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From: wa263@sdcc7.UUCP (bookmark)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Civil Rights in Irish Free State
Message-ID: <1303@sdcc7.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Sep-84 00:34:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcc7.1303
Posted: Fri Sep 14 00:34:10 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Sep-84 01:50:55 EDT
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Organization: You See Sandy Eggo
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<- bug snack.

	Though I'm not sure how relevant it is to those of us who don't
have to deal with it, the government of Ireland (the Irish Free State,
not the north) openly sacrifices many of what we think of as personal liberties
to Roman Catholic orthodoxy.  All Irish family law (marriage, divorce,
birth control, pregnancy, education, etc.) conforms to the strangled,
perverse, medieval, disgusting and restrictive teachings of the neurotic,
authoritarian, and greedy hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church.  (You
know what they are:  no, no, no, no, no, no....)

	Though I have little sympathy for the killers on either side
in Northern Ireland, if somebody gave me a choice between living under
the common law and statutes of the UK, and suffering under the
canon law enacted as the laws of the Irish republic, I'd pick the common
law every time.

	The common law is based on the notion that justice is a right, and
that the right of justice belongs to the parties.  Irish law is different.
It treats justice as a privilege, which the parties apply to the government
for.  The law exists not to serve, but to dictate.

	I note, however, that the various ``emergency'' and ``anti-
terrorist'' laws that apply in Northern Ireland are themselves an affront
to the sensibilities of anyone who believes in personal liberties, civil
rights, and responsible government.

	John Stuart Mill (On Liberty, read it sometime) would be spinning
in his grave.

	I'm also not convinced that the Protestants (so called), made
ever more rigid by the pressures of their situation, would enact laws
that were much fun to live under.  History shows us that intolerant
groups can spring from any branch of the world's many religions.

	One reason the Provos can always find recruits is that the lousy
``Protestants'' do their utmost to abuse, denigrate, and attack their
Catholic neighbors.  They treat them rather worse than we treat blacks,
so it's no wonder the Catholics don't like it.

	I think the bloody (both ways) Provos ought to quit their
pointless war, and melt right back over the border into the Catholic
State.  And the ``Protestants'' ought to lay down their guns and show
a little tolerance for once.

					End of Diatribe by

					bookmark

(No, I'm not even a Christian)