You've been looking in the wrong direction, the dangers are coming from the right.

Well yes, the focus is on you seeing as you’re the person trying to warn people of the dangers of other people whose opinions and policies you claim are a threat to society. Why wouldn’t the focus be on examining you and your claims to determine whether there is any legitimacy in what you’re saying if you’re attempting to portray anyone as a threat to society?

I’m not the least bit offended that you don’t even want to acknowledge that it isn’t a counter argument I’m presenting, it’s the idea that you’re not any different from the people you claim are a threat to society by virtue of the fact that they imagine they know just like you do what’s best for society and they engage in the same sort of behaviour, only from the opposite perspective - portraying you and your opinions as the threat to society. I don’t think of you and your opinions as any sort of a threat to society. I think you’re as up to your neck entrenched in the culture wars as the small number of people whom you perceive to be a threat to society.

That’s not why I pointed out the futility of attempting to argue against a person when you don’t share their religious beliefs, it was to point out that you and they aren’t operating within the same framework. It stands to reason that people who don’t share your political views aren’t going to perceive other people in the same manner as you do, nor are they going to see the need to portray other people in the same manner as you do.

That’s why, while I got the reference, it was your attempt to attribute it to a broader group of people when in reality it was simply the utterance of one individual who most people even on your side of the Atlantic will never have heard of, let alone this side of the Atlantic. I think now you can appreciate why I was skeptical of your claims of what you were led to believe by any broad group of people when in reality those people who claim that sort of nonsense are in reality only a very small number in any given society, so small that they could hardly be perceived as a threat, and yet here you are amplifying and elevating their opinions to a status they do not have in reality.

In much the same way, some quarters in the media here tried to make a mountain out of a molehill here here when a priest in Kerry came out with similarly dumb shìt, and people tried to use it for their own political gain - rather than keeping it in perspective, they tried to suggest his opinions were representative of a broader group of people in Irish society, in the same way as you’re attempting to suggest anyone is using religion to control other people. It doesn’t seem possible in your world view that anyone who doesn’t share your perspective could have their own agency, which is why I suggested that given your approach, your attempts from your opening post up to now, 40 odd pages later, would come to nothing in your attempts to convince people of the threat to society posed by people whom you declare are a danger to society.

I don’t mind admitting that I’m not best placed to be in the middle of a conversation about modern day ideologies and how they are showcased and communicated in todays interactive environment, but then doesn’t your opinion of my lack of knowledge or understanding about the nuances of modern day ideologies and how they are showcased and communicated amount to the same position as I had previously summarised?

Essentially the whole thing can be summed up as “respect your betters” 😏

Of course from your perspective it stands to reason that I’m wrong about Hillary too, I need you to interpret it for me when Hillary refers to a whole group of people in society as a basket of deplorables. It’s not as though I’m capable of figuring out for myself whom she was referring to in the context in which she was speaking. In the same way, I’m capable of figuring out for myself whom you’re referring to in the context in which you’re speaking, and you don’t get to absolve yourself of taking responsibility for how your opinions are perceived, in the same manner as Hillary couldn’t blame Trump for how her opinions on people who don’t share her values were perceived. Here’s exactly what she said, in the context in which she said it -

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. (Laughter/applause) Right? (Laughter/applause) They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people – now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks – they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.

But the "other" basket – the other basket – and I know because I look at this crowd I see friends from all over America here: I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas and – as well as, you know, New York and California – but that "other" basket of people are people who feel the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures; and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but – he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

To suggest that anyone doesn’t understand what she meant or that they are interpreting her statement incorrectly, or they are simply wrong, is to be as condescending as she was being in saying what she said. It can be easier summarised as follows -

Essentially the whole thing can be summed up as “respect your betters” 😏

You obviously DO care that people dismiss your concerns as being entrenched within vague culture wars which are pretty much played out online and have very little in the way of any real impact on people’s lives, or you wouldn’t have started a thread warning people of the dangers of dismissing what you see as issues that anyone who doesn’t already share your perspective should be concerned about.

The very title of your thread, and I’m sure you’re familiar with it already, but you warn people that they are looking in the wrong direction, that the dangers are coming from the right. News for you TMH as it still doesn’t appear to be sinking in even at this point - the way you perceive danger is the same way people who don’t share your perspective wish to promote as being values and policies which are worth promoting, protecting and supporting, in a democratic society. Why would anyone who doesn’t share your perspective see their own views as dangerous?

The priest wasn’t the point, the media amplifying what the priest had said, was the point. Giving him any airtime at all, was the point. The best way to have dealt with him, and I know of course you’ll disagree, is simply to deprive him of an audience, as a few of the parishioners in the church attending mass that day did - they simply walked out of the mass. No drama, no making a bigger deal out of it than it was. No trying to suggest that anyone who is a member of the Catholic Church shared his views. That didn’t stop RTE et al from trying to wangle an angle out of it to generate outrage and thereby revenue for themselves. Goodness knows traditional media needs it.

As for what you perceive to be ‘undue influence’, they maintain dominance in many aspects of Irish life, including healthcare, education, social services, rural and urban communities, hell now I think of it I had a bit of a chuckle and all at Josepha Madigan leading the congregation in celebrating mass, and the way RTE and the few media outlets again tried to make a mountain out of a molehill -

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/culture-minister-steps-up-in-local-church-to-say-mass-as-priest-a-no-show-37045322.html

Gas woman 😂

You can fcuks sake all you like and all, but I’d already pointed out that the only thing Hillary said she had regretted about what she said, was that she said half -

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/09/09/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-basket-of-deplorables/index.html

Might have been possible to dismiss it as daft when Hillary said it the first time, y’know like when Biden said if you vote for Trump you ain’t black? (at least he didn’t say you ain’t a ‘person of color’! 😂), but when she doubled down on telling people who share her views that the people who don’t share her views aren’t American? She was just handing Trump the victory at that stage, because when was the last time you supported anyone when they’d made you aware they didn’t just think your values were deplorable, you’re not even American!

In much the same way, who are you to decide for other people that they’re looking in the wrong direction? Did it ever occur to you that they’re quite satisfied with the direction society is going, and aren’t particularly concerned by Chicken Little level displays of doom and gloom ahead coming from people whose perspective they really don’t care to share?

And where do you think the threats to it are coming from, since that's the subject of this thread?

And into the minds of many Irish people too. Many posters on this threads are no different than their American equivalents. Every piece of American hysteria gets imported by them, and we all have to deal with it as a consequence of that.

And from your comments and other Americans here.

The most dramatic hysterical stuff usually comes from an America.

So, there are no threats then? I certainly didn't want to say it was unassailable, you raise a good point - are there any threats? I have identified a few, others have as well. Are there any in your view? And what are they threatening? Because I'm actually trying to get honest opinions as to what threats there are, and where they're coming from. I'm still at a loss as to what's coming from 'far left loonies.' But the right is in ascendance, at least in the USA, when it comes to threats (and loonies.) Maybe it's like Jack said, it's just trolling. Seems like an awful lot of energy and money spent on trolling though. They want to change US socieity.

Absolute lack? There's always a few "Irexit/National Party" types showing up sprinkled throughout the site. There are regular posters on the CT forums that are holocaust deniers. The odd out-and-out anti-semite shows up, too. So we're not at the zero far-right loony level. I agree, it's low. And yes, there are left-wing loonies on this site. What are they threatening, exactly? Or in general? Most of the anguished discourse about that seems to be on threads about wokeism, green party policy and other stuff. I think one difference is that the types on the right are better rehearsed at claiming victimhood.

From an Irish point of view - American culture and hysteria.