Multiculturalism

The Famine played into the British policy of subjugating and depopulating Ireland.
I found a google books copy of a a book I have on the subject. The book discusses the desire of Britain to bleed Ireland dry. In a sense it is very similar to the oligarchs desire to bleed the middle class and poor in the United States today. There will always be diminishing returns and sooner or later even the mule is going to bite. Book

So mindless ignorance of consequences is okay?

Which was brought about primarily because of the laws that the Protestant Parliament had put in place to restrict the Irish Catholics. The laws they put into place forced the Irish Catholics into subsistence farming and removed any opportunity to provide excess for sale to build wealth. This made them more susceptible to the effects of the Famine. So, yes, it was retaliation (You have even stated that these laws were put in place as retaliation because of the risks Protestants considered Catholics as posing) and when presented with the fact that the Irish Catholics were going to suffer massive casualties at the hands of famine, they continued to leave the laws in place as they were, even continuing to evict 500,000 subsistence farmers during the famine. Not only did they refuse to modify or remove the laws, but they also refused extra assistance from other countries for the Catholics. Would you consider the laws denying land rights, crop rights, or inheritance to Catholics as a retaliation to the treatment of Protestants during the years before Protestants took control? If so, do you see how these laws are connected to the deaths during the famine? How is that not retaliation, slow moving, but retaliation nonetheless.

Perhaps your account is correct though as usual all we are doing is trading assertions. And you continue to implicitly deny that the Catholics did anything to deserve the restrictions. Again, I find it hard to consider your one-sided view of this. I might find the restrictions excessive and in need of modification, but as long as it is denied that the Catholics provoked them upon themselves it's hard to get a clear picture of any of this. Catholics murdered Progtestants for being Protestant, remember? They plotted against Protestant monarchs, trying to assassinate them, Guy Fawkes Day being one notorious instaqnce. I'm only too aware that the Irish treat Cromwell's military move against them as unprovoked and Cromwell some kind of evil villain when he had moved to quell the bloody murders by the Catholics. Get the other side into your picture and I'll be better able to get yours into mine.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

May I suggest that you try to listen to the pastor I referred to. I linked to him in Message 1030 where I also specify which section of his talk refers to the conflict in Ireland. He's Irish and he lived through it. I wish I had a solid written account of the events from the Protestant point of view but don't as yet, so this talk is the best I can do. It's only about half an hour.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I am not denying that the Catholics did some things to deserve restrictions. The history of the Catholic Church is a long and bloody one. However, accepting this does not change the results of placing these restrictions on the Irish Catholics and those results are a big portion of what led to the future conflict between the Unionists and the Nationalists. Were the Protestants justified in their fear of Catholic uprising? Yes, they were. However, the consistency in maintaining these laws, especially during times of extreme hardship (such as the Famine), was a major cause for animosity between these groups. And again, if the Protestants were justified in subjugating Irish Catholics to avoid uprisings based on previous treatment, then the IRA was as justified in finally attempting to break free and remove the shackles that had been placed on their freedoms. I don't agree that any of these actions should be considered justified. Not the Catholic subjugation of Protestants, nor the Protestant counter-subjugation of Catholics, nor the IRA attempts to use terror to earn freedoms back. But history doesn't give us what we want to see, rather it shows us what actually happened. I can see how each of these groups could claim they were justified in their actions and attract a following, I just don't agree that any of them were. You want to defend one group, but refuse to see how the actions of that one group would generate increasing problems as the plan progressed further. These actions eventually led to the Irish Catholics wanting their freedoms back, which leads to the actions and steps taken by the IRA.

I'm not interested in defending the English policies against Ireland, but this blanket refusal to acknowledge that the Catholics gave them more than enough provocation over centuries, and I mean WAY MORE THAN ENOUGH, is a big fat hole in your argument that may not be noticed by others but discredits your whole position to anyone who knows something of the other side of the story.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm defending one group, you're defending one group. Long as you play down the bloody violence of the Catholics, and you are playing it down, this conversation is effectively dead. I grant that I need to study the history of all this more, I hope I can get to it.ABE: There is one more thing that I think needs acknowledging. England's Protestant religion has been as good as dead for a century or so by now, so when we are talking about governmental actions against the Irish or Catholic Irish we are not really talking about Protestant actions. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

What provocation warrants genocide against women and children? What provocation did the catholic people of Ireland participate in to deserve the treatment they received at the hands of the British?Please I want to hear your justification of the treatment of the Irish Catholics at the hands of the Protestants.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

I have listened to most of it at this time, but I'm not finding him very convincing. He has strong opinions about it, having lived through it, but his talk contains definite incorrect facts. As Caffeine already pointed out, he is blatantly lying when he states that the violence was almost all produced by the Catholics. The death counts which were taken from the records (Caffeine already posted these numbers) show that the victims of violence were almost equal from each camp. Plus, the Ballast investigation that was conducted by the Police Ombudsman showed that not only were the Northern Ireland Police and British military secretly involved in the conflict, but that they had found evidence that informants for the police were suspected of committing killings during the Troubles, of hiding evidence from prosecutions and of bringing in murder suspects from the Protestant side and simply letting them walk. Source: Statement by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland on her investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Raymond McCord Junior and related mattersSo, if his claims in this area are falling flat, why should I trust more of the information from his sermon? Especially when he does not seem to be providing any sources to verify outside of personal experiences. Finally, and I do not like attacking the messenger, but Ivan Foster is about the furthest toward the Unionest camp you can find. He even ended his friendship with Ian Paisley after Paisley decided that working and sharing power with Sinn Fein was better than continuing the armed conflict.By the way, for anyone to answer. I've always heard that Northern Irish Protestants refer to themselves as British and not Irish, is this correct? In that case, Ivan Foster is British, not Irish as you stated Faith.

It burns!!!!!!No True Scotsman Fallacy again?Century or so? Did you know anything about the history of the British government's policies toward Ireland? 1536 is just a "century or so" ago?
History of Ireland (1536—1691) - WikipediaSo you want to respin this?

So if it comes down to a conflict between your faith and the federal government you will support the federal government. With guns.And that this is expected of all people, whether religious or not ...Yes?My country right or wrong eh?... like the Hobby Lobby people did ... (oops)?Just askinEnjoy... cue equivocation ...Edited by RAZD, : hl

Ivan Foster was born in Ireland and converted to Protestantism in Ireland.I didn't see Caffeine's post so I'm looking at it now.

What blanket refusal? I even stated a few messages back that I agree the history of the Catholic Church is a long and bloody one. There is no justification I could see that exculpates the Catholic Church for the crimes and misdeeds they enacted. I also said that I can understand why the Protestants would have wanted to restrict the Catholics. However, where we differ is on the actions of the IRA. If the Protestants are justified to begin their campaign of subjugating and slowly executing through poverty the Irish Catholics because of their treatment at the hands of Rome, then why do you not agree that the IRA is justified in fighting back to break the pattern of subjugation they had been placed under for hundreds of years? Where does the justification for retribution violence end?One could even go back and say that Catholics could be justified for their subjugation of others because of their initial horrid treatment at the hands of the Roman Empire, much of which would make up their future empire. (Of course, I know you don't consider early Christians Catholics, but history does). So, where should we stop this justifying violence, whether subtle or forthright?

You do realize that we can research the crap you spout.
He was born into a Protestant family, he did not convert.
Ivan Foster - Wikipedia
He is from Northern Ireland, so he would not consider himself Irish, he would consider himself British.
People of Northern Ireland - WikipediaI guess this yahoo is your type of guy though.

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In 2002 he preached a sermon in which he condemned Nigel Dodds who accepted an invitation to attend an ecumenical service at St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast in celebration of Elizabeth II's golden jubilee. Foster accused Dodds of disobeying God's words by attending the service, arguing that it was a wicked ceremony as it was addressed by Cardinal Sen Brady, whom Foster accused of being a priest of the Antichrist

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Care to post facts in the future?