Re: Piggy
As to the Christian Culture issue...I see your position as comparable to the Hollywood bosses who told Mel Gibson the Passion would never sell. Then it was the biggest hit of the year. You underestimate peoples core belief.
Core belief?
Is that why 'The Last Temptation of Christ' was so popular...even though it was seen as being highly blasphemous by the Catholic Church and Christians alike?
Or perhaps it's the same reason that Dan Brown's books are so popular, even though he tells stories which discuss Mary Magdalene as the Holy Grail.
It's a very simplistic argument to suggest that people flocked to see a film which had massive media hype, and was highly controvserial even before it was released out of some core belief!
You tend to throw in red herrings to all your posts I've noticed.
Can you give me some examples please?
That retort about not needing to befriend immigrants because you don't need to befriend Kerrymen is an example. There is no comparison in the situation of a native Irish person in his own land, and a foreign immigrant with no friends in a strange country.
I guess you were just 'joking' again eh?
No, I wasn't joking. I thought the point that Tizona was making was rather simplistic and was highlighting that fact.
The idea of integration as opposed to multi-culturism is one thing. Personally I don't think it would work. There are many groups of peoples in this country who by and large congregate amongst themselves. This has much to do with human beings feeling comfortable amongst their own as it does with religion or other factors.
There are large Jewish sections of Dublin. Nobody ghettoised them in those areas. They usually tend to live cloe by to Synagogues surprisingly enough!
Similarly, there are, relatively speaking, large Muslim communities in certain parts of Dublin's city centre. There are also pockets of other immigrant (or otherwise) communities in other parts of the city. By and large we get on well together. Where the problem really lies, and why integration would not solve problems is where people view these people as being different. Your stereotypical "they're taking our jobs" type view. This is what causes bad feelings amongst communities. Get rid of the inherent racism in Irish society and you rid the need for ideas such as integration.
The country is full of PC liberals who cry about immigrants not getting a fair crack
There is an air of veiled racism in this comment. This would suggest that you feel the opposite?
but if you put them next to a traveller in a pub they'd move to the far end of the bar to avoid them. Pure hypocrisy.
I see, so you think you speak for everyone in Irish society do you? There are plenty of people who walk by homeless people on their way to and from work everyday. There are always some individuals who give them the time of day, buy them some food etc...
I live in a typical middle class area of South Dublin. Within a radius of two square miles there are three permanent halting sites, all well run, and there has never been any problems between communities. The travelling community in Ireland has sometimes received a lot of flak. Sometimes there is justification for it as there are some very rough elements in their communities, but sometimes without reason. I have witnessed this myself. And, I have also witnessed first hand the destructive nature that bad elements in these travelling communities can have first hand on my own community, when a large group of mainy overseas travellers moved into the land surrounding the Dodder river in Rathfarnham. The Gardai had to be called in virtually every night. They caused a huge amount of damage and litteraly turned the place into a dumping ground.
So, getting back to integration. Should travellers be forced to integrate with the rest of us? I don't think so personally.
I see Tizonas angle
I don't I'm afriad. What I do see are veiled references to "extremeist leaders" which leads me to believe that he has another agenda which he won't spit out.