Agree or Disagree: The Red Army Faction was preferable to the IRA

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Agree.

I can at least understand and somewhat sympathize with the RAF, and they might've had some romantic appeal to me if I lived in Germany at the time, the IRA was just all around trash with absolutely no redeeming value whatsoever.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

A movie about German Autumn would be really cool. Though the odds of one being made in the US are remote, but if the Germans do, I'm willing to read subtitles.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

And Tykwer even mostly does movies in English now. That'd be very cool.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I can't stand people who grow up in free, democratic state but prefer in theory to live in a dictatorship and then kill people for it.

Sounds like the IRA to me.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I didn't say they were awesome, I said they were preferable and more sympathetic.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

And there has always been alot more nuance in the situation in Ireland than there was with the communist terrorist groups of the 1970's, most of which were largely made up of latte liberal college students who opposed "the Man" and thought that communism meant a great utopian paradise.

Exactly. Are you surprised I can sympathize with that?

I can't sympathize with the IRA at all. They were pure evil as was their cause. They were a 100% worthless group. Honestly I can sympathize more with Hamas than the IRA.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

And there has always been alot more nuance in the situation in Ireland than there was with the communist terrorist groups of the 1970's, most of which were largely made up of latte liberal college students who opposed "the Man" and thought that communism meant a great utopian paradise.

Exactly. Are you surprised I can sympathize with that?

I can't sympathize with the IRA at all. They were pure evil as was their cause. They were a 100% worthless group. Honestly I can sympathize more with Hamas than the IRA.

WOW.  Yes, I know full well the Catholic Church can be overbearing on some issues, but damn I've never come across as overzealously against the IRA as you.  I actually agree with supersoulty on this one.  Yes, the IRA went too far at times, but I don't exactly think the Ulster Orangemen were the greatest people either.  And the potato "famine" wasn't exactly 100% of natural causes.

It was also well over a century before the modern IRA.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD, does it matter to you how fraudulent these RAF kids were? Well to do, and yet retardedly militant and idealistic? 

No. Reminds me of Irish-American IRA supporters though who cared so much about an island they have never been to.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Should I hold a huge grudge toward Poland and Russia over my ancestral home?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

But Al's first paragraph is also correct. And there is no way they could remove Northern Ireland in a democratic manner as the majority of people opposed it.

As for the housing situation or whatever, I don't really care since unlike the blacks in South Africa for example, it wasn't difficult for Catholics to escape their status. No one's forcing you to practice Catholicism. We all know that if I was born in a Northern Ireland Catholic family I would've converted in a New York minute (Of course I would've if I had been born Catholic anywhere else as well, but you get the point.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Er no, it's more comparable to discrimination against Scientologists or the  threats that the Jesus Camp lady got in my home town. What you're referring to is completely racial based and like apartheid (well actually far worse.) Not these guys:

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Just curious, what ties do you have to the Ulster Unionists?

None whatsoever.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Just curious, what ties do you have to the Ulster Unionists?

None whatsoever.

Then why do you defend them?  As much as I've criticized the Catholic Church on here, I still think both sides are pretty horrific and I place most of it on the Ulster Unionists.  Believe me I'm not giving the IRA a free pass because of my heritage, but fact is things like Cromwell and the "Famine" were not exactly accidents.  And I was fairly insulted when you said Hamas was better than the IRA. 

I said I can sympathize with them more because I do support a Palestinean state. Perhaps I should've used a more secular group like Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as an example.

As for why I defend them, it's because I can understand and sympathize with them. Considering how much of a backward-ass nation Ireland was since its foundation I can't blame them for not wanting to join. Unionists in the 70s were effectively fighting for the right to use condoms. And the whole time against a bunch of Nazi collaborationists. And all over some crap that happened hundreds of years ago. Do you see me complaining about Russia and Poland today? That's the equivalent of complaining about Oliver Cromwell, same general time period even.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Patrick1, BRTD is anything but a Stalinist. He just has decided and somewhat idiosyncratic (at least for me) aesthetic tastes in some areas.

And yes, BRTD is a bit hard on the Catholic religion. I am not sure why, but he is. He tends to put it in the fundamentalist box, and for BRTD, that is not a "good" box to be in.  I don't worry much myself about the religion, or lack thereof, of folks. I find that it is a very crude filter to use in evaluating  folks. They just tend to be more complex than a simple metric can decode with much utility, except in rather extreme cases. JMO.

Oh, Torie he is a Stalinist.  I've seen his annoying purge tactics against his forum rivals.  He basically follows people around the site  and harasses them until they can't be bothered and leave.

I really have a tough time thinking of any person this would apply to. I mean I've gotten in plenty of bickering matches but that happens on any internet forum. Besides the person I've fought with most is still around (Phil), and I've started looking upon him more kindly lately due to his standing up to some real douchebags (ie Duke and Einzige)

As for Stalinism, I've never endorsed 5-year plans or the nationalization of all industry or anything of the sort. I did post this but it was correctly recognized by many as a somewhat tongue-in-cheek post and of course as some have pointed is simply too absurd to happen in reality. Something I won't deny either. Torie is one of the few blue avatars who has figured out how I deal, something I saw here.

You know what's funny is that ideologically the IRA were much closer to Stalinism than I am.

Anyway about the other points:

So people should change their religion to not be discriminated against?  I guess you would believe that.- because you have always been a self absorbed Stalinist.

I'm just saying I would do that in a heartbeat, but of course I can't see myself having any reason to care about the Catholic church anyway. Much of my family converted out of Catholicism (not to avoid discrimination though, but because they just didn't like it basically), so it's hard for me to not be sympathetic to such people. I think I have a grand total of three relatives remaining who care about Catholicism in any positive way. I could include an ancedote here about a few months ago when I was visiting some family on my originally Catholic side of the family and heard my 10-year old cousin making anti-Catholic statements, but I'd just be rambling. But do you really expect me to side with Catholic traditionalists over my family? Or take a choice of double repression (The Catholic church's oppressive rules plus discrimination) over a path of no repression? Sounds like a no-brainer to me.

If you dared read a history book on this topic you would know that the Irish were considered a race apart by the English for many years. You would know that untold thousands were massacred for refusing to convert from their faith- you know because some people actually believe and adhere to their faith.  You would have heard of the word Soupers.

Haven't heard of that word. Looked it up. Meh, sounds like what my family would've been, so I'm a lot more sympathetic to them than those who discriminated against and harassed them. Not as bad as this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ustase#Connections_with_the_Catholic_Church

I love to chat more but I have an early morning conversion to Judaism to attend to.  You see my boss is Jewish and it might help me get ahead.

And if this were true it would not bother me. Kind of reminds me of how the uncle on Weeds was training to be a rabbi just to get out of his military service.

BTW can anyone give a reason why I shouldn't whine about the Russians or Poles today? Or that good friend in college I mentioned in the Supreme Court thread. Well she's Danish (last name ends in -sen, that's Danish as opposed to Swedish or Norwegian.) And her boyfriend for awhile was Norwegian! OMG. He actually didn't care about this or call her an evil imperialist oppressor despite her ancestral country dominating his for three centuries...probably because it was 150 years and no sane would care about that today. You know how most laugh at Southernors who can't get over the Civil War?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Croats pretty much started the ethnic cleansing at that time, and they were far worse too. Way worse. Like as bad as the Nazis except on a smaller scale.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD, I called you a Stalinist not for your beliefs but for your constant harassment and following people around the board bringing up quotes and posts from several years ago.  You make so that it is not even enjoyable to visit the forum.  Ive seen this many times.  Also your self absorption plays a role in me calling you a Stalinist. You have your own little cult of personality in your own mind.

The topic you brought forth was that people should just convert and not be discriminated against.  You defend this by bringing your own personal views and family background into it. As if all of life and experience on this planet is viewed through the prism of your own experience.

There are more things in heaven and earth, BRTD...

You then dodge or choose to overlook the question of discrimination and violence by bringing up events hundreds of years and thousands of miles removed to attempt to form a moral equivalency. As if they both cannot be wrong and are mutually exclusive.

Your last paragraph is just rambling.   The discrimination and violence by the government and police services in Northern Ireland was recent. My ancestors were from the north, I have friends and family who live there.  I have had the pleasure of being there and meeting fine people of both religious persuasions and secularists. I care what happens there.  The conflict was shaped by history and understanding that history leads to peace.  This is not whining. 
I doubt you would tell an African American to stop whining about slavery. It was an awful thing that happened that shaped this nations history.

One's personal experiences is what'll shape their outlook and sympathies. You basically admit that in the last paragraph. I just find it hard to have much sympathy for radical Catholics who wouldn't accept my family.

Also who am I bringing quotes from years ago with? The occaisonal barb at Phil over Santorum that he gets 10x as much from other posters? The mockery of J. J. that just about every other poster on the forum does that I've still mostly ceased about 1-2 months ago?