[quote]ConorM wrote:
Well first I am totally against some of the silly drug penalties in the US. People getting convicted for 50 yerars for selling a bit of dope to their friends. Drug policy should be centred around rehabilitation, harsh punishments for known drug barons yes, but not for you poor guy using a bit of acid at the weekends to party.
In terms of murder and rape, I think harsh action needs to be taken. Life sentences for multiple murderers (ie never get out of jail within reason, not 14 years thats not a life sentence). Rapists need to be treated harshly too, although I think if one guy gets convicted on the testimony of one girl the sentence should be realistic (like nearly happened to be Kobe). Serial Rapists, lifetime jail terms no possibility of parole. Remove the archaic death penalty and instill a good appeals system to ensure innocent people get real justice as the court system is not infallible. Its like a built in safety. Just some quickly typed random thoughts.[/quote]
Thank God the irish chimed in.
Let’s outline how the irish would deal with it – just like they deal with everything else: blame the English and get drunk!
Or… Worship national heroes who are either made up or who were hung for being traitors. Seriously, even france doesn’t venerate its losers like the irish do. The french are mildly embarassed about Napoleon, in ireland he would have been reviled for his success and then raised to Godhood for his final defeat.
Or… Try to talk about being “fighters” while having a history even more fraught with getting the shit kicked out of it than Poland or Serbia. Which makes it pound for pound, the country with the worst ass-whipped record in history. Come on, the Nez Perce indians, armed with bows and arrows and a passive culture, did better against armies of warlike men hunting them with repeating rifles and cannons than the irish did against bored minor Norman nobles. The English finally left, not because the Irish ever won a single engagement, (including during your revolution), but because they were so goddamned tired of listening to the bitching.
Or… Try to make the moral high ground in international affairs when in truth, the island of ireland has not made a positive addition to the world since monks huddled terrified in their towers, holding precious books (not written by irish, of course) to keep them away from the Vikings.
Or… Be nasty to irish expatriates because only outside of the depressing irish culture were irish people ever actually able to accomplish anything notable other than binge drinking records or grand champion bitching or shortness contests. So while Irish in the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US made all sorts of accomplishments, the irish in ireland drank and complained.
Or… Suck money from countries like Germany or the UK where people work for a living and then talk about how using that money to advance out of the Stone Age makes ireland a “Celtic Tiger”! Then vote against Eastern European countries in the same position.
Or… Not talk about how irish cities are all comparable with the worst slums of other countries. Try walking one block off of O’Connell street in any direction and try to argue with that. How about Cork? There’s a great town. Just like Dublin… There’s eight hundred bars, filled with angry midgets, and eight hundred dilapidated Catholic shrines that would embarass any self-respecting medieval peasant anywhere else.
Or… should we look up irish crime rates? Or the fact that irish people have been fleeing the country like rats from a sinking beer barge for hundreds of years?
Instead of learning a long-dead language in schools, every irish child should spend an hour every day repeating this mantra: “It’s always easier to criticize than to do anything useful. If your past is a catalogue of misery, don’t look back.”