David Norris and academic discussions.

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When he wrote his letter on Oireachtas headed paper, he dragged the State itself into his plea for clemency. This is unforgiveable.

He should be chucked out of the Seanad itself for this, never mind his Presidential bid. That's quite apart from how one might regard him personally.

Membership of the Oireachtas is a privilege that requires a high level of responsibility. God knows often other members have abused this privilege to their own ends.
 
If they chucked out all the people who wrote clemency letters there'd need to be another GE. Sen. John Crown will introduce a bill to ban all representations to the courts from the Oireachtas.

Complainer I agree it's better this came out now. All I'm sayin is that the people who raised it and dug for it should be subjected to the same level of scrutiny as to their motives And who can say that they weren't connected to someone else's presidental bid? We don't know that for sure. That's why we need to know what they were up to.
 
horusd said:
Now I know yer kiddin!
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No, who else would have had access to it? The letter wasn't in Ireland so it wasn't anyone at this end who got their hands on it. Norris is no friend of the Israeli government (or state) so they would hate to see him as President.
 
Purple said:
No, who else would have had access to it? The letter wasn't in Ireland so it wasn't anyone at this end who got their hands on it. Norris is no friend of the Israeli government (or state) so they would hate to see him as President.
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I genuinely hadn't thought the Israeli's might do this. I assumed these letters were a matter of public(court) records, and someone had looked em up, perhaps with a bit of a nod in the right direction. If Mossad or whoever actively interfered in Irish politics it's a far more serious issue. Probably unprovable tho.
 
The issue isn't who found the dirt, it's the content of the letter and what it stands for (which by the way isn't humanity or love).
 
MrMan said:
The issue isn't who found the dirt, it's the content of the letter and what it stands for (which by the way isn't humanity or love).
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There is an issue on who found the dirt if it is a different state influencing Presidential nominations. However, I agree the letter and the act of writing to any other state asking for leniency or communting of any sentence where there is no dispute over the individual's guilt is wrong. Just like Gay Mitchell's letter.
 

+1

Unless we know the motives behind the people who fished this out, we cannot definitively say. But it seems obvious that it was done with the intention of damaging or destroying Norris' campaign. The motives behind this matter. It won't change the facts or the wrongness of what Norris did, but we can and should scrutinize the people and their intentions behind the revelations and make a judgement on that.

An Irish Times interview with Mr Connolly the blogger who broke the story says;

"Mr Connolly told The Irish Times yesterday that his source was a regular correspondent with his blog – which advances strongly pro-Israeli views. He said the source came from a trade union background and had once campaigned for Michael D Higgins but was not associated with the Labour Party"

Source: [broken link removed]


Mr Connolly's says about himself that;

"I want to make a contribution, though it may be a small one, to defending liberty and truth. I will be offensive in doing so. For you see, I have two major loves: free markets and Zionism. Yep, I’m the kind of guy most folks today are indoctrinated to hate. I believe environmentalists are scamming us, as is the human rights industry and of course the socialists, as always. Oh, and Palestinians are not a bunch of perfect victims...."

Source:http://thesystemworks.wordpress.com/about/

Given that the heads up (according to Connolly) for the Norris story came from someone who had campagined for Michael D. Higgins, and were published by someone who " loves Zionism", and the papers involved related to an Israeli court case, we are entitled to scrutinize these issues. This is not to make a definitive claim as to motives. But it is sufficient to warrant further examination and questions. The upshot of what Connolly and this "trade union" guy did was to scupper the next likely president's chances of election. I want to know how this came about, was Israel involved, who was the trade union guy and who gave him knowledge of, and access to, the letters? These are eminently fair questions.
 
It's just starting to feel like a propaganda machine moving the story away from Norris and eventually leading to him being the victim; then we can start the petition to get him to run for the Aras again.
 
Some people obviously believe that every pro-Israeli blogger and commentator must be a stooge of Mossad. It seems that McCarthyitte paranoia lives on...
 
Latrade said:
However, I agree the letter and the act of writing to any other state asking for leniency or commuting of any sentence where there is no dispute over the individual's guilt is wrong. Just like Gay Mitchell's letter.
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So you would support the suppression of Amnesty International and anti-death penalty campaigns?
 
T McGibney said:
Some people obviously believe that every pro-Israeli blogger and commentator must be a stooge of Mossad. It seems that McCarthyitte paranoia lives on...
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And who are these people? And who is paranoid? Certainly not me. I have asked legitimate questions. Israel has some "form " in interfering in other countries, not least here in the passport debacle.

Connolly's" rantings" as he calls it, don't generally interest me one jot. He strikes me as a classical attention-seeking contrarian. To call him an Israeli apologist would grant him a gavitas above his station. His blog is pretty run of the mill really. He probably does Israel more harm than good. But I am curious as to exactly how he laid his mits on the Norris letters. Connolly states he is committed to liberty and truth, so telling us wouldn't be against his high principles would it? Unless of course, this commitment to truth and liberty is qualified in some way?
 
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T McGibney said:
So you would support the suppression of Amnesty International and anti-death penalty campaigns?
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There are about 3000 people on death row in the USA. But Mitchell chose one. One person who not only admitted to the murders but showed no remorse and openly tried to justify the cold-blooded killings at every stage. An abhorrent, sick individual. But it's ok to ask for leniency in his punishment?

I was told this wasn't about Norris' sexuality. I was told this was about an individual officially representing the state asking another state to be lenient in the case of a fair trial and not proceed with the punishment determined in a court. But obviously I'm wrong and that when multiple murders are carried out without remorse in the name of a pro-life campaign (uh?) that this is not anywhere near as abhorrent and career ending as the circumstances if statutory rape.
 
MrMan said:
It's just starting to feel like a propaganda machine moving the story away from Norris and eventually leading to him being the victim; then we can start the petition to get him to run for the Aras again.
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Not from me it doesn't as I wholeheartedly disagree with what Norris did. I just want consistency in our judgements on who is fit to run for the office.

As to the timing and release of the letter, I'm not saying that lets Norris if the hook for what he did, I'm interested in who decided to push this. The two suggested sources are the state of Israel and the Labour Party. There are serious questions behind whichever one is behind it.
 

I never raised the case referred to by Mitchell. I did however query the following statement...

Latrade said:
the act of writing to any other state asking for leniency or communting of any sentence where there is no dispute over the individual's guilt is wrong.
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... which made me wonder what you thought of Amnesty International and the anti-death penalty campaigns who specialise in letter writing campaigns.
 
T McGibney said:
... which made me wonder what you thought of Amnesty International and the anti-death penalty campaigns who specialise in letter writing campaigns.
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I don't have a problem with NGOs having campaigns. I do have an issue when it is official representatives of the state.
 
So elected representatives should avoid engaging with NGO's and charity lobbyists?

On that basis, Michael D will be facing a long charge-sheet as his record of activism and advocacy on behalf of the powerless and oppressed is substantial.
 
T McGibney said:
So elected representatives should avoid engaging with NGO's and charity lobbyists?

On that basis, Michael D will be facing a long charge-sheet as his record of activism and advocacy on behalf of the powerless and oppressed is substantial.
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Yeah you got me there. My point on elected representatives writing to other states asking them to change their justice policy following a fair trial means that no politician should ever engage in any human rights work or engage with any human rights NGO.

Or it could just mean what I said that I object to the letter writing in cases of a fair trial and nothing else.
 
I am not going to trawl through this to sort out the defamatory from the OTT from the Ok posts, so I have mass deleted the last 50 posts.

Brendan
 
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