Political Crossfire Forums

[Erin]

Quote: thundertaker wrote:
Do you seriously, honestly believe the NI is still part of the UK for imperialist reasons? LOL, the Blair government has been trying to hand over Gibralter to Spain for years, despite the fact over 90% of the population wish to remain British. Britain is no longer an imperialist country.
The British government would love to be able to ditch northern ireland, as would most ordinary brits. We find the whole province an embaressment and a drain on the economy. Unfortunately, we can't do this whilst the majority still wish to remain British. In the meantime, the security forces have to deal with twats from boths sides trying to kill people from the other side, each other, and them. I don't know what it is you expect really.........

Well you, the British government created this problem! Now deal with it. If this is true, then go forward with the Belfast Agreement! Why all the stumbing blocks in the way of GFA. If Britian want's out, leave.

As far as Britian still being imperialistic, I would say yes you qualify by definition, i.e., The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony (predominant influence) over other nations. The system, policies, or practices of such a government.

It is also strange that that you still swear allegiance to the queen. I think the Imperialsim as we once knew it in Britian is no longer there. But you still have a monarchy, even it it is simply a symbolic office. "It's rather like the old adage about the elephant in the room. Everybody knows it's there but nobody wants to say anything."

Although Britain’s enthusiasm for colonies waned in the latter part of the 18th century, it was still actively imperialistic. Now most of its new acquisitions were strategic, designed to protect trade.

There was also an enormous expansion of British territory occurring, mainly in areas contingent to old holdings. New Zealand was annexed in 1840, and more territory was being opened up in Canada every year. Western Australia began to grow in the 1880s and 1890s. The Punjab region of Pakistan was beginning to be exploited. Thus the British Empire continued to expand, especially in economic and strategic terms, but new territory was mostly acquired in regions which had been ‘staked out’ many years before. In the last century, Britain has been forced to relinquish most of their colonized holdings.

Today the hierarchal class structure of Britain still exists and still causes injustice to millions. Everyone may all be equal but don't kid yourself that those who run your country are doing anything to make society reflect this. Why would they? They are the people with the power and the money, they wouldn't want to jeopardise their supposed superiority.

Wake up, 'there is no future in England's dreaming!' This is the 21st Century and it's time the privileges and wealth of this parasitic family were reclaimed for the people. However, the problem runs much deeper than the Royal Family. They are simply the most visual aspect of an out-dated and floundering social structure.

Last years visit to Tanzania, by British chancellor Gordon Brown he claimed that "the days of Britain apologising for its colonial past are over". Some of us may be forgiven for wondering when we ever heard any of these apologies, but I suppose that would be unfair to the chancellor and highly cynical.

Especially when one considers his follow up comment that it was time for Africans to start talking about "the enduring British traditions of liberty and tolerance".

ANC leader Thabo Mbeki, for some strange unearthly reason, isnt highly impressed by the British chancellor. He claims that British imperialists have simply treated the African peoples whose lands they occupied as savages.

Speaking as someone from an area which Britain currently occupies, apparently because we Irish natives are unruly savages Britain has to police, Id settle for a withdrawal rather than an apology for its actions. Maybe Mr Mbeki and myself are just a pair of cynical bastards, unable to appreciate "British traditions of liberty and tolerance". I suppose that must mean we are savages after all.

Erin

Honour Ireland's Fallen Patriots
Wear an Easter Lily

[red dragon]

Quote: Well you, the British government created this problem! Now deal with it. If this is true, then go forward with the Belfast Agreement! Why all the stumbing blocks in the way of GFA. If Britian want's out, leave.

A bad start really. Your government didn't create the problem as you well know. It was a religious war starting with King William of Orange. Your army went into NI in 1969 in order to protect the Catholic minority from attacks by majority Protestants. Your British army, was then cleverly manipulated by the Protestant majority whom held the important positions within Law, Government and security, using your British army as a battering ram against the Catholic minority. The British army were suckered by this, not knowing the political and religious situation which had lasted hundreds of years (as we don't have religious bigotry on the mainland) By the time the army knew what was going on all the good will that the minority catholic community had shown, when they initially turned up was lost. Instead of viewing their own army as a Savior it quickly became it's enemy and viewed it as an extension of the protestant movement. A shame really.

Anyway this is a dead thread, nobody cares, go and unite with Ireland, but it's not going to happen for decades. As Long as there is lasting peace and the transition is peaceful, then i am happy for all the people of Ireland.

Pob lwc i pawb o'r Iwerddon. :wink:

[Erin]

In February 1974, in a Westminster general election, 11 out of the North’s then 12 constituencies returned anti-Agreement unionists. They were opposed to the Sunningdale Agreement, which had been negotiated a few months earlier between the Ulster Unionist party, under Brian Faulkner, and the SDLP, under Gerry Fitt.

The eleven MPs were opposed to the power sharing executive at Stormont, disrupted its meetings, and were opposed to what was called the ‘Irish Dimension’ in the shape of a Council of Ireland which actually never met.

Sinn Fein had yet to adopt an electoral strategy and the IRA was committed to armed struggle (though by Christmas of that year it would call a ceasefire).

The new MPs, made up of dissident Ulster Unionists and Ian Paisley, then collaborated with the Ulster Workers Council and organised a general strike in May of that year. To bring the North to its knees the UWC had to rely on loyalist paramilitaries, mainly the UDA, but also the UVF, to hijack vehicles at gunpoint, close down roads and prevent people from going to work. The UDA commander, Andy Tyrie, and UVF leaders were on the UWC Co-ordinating Committee.

During this period loyalist paramilitaries killed six Catholics in the Rose and Crown bar on the Ormeau Road, a husband and wife in Donaghmore, several Catholic workers, and two Catholic brothers who ran a bar in Ballymena. On the third day of the UWC strike loyalists, almost certainly helped by elements of British intelligence, planted car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan and slaughtered 33 children, women and men.

When power and petrol supplies were cut Brian Faulkner was forced to resign and the power-sharing executive collapsed. The alliance of anti-Agreement paramilitaries and politicians triumphantly marched to Stormont. In the intervening 30 years, to the top of the hill, then down again to the bottom, is the only place these politicians have ever taken their people.

Then, as now, the real issue wasn’t about the IRA, or ‘Sinn Fein/IRA’, but was about sharing power, equality and parity of esteem – principles which are alien to the raison d’etre of the six-county state and its culture of a ‘Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People’.

Last week on television the DUP’s Gregory Campbell inadvertently admitted this when he said that even had the IRA decommissioned its weapons “with transparency” in October it still wasn’t the issue. The issue was the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, which “had given nationalists everything” – that is, some of their democratic entitlements.

The whole issue of the IRA is just an excuse for unionists not to engage with the nationalist community.

Some commentators have described the current deadlock as having been exacerbated by “ the election of the two extremes”, as if Sinn Fein is refusing to share power with unionists or doesn’t recognise unionist aspirations.

Sinn Fein has genuinely pursued a dialogue with unionism. However, most unionists still adhere to the myth that the conflict in the North was one-sided, that the IRA was responsible for all violence. The DUP and its supporters need reminding of its history.

In 1977 the DUP once again allied themselves to the UDA during another UWC strike. The stoppage lacked support and so the UDA turned to intimidation, shooting dead a Citybus driver in Belfast, Protestant Harry Bradshaw, in an attempt to stop public transport.

The DUP set up a ‘Third Force’, a vigilante organisation in 1981, which operated illegal checkpoints and held rallies. In 1986 the DUP helped found Ulster Resistance, a paramilitary-style force whose members marched in military formation wearing red berets. There was the famous incident when Peter Robinson, armed with a firearm, led a loyalist mob in an attack on Clontibret garda station. He was found guilty of unlawful assembly and fined fifteen thousand punts.

Members of Ulster Resistance were involved in industrial espionage and were caught selling details of Shortt’s blowpipe missile technology to the South African apartheid regime. Ulster Resistance, in collaboration with British Intelligence, smuggled into the North a large shipment of weapons that were used to kill several hundred nationalists in the 1990s.

The DUP and other unionist representatives for decades have acted as cheerleaders for British army and RUC violence and have justified repression, torture, shoot-to-kill operations, exclusion orders, censorship and discrimination.

Extremists were certainly elected last Wednesday but they were unionists.

At the most, 34 or 35 unionist representatives out of a potential assembly of 108 members are opposed to the Belfast Agreement. The Agreement still has the support of a majority of people in the North, and was endorsed in referenda, passed as legislation in both Britain and Ireland and is lodged at the United Nations as an international binding Treaty.

However, the very provision which was written into the Agreement to prevent abuse – that the executive and assembly require the consent of a majority of both unionist and nationalist elected representatives - gives the DUP, as the leading party of the unionist community, the power to prevent an inclusive executive from being formed.

Ultimately, Britain is to blame for the supremacist mentality within unionism, which came with partition. That is not to say that things haven’t changed. Things have changed and many unionists are prepared to share power and recognise the compromises that nationalists and republicans have made in the interests of reconciliation.

Sinn Fein, having emerged as the leaders for the nationalist community, has to face down the DUP. The DUP has declared that it will not share power with Sinn Fein and thinks that it can renegotiate the Agreement. It has yet to learn that there can be no assembly, no executive and no power for the DUP without the consent of Sinn Fein, and that the nationalist community is not about to give up or dilute rights which it took eighty years to secure.

http://www.troopsoutmovement.com/peaceprocess.htm

Beannachtaí na Cásca (Happy Easter)

Erin

Honour Ireland's Fallen Patriots
Wear an Easter Lily

[red dragon]

Right so you post a heavily biased piece by 'Troopsmovementsout' and claim that it must be so. But you haven't anwered my above post.

[Erin]

red dragon wrote: Quote: Well you, the British government created this problem! Now deal with it. If this is true, then go forward with the Belfast Agreement! Why all the stumbing blocks in the way of GFA. If Britian want's out, leave.

Anyway this is a dead thread, nobody cares, go and unite with Ireland, but it's not going to happen for decades. As Long as there is lasting peace and the transition is peaceful, then i am happy for all the people of Ireland.

Pob lwc i pawb o'r Iwerddon. :wink:

THEN GO AWAY !

CAN YOU READ LIPS! GOOD!

[thundertaker]

I can't be arsed addressing the point about the Queen, I have explained it many times on various other threads, and to go into it again would take a long time and take this thread off topic.
As for Britian being under some 'outdated hierachical social structure' I would venture to suggest you haven't lived on the mainland UK, so you base most of your opinions on Britain based on negative stereotypes perpetuated by dimwitted foreigners who think England is still pretty much the same as depicted in Dicken's novels. Britain is as meritocratic as any other western country. The office of head of state is heriditary, but we have had Prime-Minsters from all walks of life, from bastard sons of coalminers, former bus-conductors, greengrocers daughters, as well as the usual priveleged backgrounds the political elites more commonly come from.
As for Thabo Mbeki, he isn't fit to lick the s**t off Nelson Mandela's boots. He has pretty much abandoned his predecessor's policy of racial integration in favour of Black favouritism, sucking up to Robert Mugabe, and is obsessed with perpetuating the myth that HIV is not the cause of AIDs, thereby undermining efforts to combat the virus. So why the hell should anyone pay any attention to what that crackpot thinks?
Much of Africa is in the state it's in because we left too early without establishing proper policitical and social structures to prepare them for independence. Countries like India, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and even the US are how they today because of the influence of British political philosphies on liberty and good governance.
Ireland would probably have turned out alright without English help anyway, thanks to it's geographical location in Western Europe. Although the fact that Ireland speaks the English language was a major factor in the 'Celtic Tiger' economy in a world were English is the world's de facto common language......

[red dragon]

Erin wrote: red dragon wrote: Quote: Well you, the British government created this problem! Now deal with it. If this is true, then go forward with the Belfast Agreement! Why all the stumbing blocks in the way of GFA. If Britian want's out, leave.

Anyway this is a dead thread, nobody cares, go and unite with Ireland, but it's not going to happen for decades. As Long as there is lasting peace and the transition is peaceful, then i am happy for all the people of Ireland.

Pob lwc i pawb o'r Iwerddon. :wink:

THEN GO AWAY !

CAN YOU READ LIPS! GOOD!



No I cannot read lips, can you actually read?? Because you never answer posts. PIDYN

[Erin]

Thundertaker, ok, I will agree with most of what you said on your post. I only find it strange that in an age of super powers, that one of them should still be ruled by a king or queen.

Thabo Mbeki views on HIV/AIDS related virus is still on on-going controversy but that is another thread entirely. I don't agree with him, but there is a controversy surrounding it.

Additionally, his views dovetailed with some broader themes in African politics. Many Africans find it suspicious that black Africans bear the largest share of the AIDS burden, and that the drugs to treat it are expensive and sold mainly by Western pharmaceutical companies. The history of malicious and manipulative health policies of the colonial and apartheid governments in Africa, including biological warfare programs set up by the apartheid state, also help to fuel views that the scientific discourse of AIDS might be a tool for European and American political, cultural or economic agendas.

Whatever Mbeki's views of AIDS are now, ANC rules and his own commitment to the idea of party discipline mean that he can not publicly criticize the current government policy that HIV causes AIDS and that antiretrovirals should be provided. His critics (and a few supposed supporters) sometimes assert that his personal views are not in accordance with this policy and still influence AIDS policy behind the scenes, a charge which his office regularly denies.

I only used him as an example of how British imperialists have treated other peoples whose lands they occupied. But perhaps that was a poor choice.

The point I'm trying to make is the views of the Irish that want a free state, think that Britian is still imperialistic. And, Britian has had plenty of time "establishing proper policitical and social structures to prepare them (6 counties) for independence! So implement the GFA, which is what the people voted for, let them adopt the Euro as soon as possible and join the EU, and get on with it!

[Erin]

red dragon wrote: Erin wrote: red dragon wrote: Quote: Well you, the British government created this problem! Now deal with it. If this is true, then go forward with the Belfast Agreement! Why all the stumbing blocks in the way of GFA. If Britian want's out, leave.

Anyway this is a dead thread, nobody cares, go and unite with Ireland, but it's not going to happen for decades. As Long as there is lasting peace and the transition is peaceful, then i am happy for all the people of Ireland.

Pob lwc i pawb o'r Iwerddon. :wink:

THEN GO AWAY !

CAN YOU READ LIPS! GOOD!



No I cannot read lips, can you actually read?? Because you never answer posts. PIDYN

Oh PLEEEEEEEEEASE! What do you want me to answer??? :bang: All the posts you say I am a Liar and don't know what I'm talking about? Or the ones that say it's a "dead thread, and nobody cares"???? :arhhg:

You are driving me insane! :wtf:

If you would debate in a civilised manner and listen instead of hurling insults all the time, I would love to debate you and try to understand you views and opinions, but you don't let me when you go all over the place and that's VERY ANNOYING!

[red dragon]

Quote:
As far as Britian still being imperialistic, I would say yes you qualify by definition, i.e., The policy of extending a nation's authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony (predominant influence) over other nations. The system, policies, or practices of such a government.

Hand on heart what do you think would happen tomorrow at 8:20am and Tony Blair said 'NI is no longer part of the UK and Ireland can have it'.


Quote: Although Britain’s enthusiasm for colonies waned in the latter part of the 18th century, it was still actively imperialistic. Now most of its new acquisitions were strategic, designed to protect trade.

That's correct, do you understand now that it was three centuries ago :roll: :roll:



Quote: There was also an enormous expansion of British territory occurring, mainly in areas contingent to old holdings. New Zealand was annexed in 1840, and more territory was being opened up in Canada every year. Western Australia began to grow in the 1880s and 1890s. The Punjab region of Pakistan was beginning to be exploited. Thus the British Empire continued to expand, especially in economic and strategic terms, but new territory was mostly acquired in regions which had been ‘staked out’ many years before. In the last century, Britain has been forced to relinquish most of their colonized holdings.

Correct and it didn't stop hundreds of thousands of irishmen from going there.


Quote: Today the hierarchal class structure of Britain still exists and still causes injustice to millions

Really?? Where and how?



Quote: Everyone may all be equal but don't kid yourself that those who run your country are doing anything to make society reflect this. Why would they? They are the people with the power and the money, they wouldn't want to jeopardise their supposed superiority.

LOL........tell me a country which isn't like that with ruling elite.



Quote: Wake up, 'there is no future in England's dreaming!' This is the 21st Century and it's time the privileges and wealth of this parasitic family were reclaimed for the people. However, the problem runs much deeper than the Royal Family. They are simply the most visual aspect of an out-dated and floundering social structure.

LOL.......I don't think the fourth largest economy in the world needs a lecture from a small minded country boy about the current date, after all we are not living 800 years ago, my god those damn saxons they invaded this country and raped it :roll: :roll:

Quote: ANC leader Thabo Mbeki

Enough said from this racist a hole.

Quote: He claims that British imperialists have simply treated the African peoples whose lands they occupied as savages.


Something all imperialist said 300 years ago.

Quote: Id settle for a withdrawal rather than an apology for its actions. Maybe Mr Mbeki and myself are just a pair of cynical bastards, unable to appreciate "British traditions of liberty and tolerance". I suppose that must mean we are savages after all.

But as a subject of the UK your allowed to vote in referendums, your allowed to vote for SF and your allowed a fair trial, not summary justice like the IRA who are unelected and without authority.

[red dragon]

Quote: Oh PLEEEEEEEEEASE! What do you want me to answer??? Bang Head All the posts you say I am a Liar and don't know what I'm talking about? Or the ones that say it's a "dead thread, and nobody cares"???? ARG!!!

You are driving me insane! WTF

If you would debate in a civilised manner and listen instead of hurling insults all the time, I would love to debate you and try to understand you views and opinions, but you don't let me when you go all over the place and that's VERY ANNOYING!


BOO HOO>

[red dragon]

Quote: In 1983, the then Secretary of State, Jim Prior, decided not to hold another referendum on the ground that the likely outcome was obvious from other elections, ie that the pro-UK vote would win. The 1998 referendum included of course the provision that Northern Ireland remains in the UK for the time being.

The idea that a referendum at some future point might decide that Northern Ireland would join a United Ireland survived into the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, and Nationalists read the demographic runes with glee, pointing to the increased vote for Nationalist parties over the last few years. I am personally sceptical that there will be a referendum majority for a United Ireland in the near future for the following reasons:

1. I suspect that the recent growth in the Nationalist vote is caused by the working through the system of a growth in the Catholic share of the population which largely happened in the 1970s. This was caused, first, by an easing of the situation for Catholics, both in terms of economic discrimination and in terms of stable and safe housing after the forced population movements of the early period, which meant they were more likely to make a living and therefore stay in NI, and second by differential emigration from Protestants getting the hell out of Northern Ireland in the early years of the troubles. If I am right, we will see some growth in the Nationalist vote share in the next couple of elections and then it will level off at around 45%.
2. As is clear from the 1998 referendum results, a referendum rather than an election will pull out many more voters in areas which are not really hotbeds of support for a united Ireland. Opinion polls likewise show that support for a united Ireland runs well behind support for Nationalist parties. One cannot exclude the kind of sudden mood change which hit Slovenia in 1991, but it hasn't happened yet.

[red dragon]

Quote: A majority of the present-day population (62%, according to a 2004 survey) wish to remain part of the United Kingdom, but a vocal minority (22%) want to see a united Ireland. Official voting figures show 54% of NI vote Pro Unionist parties, and 42% voting for Pro Nationalist parties and 4% vote "other". Almost the entire population of Northern Ireland is at least nominally Christian. The ethno-political loyalties are allied, though not absolutely, to the Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations and these are the labels used to categorise the opposing views. This is however, becoming increasingly irrelevant, as the Irish Question is very complicated. Many voters (regardless of religious affiliation) are attracted to Unionism's, free-market policies and "let's get down to business attitude". While other voters are instead attracted to the traditionally leftist, nationlist SDLP and its party platform for Social Democracy. A majority of Protestants feel a strong connection with Great Britain and wish for Northern Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom. Many Catholics desire a greater connection with the Republic of Ireland, with 42% of Catholics, according to a 2004 survey, supporting a united Ireland. According to the same 2004 survey, 24% of Northern Irish Catholics support Northern Ireland remaining a part of the United Kingdom (Catholic Unionist). Official voting figures, again, have these figures much higher.[1]

Protestants have a slight majority in Northern Ireland, according to the latest N. Ireland Census. Most Protestant themselves as Unionists (i.e. want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom) and most Catholics are Nationalists (i.e. want a united Irish Republic). There are however many who hold a position on the border that is at odds with the label of their "community" or reject these labels completely. The 2004 Irish life and Times survey showed that 29% of Protestants and 36% of Catholics define themselves as neither Nationalist nor Unionist.[2] Some of the Catholics of N. Ireland have Unionist sympathies (see Catholic Unionist), as some Protestants have Nationalist sympathies (see Protestant Nationalist).

The make-up of the Northern Ireland Assembly reflects these divisions within the population. Of the 108 members, 59 are Unionists and 42 are Nationalist (the remaining seven are classified as "other"). Although the Protestant population is the majority, the largest religious denomination is the Roman Catholic Church, followed by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland,the Church of Ireland, and the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster with the Methodist Church coming fourth.

The two opposing views of British unionism and Irish nationalism are linked to deeper cultural divisions. Unionists are predominantly Protestant and often descendants of mainly Scottish, English, Welsh settlers and indigenous Irishmen who had converted to one of the Protestant denominations. In the Protestant community there is also a considerable Huguenot influnce.

[Erin]

red dragon wrote: Quote: A majority of the present-day population (62%, according to a 2004 survey) wish to remain part of the United Kingdom, but a vocal minority (22%) want to see a united Ireland. Official voting figures show 54% of NI vote Pro Unionist parties, and 42% voting for Pro Nationalist parties and 4% vote "other". Almost the entire population of Northern Ireland is at least nominally Christian. The ethno-political loyalties are allied, though not absolutely, to the Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations and these are the labels used to categorise the opposing views. This is however, becoming increasingly irrelevant, as the Irish Question is very complicated. Many voters (regardless of religious affiliation) are attracted to Unionism's, free-market policies and "let's get down to business attitude". While other voters are instead attracted to the traditionally leftist, nationlist SDLP and its party platform for Social Democracy. A majority of Protestants feel a strong connection with Great Britain and wish for Northern Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom. Many Catholics desire a greater connection with the Republic of Ireland, with 42% of Catholics, according to a 2004 survey, supporting a united Ireland. According to the same 2004 survey, 24% of Northern Irish Catholics support Northern Ireland remaining a part of the United Kingdom (Catholic Unionist). Official voting figures, again, have these figures much higher.[1]

Protestants have a slight majority in Northern Ireland, according to the latest N. Ireland Census. Most Protestant themselves as Unionists (i.e. want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom) and most Catholics are Nationalists (i.e. want a united Irish Republic). There are however many who hold a position on the border that is at odds with the label of their "community" or reject these labels completely. The 2004 Irish life and Times survey showed that 29% of Protestants and 36% of Catholics define themselves as neither Nationalist nor Unionist.[2] Some of the Catholics of N. Ireland have Unionist sympathies (see Catholic Unionist), as some Protestants have Nationalist sympathies (see Protestant Nationalist).

The make-up of the Northern Ireland Assembly reflects these divisions within the population. Of the 108 members, 59 are Unionists and 42 are Nationalist (the remaining seven are classified as "other"). Although the Protestant population is the majority, the largest religious denomination is the Roman Catholic Church, followed by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland,the Church of Ireland, and the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster with the Methodist Church coming fourth.

The two opposing views of British unionism and Irish nationalism are linked to deeper cultural divisions. Unionists are predominantly Protestant and often descendants of mainly Scottish, English, Welsh settlers and indigenous Irishmen who had converted to one of the Protestant denominations. In the Protestant community there is also a considerable Huguenot influnce.

[De Bhaldraithe]

Red dragon, I don't mean this to sound insulting but can you not come up with your own argument? You're always posting from other sources or giving links. Can you not justify your views in your own words?

Honestly, I'm not trying to sound insulting, I'd just like to hear, or see rather, you express your views yourself.

[red dragon]

I have expressed my views as well as using open sources to back them up, what do i get a banner which says 'it's a fly in the ointment'...............go figure. :roll: :roll:

Plus neither of you reply to the subject which i have posted, so what's the point in a deep and meaningful discussion. I'm countering your argument of no democracy, what else am i supposed to do, keep on without an answer until I agree with your side of the argument.

[De Bhaldraithe]

red dragon wrote: I have expressed my views as well as using open sources to back them up, what do i get a banner which says 'it's a fly in the ointment'...............go figure. :roll: :roll:

Plus neither of you reply to the subject which i have posted, so what's the point in a deep and meaningful discussion. I'm countering your argument of no democracy, what else am i supposed to do, keep on without an answer until I agree with your side of the argument.

Right don't get aggressive.

What subject did you post that I never replied to?

You can't argue that there is democracy in this statelet - there isn't and never has been. Fact.

[red dragon]

Despite two referendums, a burgeoning power sharing executive and known murderers and killers allowed out of prison. just because it's not on your terms it doesn't mean it's not a democracy.

I have posted above the two questions which were asked to be voted on in the referendums, two simple questions, no ambiguity, no leading questions and the overpowering answer was a yes to stay within the UK. I just don't get which part of it you don't think is undemocratic.......your being ridiculous.

[thundertaker]

Quote:
The point I'm trying to make is the views of the Irish that want a free state, think that Britian is still imperialistic. And, Britian has had plenty of time "establishing proper policitical and social structures to prepare them (6 counties) for independence! So implement the GFA, which is what the people voted for, let them adopt the Euro as soon as possible and join the EU, and get on with it!

One problem, as Red's sources have already indicated, the majority of NI residents don't want to leave the UK. Until that changes, the status-quo will have to remain. Unilaterally changing the status of Northern Ireland would therefore be undemocratic.....

[De Bhaldraithe]

red dragon wrote: Despite two referendums, a burgeoning power sharing executive and known murderers and killers allowed out of prison. just because it's not on your terms it doesn't mean it's not a democracy.

I have posted above the two questions which were asked to be voted on in the referendums, two simple questions, no ambiguity, no leading questions and the overpowering answer was a yes to stay within the UK. I just don't get which part of it you don't think is undemocratic.......your being ridiculous.

It's undemocratic in that it was a referendum put up by a foreign government.

Would a Frenchman be expected to have to vote on a German referendum? No because it is a democracy.