Slugger O'Toole

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Latest comments from Canny See It Sur (see all)

Canny See It Sur has commented 41 times (5 in the last month).

1. Comment on How well does the Catholic church understand its own teaching on abortion?
   on 23 May 2013 at 11:05 am

   But the personal experience must have included bearing witness (or living with the knowledge that one choose not to) to all the crimes that we need not recite here, if only to avoid losing the thread’s topic.

   Hold on a minute, this is getting spectacularly off topic, but I can’t seem to understand your point.

   I too, like Mick, had absolutely zero negative experiences within the Catholic church. As someone who has done very well out of the catholic education system and that has served as an Altar Boy, I never bore witness to anything bad that was going on and even in hindsight looking back at my youth there is nothing which even remotely stands out as ‘criminal’ or in any way deviant.

   You’re basically saying that we should look back on those good experiences and see them as tainted with the negative experiences of others. That’s not the way the world works.

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2. Comment on Eamonn McCann: “People sometimes say these traditions have gone on forever. No they have not!”
   on 22 May 2013 at 6:01 pm

   It is my recollection that Eamonn McCann wouldn’t have shared a platform with the provos in the way that the SDLP supporter above suggests.

   He is one of the few people that saw from the start that the Provisional movement had no intention of living up to the socialist movement it split from.

   Eamonn was more closely aligned to the officials (stickies) and went on to speak in the Socialist Workers Party.

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3. Comment on “Republicans should remember that the third colour in the Irish flag is Orange…”
   on 21 May 2013 at 10:22 am

   Also the common comparison to the KKK seems unfair to me and I am sure the vast majority of OO members would be appalled at such a comparison. Maybe back when they were the ‘peep o day boys’ it would have been valid,but not today.

   It’s a perfectly valid comparison because both are built along the same lines in order to achieve the same outcomes. ie the elevation of one group of people above another through violence (in the not distant past), triumphalism and ongoing reminders (parades) to those they seek to look down upon.

   It’d be difficult to whether I was talking about the OO or KKK above because whilst they both may not use violence as much as they used to they still do everything else.

   I’m just glad that support for both organisations is fading fast though the OO is still clinging on due to the insecurities of the loyalist population – mainly down to poor leadership within unionism.

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4. Comment on “Republicans should remember that the third colour in the Irish flag is Orange…”
   on 20 May 2013 at 3:31 pm

   Devil’s advocate head on: who gets to decide what’s cultural and what’s not? What’s worthy of banning, and what’s not? And finally, would you ban Irish speech where it is not wanted? If not, why not

   I agree with what you’re saying but you have to ask if the KKK a cultural group simply because they were like minded and there was a large number of them? I think we’d come to a quick NO as an answer.

   It’s easy in this sense that parades through areas that are not wanted in those areas can not be described as cultural as they wouldn’t add anything but bitterness and hostility to the area.

   This of course doesn’t just fall on the Orange Order – we had to endure the “celebration” of the UVF just recently which is one of the most absurd sights* I’ve witnessed in post-GFA northern Ireland. The celebration of the potential armed insurrection against a democratic decision which then led to the undemocratic process of partition. It wouldn’t surprise me if the current crop of flegtards would want some degree of partition again. The problem is you can only partition so many times.

   Why would you ban a language? That implies that a language can only be used by one side and not the other? Would we then lose the freedom of speech if one language or another was banned?

   *the most absurd being a grand wizard ‘condoning’ violence after a parade was stopped by police.

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5. Comment on “Republicans should remember that the third colour in the Irish flag is Orange…”
   on 20 May 2013 at 2:11 pm

   A recurring opinion but still perfectly valid nonetheless……

   We’ll see if the PSNI take the same softly softly approach to nationalist protesters that they took with the loyalist protesters over the Christmas and New Year period.

   At the end of the day, just because loyalists drum this up as “cultural” doesn’t make it so. All parades should be banned where they aren’t wanted.

   I love the fact that the “Queen’s Highway” always crops up as an argument but surely even that is an irrelevance if it means that one community can close off the roads so they can march down it.

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6. Comment on A5 ruling: “They should not be left in any doubt about what may or may not occur…”
   on 9 April 2013 at 5:22 pm

   PS, hopefully the money saved from this white elephant can be put towards the Yorkgate upgrade to fix that M1 & M2 junction currently being planned.

   The junction at Yorkgate isn’t even the worst choke point. Traffic is at a near standstill from Yorkgate throughout the length of the Westlink right past Stockmans Lane. To suggest this would be appropriate as the road between Derry & Dublin is a bit of a joke.

   Thanks for the update on the figures Morpheus – they clearly show that the traffic is there and the need is present for safe road dualling despite the cost to the local farmers along the route.

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7. Comment on A5 ruling: “They should not be left in any doubt about what may or may not occur…”
   on 9 April 2013 at 4:54 pm

   I’m not sure where you get your less than 5000 vehicles per day figure but the figures using the A5 between Strabane & Derry are 11400 vehicles per day, between Strabane & Omagh is 14100 vehicles per day, Omagh & Ballygawley is 12000 vehicles per day and Ballygawley to Aughnacloy is 8200 vehicles per day.

   These figures are from 2009 so it would be fair to say they’ve probably gone up since then.

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8. Comment on A5 ruling: “They should not be left in any doubt about what may or may not occur…”
   on 9 April 2013 at 4:43 pm

   Yes thats right, offer cash to the west and then when planning permission is refused just use the money “Backin’ Belfast”.

   The whole Stormont love in between Sinn Fein and DUP is so belfast centric it’s unreal.

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9. Comment on A5 ruling: “They should not be left in any doubt about what may or may not occur…”
   on 9 April 2013 at 4:00 pm

   A6 dual: Randalstown to Magherafelt first and foremost, but the whole corridor gives Derry a direct route to Dublin.

   Have you ever driven through Belfast Westlink between M1 & M2 at anything near rush hour?

   Why should people in the north west hope for a “direct” route to Dublin via Belfast anyway???

   This whole decision stinks and it shows that the landowners and lodge members along the route still have a lot more sway in things than the majority of people who would benefit from the route.

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10. Comment on Origins of the Northern Irish conflict: Gerrymandering and mistrust…
    on 5 April 2013 at 10:41 am

    “But it is also useful to hear the son of an RUC senior officer recount how his father heard detailed instruction shouted by a senior member of the civil rights movement shout instructions to rioters to aim for the legs of cops who were trying to protect their heads with sheilds that were too short to provide all body protection.”

    This was Bernadette Devlin MP if I’m not mistaken.

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