Mere anarchy is loosed up the world
Feb. 26th, 2006 04:42 pmYesterday there were riots in Dublin.
Disturbances broke out in O'Connell Street, where a Love Ulster rally to remember the victims of republican violence was to start.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4752102.stm
Hundreds of highly organised republican demonstrators - including members of Sinn Fein and dissident groupings - descended on the capital, to forcibly stop a Love Ulster rally involving Orangemen and relatives of IRA murder victims.
Many of the protesters, including men and women wearing tricolours and masks, attacked gardai with fireworks, rocks, bottles and metal barricades, in a ferocious but well-planned onslaught. A number of the ringleaders wore mobile phone headsets to co-ordinate the mayhem, while others brought cans of petrol to torch vehicles and set bins alight.
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1569455&issue_id=13729 *
I missed this. I only heard about it long after it was over. There was looting and burning of cars, and violence against both the gardaí and the press. In addition to the gardaí who were injured attempting to contain the mob, RTÉ reporter Charlie Bird was attacked and viciously beaten.
Let us say this again. These people - co-ordinated by republican thugs - attempted to attack a peaceful demonstration by the relatives of IRA murder victims.
According to them, I suppose, it's all right for the IRA to commemorate the terrorists who blew themselves up with their own bombs, but not for the relatives of their victims to bear witness to their losses.
They wrapped themselves in our national flag, and they went out and attacked the gardaí with bottles and petrol bombs, rocks and nail-studded planks.
This was organised violence. This was organised. You do not get a mob of around 2000 people willing to attack the police in a city the size of Dublin by accident.
The people who organised this call themselves Republican, and Nationalist. If you asked them, they would probably call themselves patriots - of a kind, at least.
But they're not. They're scum. They're the worst kind of scum. Violence is what they do. Tolerance is the one thing they are unable to tolerate. They defile the national flag by carrying it with them when they attack the police force that upholds and protects the rights and freedom of the citizens of this state.
I'm glad that I'm not in a position to make or bend laws. Because if I was, and I could find the people who organised this -
- I'd be entirely too tempted to stand them up against a wall and have them shot.
And that's what makes them dangerous. Because every time that violence enters into the public and political discourse, it brings unreason that much closer to dominating the public discourse.
A truly free society is one in which it is safe to be unpopular. Who said that? I can't remember. Under that criteria, Ireland is not now and has never been free.
It makes me so angry, and so tired.
*registration is required for the full text.
Disturbances broke out in O'Connell Street, where a Love Ulster rally to remember the victims of republican violence was to start.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4752102.stm
Hundreds of highly organised republican demonstrators - including members of Sinn Fein and dissident groupings - descended on the capital, to forcibly stop a Love Ulster rally involving Orangemen and relatives of IRA murder victims.
Many of the protesters, including men and women wearing tricolours and masks, attacked gardai with fireworks, rocks, bottles and metal barricades, in a ferocious but well-planned onslaught. A number of the ringleaders wore mobile phone headsets to co-ordinate the mayhem, while others brought cans of petrol to torch vehicles and set bins alight.
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1569455&issue_id=13729 *
I missed this. I only heard about it long after it was over. There was looting and burning of cars, and violence against both the gardaí and the press. In addition to the gardaí who were injured attempting to contain the mob, RTÉ reporter Charlie Bird was attacked and viciously beaten.
Let us say this again. These people - co-ordinated by republican thugs - attempted to attack a peaceful demonstration by the relatives of IRA murder victims.
According to them, I suppose, it's all right for the IRA to commemorate the terrorists who blew themselves up with their own bombs, but not for the relatives of their victims to bear witness to their losses.
They wrapped themselves in our national flag, and they went out and attacked the gardaí with bottles and petrol bombs, rocks and nail-studded planks.
This was organised violence. This was organised. You do not get a mob of around 2000 people willing to attack the police in a city the size of Dublin by accident.
The people who organised this call themselves Republican, and Nationalist. If you asked them, they would probably call themselves patriots - of a kind, at least.
But they're not. They're scum. They're the worst kind of scum. Violence is what they do. Tolerance is the one thing they are unable to tolerate. They defile the national flag by carrying it with them when they attack the police force that upholds and protects the rights and freedom of the citizens of this state.
I'm glad that I'm not in a position to make or bend laws. Because if I was, and I could find the people who organised this -
- I'd be entirely too tempted to stand them up against a wall and have them shot.
And that's what makes them dangerous. Because every time that violence enters into the public and political discourse, it brings unreason that much closer to dominating the public discourse.
A truly free society is one in which it is safe to be unpopular. Who said that? I can't remember. Under that criteria, Ireland is not now and has never been free.
It makes me so angry, and so tired.
*registration is required for the full text.