A measured look at a difficult situation

But there are different meanings to the word "legitimate." If they've conquered the US and are running things, then their law is legitimate in the sense that it's the law of the land. Which is what I meant when I said I might have to, accept it as legitimate, I mean.In the other sense of whether I consider it a just law, no, and if it conflicts with God's Law I'd have to disobey it. That doesn't stop it from being the law of the land.The context here is Ireland's being run by England. The Irish didn't and don't like it but if the English have the power and are running things then they are the legitimate authority.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It truly is amazing how you condemn any catholic violence, but justify all protestant violence. You have a total unwillingness to look at the actual facts behind the history of Ireland.Did you not support James interpretation of the divine right of kings on another thread? Why are you not supportive of that right by other kings?Your blanket dismissal of English violence against the men, women and children of Ireland is truly abhorrent. But not surprising considering the amorality you have expressed in the past.

Obviously you know a lot about the history of Ireland, and as I said there are always going to be complexities in such a situation, even the alliance of Protestants with Catholics for certain purposes. Not all the problems are religious.I can't believe Cromwell could have invaded if he hadn't been sent by some legitimate authority, that doesn't make sense. From the Irish point of view things are going to look different than from the English point of view and I'd rather just leave it at that.
'
But it's the religious problems that I've had in mind from the beginning, not the political problems, and where those dominate my impression is that it's Catholic aggression against Protestant victims and not the other way around, and this is because of the RCC's sense of its right to rule the world. This can get buried under local political issues but wherever it's dominant that's what I'd expect to see.

What ARE you talking about? Blanket accusations really don't communicate anything, please be specific, I have NO idea what you mean. Huh? I did not "support" the idea of the divine right of kings, let alone support it for one king and not another. What ARE you talking about? Please go back and read what I actually said. I gave a reason why James 1 insisted on it that is a tad different from what is normally thought: that it was necessary to counter the Pope's claims to dominate kings. That doesn't make it right in itself and I didn't say it did.And besides, what does this concept in the abstract have to do with what we are talking about? Where have I justified any actual aggression against anybody on the basis of the divine right of kings? You seem to delight in making up stuff out of thin air to accuse me of. "Dismissal of English violence?" I'm sorry, I thought I was making a distinction between a legitimate military action to put a stop to a rebellion as against a foul (Irish Catholic) rebellion that outright murdered defenseless Protestants. As I've often pointed out there seems to be a tendency here to refuse to distinguish between murder and necessary force. The "amorality" is on your side, your confusion of good for evil and evil for good,. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Exactly, you would see it as unfair and you would feel you couldn't comply with it.

Sorry, I think I confused you. My not considering it a just law would not be reason to disobey it. If it's the law of the land, whether I consider it just or not, I'd expect to have to obey it. It's only if it conflicts with God's law as spelled out in the Bible that I'd be obliged to disobey it, such as if it required me to bow down to Allah. In that case I'd expect to be punished.A law's being unfair doesn't make it illegitimate. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

And in this you've demonstrated your complete ignorance on this subject.

Reading through some Wikipedia articles I see that the history is way more complex than I want to try to take in. The irish Rebellion in which Protestants were murdered was in 1641, and the English reponse to it was not led by Cromwell. He led another military action in 1649 against some other incident. This is way beyond the context I started out with. It's the Irish Rebellion itself that simply outright murdered unarmed Protestants that I was saying was specifically a Catholic action, and whatever military action came in to put it down I'd have to consider just.

Complete ignorance of the political situation, yes, but if you keep confusing English military action with Protestantism you are the one confusing things. The Irish Rebellion as I've seen it described was the stripping naked of defenseless Protestants and driving them into the snow to die. That's not a military action and it's specifically Catholic against Protestant.

That is correct sorry. You have a very odd view of this. That it wasn't a divine right of kings, but that kings needed to get back authority that the pope some how had taken from them.It all boils down to
1. Catholics bad
Protestants good2. Conqueror good
Trying to throw off conqueror bad3. American Revolution Good
Irish revolution bad
See 14. If Protestant vs Protestant violence than one side(decided by Faith) is obviously not true Protestant.5. Winner is always good. Unless of course they are not Protestants, then the Jesuits were behind it.Anything else we need to add to Faith's rules of history?BTW, have you even tried reading anything about Irish history to learn the reasons for the Irish rebellions?

So if Sharia law was forced upon America through armed conflict after a declaration of war and subsequent occupation Sharia law would be legitimate from your perspective?All the best.

nonsense, and even the most cursory of investigations makes that clear
Irish Rebellion of 1798 - Wikipedia So the rebels were founded by protestant liberals.
(note: Daniel O connell the leader of catholic emancipation was a protestant) the notion of sectarianism was used by the government as a divide and conquer strategy: The Catholic Church OPPOSED the rebellion: Yes, there were massacres of loyalists by the rebels also: But your one-sided view is beyond ridiculous.Edited by Heathen, : No reason given.Edited by Heathen, : No reason given.

Murder bad, military action to quell murderous rebellion legitimate. That's all I've claimed.But I've certainly had the impression that historically it's Catholics who initiate the conflicts and do the murdering.But thanks for reviewing what I said about the divine right of kings.I'm not interested in getting into the complexities of irish history. Too much.

Yes. This has already been discussed, please read through previous posts on this subject.

We can abandon the circularity of a law being legitimate because it's a law - that's rather silly. For a law to have legitimacy it must be moral and supported by its population; law imposed on populations by dictatorships are neither moral, nor legitimate. Or perhaps you consider the law of imprisoning jews simply for being a jew was legitimate?