If so, then why do you consider the IRA unjustified? If not, then why are you okay with the treatment of the Irish Catholics for hundreds of years.

Hey Caffeine, just to clarify I had only agreed that the initial acts of terrorism were started by the IRA during the Troubles, but that is only from the things that I have read and could most assuredly be wrong. I would love to read more on the topic, if you would like to post some links, and make my viewpoint of this more in depth. My family history was around in Ireland until the Famine, so I'm always interested in learning more about that history, especially because we had left before the Troubles happened. I also consider the treatment of Irish Catholics by Protestants for hundreds of years as a form of subtle violence that forced them to living on meager rations and disallowed them any route to wealth or power. I also see their willful allowance of the Famine as an extreme form of violence, especially considering they denied assistance from other countries offering to help the Irish Catholics. This is willfully allowing people to die from starvation. Could you post some links to this so that I can continue to read about the topic? Perhaps the information I have managed to find was contaminated with some bias that I could not perceive, so extra information will assist in clearing any misinformation I have received. Thank you for posting this! I knew that the violence was not completely committed by Catholics, but was having trouble locating the actual numbers. I would never have agreed with Faith's assertion that all the violence was committed by Catholics, especially considering that I see the subjugation of humans (in this case Catholics) as violence. I just wanted to clarify that I only agreed with Faith that the IRA had started the violence in the Troubles (which as you mentioned, I had tainted information on), but that if she justified the Protestant treatment of Catholics in Ireland, then the actions of the IRA were similarly justified from similar subjugation and ill treatment they suffered prior to the Troubles.

Yes, it was absolutely the willful choice to allow a million people to die from a cause that was completely preventable. Of course, you want to remove this terrible treatment from the discussion but you want us to remember how the Catholics treated Protestants during the Inquisition. All of these things happened and must be considered as a part of the situation. If the Protestants were justified to take vengeance on the Irish Catholic Laypeople based on the violence committed against them, then likewise the IRA is justified for taking vengeance on a similar violence against them....which includes the treatment during the Great Famine.Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : No reason given.

Well, both of us need to read a lot more on this. Neither of us will convince the other at this stage. Have you listened to the Irish pastor?As for the "slow killing" by the restrictions and so on, I haven't read enough yet to have a clear idea about what happened, but as I said, if you don't acknowledge that such restrictions were provoked by Catholic violence I'm not going to accept your version of things. Perhaps you can't acknowledge that because you've only heard the opinions from the other side.Where is the evidence of fighting? I won't deny that some Protestants probably retaliated but from the pastor's account only few did and they were denounced by the rest of the Protestants.No, I don't have death records, but that's the sort of information the author at your link should have provided, as I said. His generalizations give a completely different picture than the one I'm familiar with.You state baldly that both sides were equally involved but you do not have evidence of that, and I've heard otherwise.Why against the people rather than the Vatican? We're talking about matters of law and order within the UK, aren't we? The Vatican always keeps a low profile in its provocations to violence. It might be possible to trace some of it to some local priests but still, it's the people themselves who are committing the violence under the provocation.Unfortunately I need to learn a lot more about these things. And I think you do too.\

No, Tempe, it's just that I don't think the potato famine was intended as retaliation, it was just horrible mindless cruelty, and I'm interested in the war with the IRA. I'm quite happy to include the potato famine as well, but what you said put it too much at the center of things.

Personally, I think mindless cruelty is just as bad as intentional retaliation.

As bad, sure, but the point is it wasn't intended as part of the ongoing conflict which has its own historical momentum. That's how I've understood it anyway. I need to find a trustworthy account of these things. I don't trust Tempe's for reasons given.