Month: January 2006

Categories
philosophy

Protecting the people from themselves

This blog entry is prompted by reading Richard Waghorne’s commentary on the imprisonment by Austrian authorities of “holocaust revisionist in chief” David Irving. I’m a big of Richard and I despise Mr. Irving so my biases are now on the table. Having thought about it for a while now, I must agree with the Austrian government’s actions. It’s a very difficult judgement to make when trying to protect a democratic state from subversion through pseudo-historical arguments. Indeed Richard’s own arguments could be turned against him, particularly when he quotes the fascinatingly named Charles Krauthammer:

Call it situational libertarianism: Liberties should be as unlimited as possible — unless and until there arises a real threat to the open society. Neo-Nazis are pathetic losers. Why curtail civil liberties to stop them? But when a real threat — such as jihadism — arises, a liberal democratic society must deploy every resource, including the repressive powers of the state, to deter and defeat those who would abolish liberal democracy.

How can a democratic society discriminate between subversives on the basis of who’s a “loser” and who isn’t. Equally citing US history as a refutation of the slippery slope to governmental totalitarianism is perhaps a mistake. The electoral college system in the US was created almost solely to protect the people from themselves & their own fallibility. The framers of the US constitution viewed popular election as reckless and also recognised the dangers of congress elected presidents. Therefore the compromise was to allow the people to vote for electors who then elected the president. Currently, the US Electoral College includes 538 electors, 535 for the total number of congressional members, and three who represent Washington, D.C., as allowed by the 23rd Amendment. The issue (which affected the Gore v Bush election) is that some states have, arguably, more than their fair share of electors based on the original biases of the founding fathers. It’s therefore possible to, like Gore, get more votes but lose the election. I guess it’s been common for many democracies since the term was created to protect themselves from subversion from within and the gulibility of the electorate. Witness the furore over Michael McDowell’s revelations about Frank Connolly in the Dail. I’m not sure that the actions taken against Irving qualify but I can certainly understand why the Austrian authorities acted that way. It’s a fine line which shouldn’t be over-simplified.

Categories
philosophy

Order from Chaos or Deliverance from Stupidity

I get quite a few emails about the title of my blog. These range from the curious to the downright bizarre. I’ll post something more detailed about this in due course as I’m getting many hits from people in search of divine wisdom, universal truth or someone to persecute. Some other sites with a similiar name revolve around the recent fixation with free-masonry and illuminati sparked by Dan Brown’s books. Some of these are conspiratorial, overly literal & bordering on lunatic. Therefore I’ll give my interpretation of Ordo Ab Chao when I get the chance.

Categories
humour

True telephone conversation

Honestly, this actually happened last week. The professional web designer is going to be extinct in this country if current trends continue.
me:Hi this is Shane Dempsey from Gaisan Technologies.
X: (indian accent) Hi, my name is X, I have a project that we’re interested in your company working on. We got your number from your website. We like your website.
me: Thanks. Are you based in Ireland?
X: Yes, yes, I live in Cork.
me: OK, that’s fine. Could you describe the project please?
X: I need to create an auction site… I want it to be like eBay only much simpler. It must handle credit cards and paypal and be able to take huge volumes.
me: Great, we’ve completed several sites like that. Before we discuss the site further, how much did you expect to pay for this site?
X: I only have 350 euro. I was told I could get a Romanian company to create the site for 200 euro.
me: Are you aware you’ll have to pay additional costs for credit card processing etc.?
X: how much?
me: probably more than 400 euro if you want an Internet merchant a/c with an Irish bank but cheaper with PayPal realistically.
X: I didn’t know that. Can you do the website for less than 200 euro. It’s only a few hours work.
me: We’ll have to pass on this project I’m afraid. Sorry.
X: goodbye…

So why is this a bad thing? Simply put, nobody in this country will be interested in IT degrees and training if rates drop below minimum wage. Equally, many large foreign IT companies are using Ireland to process profits while bringing about minimal IT employment. This doesn’t happen in the trades because they are provided locally and certification is required to work. Also, there’s no way to ensure standards are high and expectations are being met. Irish web designers and IT workers are crying out for country-wide accreditation and certification to ensure that standards remain high, customers’ needs are met and fees are realistic.

Categories
politics

McDowell – the unlikely savior of Irish politics

Say what you like about him but Michael McDowell is never boring and evokes anything but apathy throughout the Irish electorate. Over the past few weeks I’ve listened to opinions as diverse as “McDowell is insane, a real whacko” & “McDowell is the only decent man in government”. Wherever your sympathies lie, the minister for justice can irk them. Should McDowell have leaked information to the press or made his allegations about Connolly using his Dail priviledges? For every yay, there’s a nay. Personally, I think it’s a difficult call. I’m not a fan of the CPI or what many regard as a provisional republican hypocrisy which looks for splinters in the eyes of others while ignoring their own planks (or baseball bats) but it’s inappropriate to categorise this as sedition in an open and democratic society. Even if you conceive that CPI’s purpose is to dig up dirt on parties other than SF to help win votes or discredit dissenters, it’s still a stretch to call this sedition. It’s my opinion that McDowell was angry with the noises coming from CPI and wanted to bring Connolly down. The precise reasons why the DPP failed to bring a case forward are classified but McDowell adopted a publish and be damned approach. Connolly is alledged to have incriminated himself through a fake passport application and McDowell much like that other Irish anti-hero Roy Keane “hit him hard”.
The allegations of “trial by media” against McDowell generally overlook two important points:

  1. McDowell isn’t stupid. This was a risky and brave thing to do. The effectiveness of the leaking the garda intelligence claimed by some commentators could have backfired spectacularly and cost him his job.
  2. McDowell himself was tried by the media for his actions and put under enormous pressure to resign. There were few supporters, his friend Sam Smyth among them.

A particularly insightful commenter on another blog comments that

“It is instructive that the one man, Frank Connolly (who has set himself up as an arbiter of public probity) who could deal an immediate hammer blow to McDowell’s political and quite possibly legal career (by demonstrating that he was not in Columbia at the time in question) has chosen not to do so, citing higher moral ground. This is a particularly weak response from a man dedicated to rooting out all that is wrong in public life.”

Bang on the money. Also, in response to another commenter, the involvement of Fergus Flood in the formerly well funded CPI does not automatically imply that senior members of the organisation don’t have strong provisional sympathies or these beliefs do not inform the operation of this organisation. Ultimately, this is moot as to my recollection it’s Connolly who garda intelligence implicates in a bogus passport application and not the CPI. McDowells party leader, Mary Harney, questioned the role and principles of the CPI in a television show after McDowells Dail statement on the matter.
For all the cat-calls and jeers, McDowell remains the most compelling figure in Irish politics. Many of his actions are defined by a refusal to forget the atrocities committed in the name of Irish Republicanism and a dedication to equitable justice for all. Forgiveness does not imply blind revisionism. In the words of philosopher George Santayana

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”