How I like to reply with a quote:

Click the reply with quote key,

then I type what I want and make it a different color at various places between the text that is copied into the box and make sure to type something outside the quotes at the bottom.

How MMI does it pulling quote within quote I have no idea lol

Sorry is this is further off topic for you Ian but MMI asked me some questions so I being submissive and all will attempt to answer them. My post before this one I hope will receive some clarification since I went back to the OP and re-read it to see if I somehow missed the boat.


Quote Originally Posted by MMI View Post
No, I’m sure he isn’t, but I wasn’t referring specifically to him in my previous post. And in any case, I don’t believe you have answered my point by making such a dismissive remark. Your contention is that if people behaved in accordance with the times they lived in, they are not to be criticised. Thus the Irish are not to be criticised for their murderous raids on mainland Britain during the Roman occupation.

Are the English to be criticized for theirs? Do you honestly believe that the entire predicament has zero blame to lay at England door and all the blame on Ireland?

My contention was one being that we should try to view history as objectively as possible IE: not only from our own perspectives, but the perspectives of the people on all sides of any issue in a historical setting.

Yet, although many European nations - and even the United States of America – have built empires in the more recent past, Britain alone is to be faulted for doing so.

No of course not. We do have to however take the bad with the good..."warts and all". Otherwise we risk loosing objectivity.

As for Martin Sheen, I think Ian’s remarks above will suffice.

Shrugs.



I agree that we have different perspectives, but I don’t think my views can be summarily disregarded simply because they do not fit in with your uncritical absorbtion of the American/Irish Nationalist version of history; and I am quite unsure that your experience of violence in Lebanon enables you to empathise with Irish Republicans. (Why not with the Loyalists, who are also Irish?)

I don't honestly empathize with either party. I think war however necessary at times it is deplorable. I just figured that someone best play devils advocate for the sake of discussion since no one was taking up for the much maligned Irish and you two were just bashing them up like Brown shirts going after Juden in Munich before the start of the war. (sarcasm) Point being not everything thats happened to the Irish is necessarily the sole fault of the Irish.

You tell me you’re a historian, yet here you are comparing British Imperialism and Irish Nationalists with a Hollywood film!

Why not often times such analogies get through an otherwise difficult concept to my students when I teach.

I can assure you, the problem is far more complicated than that and deserves to be considered more thoughtfully.

Yes but also sometimes a more laconic approach is merited. Both have their place. Belligerent bellicose ranting however is imho completely unwarranted in any serious discussion (not talking about you MMI).

I note you have already made a similar point earlier in this thread.

Yep and I was very disappointed it was discarded out of hand and the sophistry continued. But I tried.

The first thing you need to understand is that the problem is not what the British did to the Irish, but what the Irish did – and are still doing - to each other. When you look at things from that perspective, you will see that Britain’s actions are almost irrelevant.

Oh personally I fully agree both sides should have put away their toys and went home like 50 years ago or never started fighting to begin with after the peace Collins helped make with the British. I understand the British argument for continued occupation, I also understand their opposition...though considering the resolve of the people wanting one united Ireland free of occupancy by outsiders and all the trouble its caused I must say that someone on both sides of the peace table dropped the ball in Collins day or at the very least lacked foresight.



I’m not aware of this incident. Perhaps you can enlighten me?

Oh that was a reference to the United States Soldiers that were all over TV for having taken cell pics of themselves peeing on a dead Afghan.


Perceptions of injustice can be – and in this instance, I submit, are – self-delusional; and it would be wrong to pander to such self-deception when trying to understand history.

Yep but to be anywhere near objective you have to first be able to admit that the self delusions will be prevalent on both sides of the issue in question and perhaps even within one's self.

As the Irish version of history is one-sided and in many places fallacious, I wonder where the sophistry truly resides.

On both sides. As evidenced by our collective references to the "interpetive" history and its two distinct versions we were both tuaght in our respective educations. Which I will refrain from making any further comment on in this thread.

The British educational system – at least when I was at school – spent perhaps one lesson on the American Revolution - two or three if you count the colonial period and events in Canada: it was just one small theatre in a world-wide war and not important enough to bother justifying or apologising for.

But this is a side-issue and we don’t want to start that argument all over again!

lol Agreed!



No-one is allowed to forget the Nationalist view, so that particular question doesn’t arise. They even glory in their atrocities. When, on the other hand, have you heard anyone seriously argue against the Irish “Truth”?

Oh you should have been a fly on the wall during my first European History class ever (we had an Oxford man for our instructor) and to hear him put it, without Great Brittian their would be no Europe to have a history. He oft likened them to the Athenians of Greece...and just as oft left out any and all of the more sorted tales or other bad things they did etc. (and by Britian he did indeed mean England first over all others...the Welsh, Scots etc where all from some lower order in his book).



… and therefore invalid? What makes you think that? Simply because I interpret historical events differently from you?

I was just pointing out your subjectivity is all.



Is that an oblique way of making Britain responsible for things like the Plague or potato blight?

Gosh can we blame the finacial crisis on them too? Seriously...nope not at all...just that how a culture is shaped is often a by product of its enviroment. Like the Russians I am sure wouldnt have been nearly as understanding or light handed with the Irish situation if it had been them and not the Brits dealing with it.

Never simply to oppress, then, but to help or protect Ireland, or to prevent Ireland becoming a staging post for England’s enemies.

Now you sound just like my first European history teacher again...smh. Sure you arnt an Oxford man teaching in the southern USA at a community college? (if you are you may be in for some really good blow jobs soon lol)

I’ll make it simpler: when was oppression of the Irish people one of the stated aims of any British invader?

Oh that would never be the stated claim at least not offically we all know that. Most invaders want to be seen as liberators or protectors if the people they invade. (note how America has followed our British forbears example in the middle east during our invasions there)


So why do you doubt and deny it?

All I am saying is that obviously the people fighting back do not share the viewpoint of the Crown on this matter and they most likely think of themselves as freedom fighters much the same as the "terrorists" in the middle east do. I bet their viewpoints are shared with the Crown as much as Alquieada shares the USA's view or William Wallace shared the English view whilst fighting them at Stierling. (yes I may be setting up for another movie quote or two).





They replaced a benign tyranny (if you must call it tyranny) with a weak confederacy, run by self-interested smugglers, land-grabbers and other disreputable blackguards, that began its life by reneging on the first international treaty it signed, and planned to turn on its allies (the French and Spanish – who won the American war for them) in order to take over New France and Florida once the English had been ejected.

As for “new”, what about the Licchavi, or Rome or Lucca?

Now now shouldnt we make a whole seperate thread where we can flirt over that subject?



I would say the same thing: there is a difference.
Seriously is you were born and raised in Belfast and raised to believe that your father and mother and brothers etc were fighting for your independence from opression...how would you really feel?