Dublin dail protests - read OP before posting

Abusing a TD from Kerry and shoving his young American female assistant and stealing her phone isn't a cause.

Its the same crowd from the water charges protests, same crowd from the "your trying to turn my child gay" protests, abusing library staff etc.

These people haven't the faintest idea about immigration.

This Gardas face sums up the whole thing.

Attention seekers everywhere. Victims of an algorithm.

I hope not

Our government are sh!te and getting worse but wouldn't wish that on anyone

Anyways aren't most of the TDs away in NY enjoying themselves

Yeah. The same crew. Always the same. Algorithm victims. Losers.

Says it all that you support effective calls for murder.

Why?

So let me see if I have you right, some people who want to protest or counter protest a particular issue they see as legitimate should just stay home and be quiet?

I didn't excuse any murderous regime, if you read back over what I wrote, I said they were stupid and naive to bring icons of that regime along. Obviously I don't agree with the use of a hammer and sickle or a picture of Lenin.

As I said - when trans activists start bringing gallows to protests, throwing bottles of piss around and threatening people, come back to me. That kind of activity at a protest is not a case of differing opinions, it is a case of being anti-democratic and engaging in criminal behaviour. There can be no respect given for protestors who do that, and if trans activists do it, I'll condemn them for it as well.

Cop yourself on and stop saying that it only happened because of others protesting. It didn't. It might have provoked them into protesting, that much is true. But the stuff that crowd engaged in yesterday outside the Dáil? That's not the fault of any other group of activists. That's entirely on them. Cop yourself on.

Would it be okay to murder them if they weren't 'elected representatives in a democracy'?

A danger there would've been a full scale riot I suppose. The priority was to get Healy Rae out of there safely.

Im super curious about what Lenin and trans have got to do with one another? Once we cover that what does the Soviet flag and trans have to do with one another?

Be honest, if you saw a swastika at a protest you wouldn't excuse it away by saying its use was naive or stupid, you'd be making a big deal out of it and rightly so.

We need to call out all extremism, not cherry pick who and what we find offensive.

You contradicted yourself in addressing the fact that all these demonstrations influence each other, of course they do.

Can you make a point without being insulting and condescending? You told me to cop myself on twice in one paragraph. There's no need to be so aggressive.

As for what the trans activists should or shouldn't have done, they should allow people to have their say just as they are allowed to. Shouting over people and making a nuisance of yourself just because you disagree with people is childish in the extreme. Doing so while waving communist iconography shows their extremist beliefs, not their naivety.

The point that all this type of public disorder is a kind of social feedback loop seems lost on you. We don't even have any visibility of any organisation in particular being behind yesterday's scenes but we have activists on this site saying its the far right who ignore the misdeeds of their precious far left.

We need to stamp out all of these lunatics, not just the ones we find personally most offensive. If you're making excuses for one group of extremists, you're probably an extremist yourself.

Guardian article published just today about interesting research on voting patterns across the wider EU, worth a scan if you have couple mins to spare...

Revealed: one in three Europeans now vote anti-establishment

"Almost one-third of Europeans now vote for populist, far-right or far-left parties, research shows, with wide support for anti-establishment politics surging across the continent in an increasingly problematic challenge to the mainstream"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/21/revealed-one-in-three-europeans-now-votes-anti-establishment

I think the 'smash the far right' is more to do with the ideology of the far right than actual people.

I do agree with you on the 'punch a nazi', shouldn't be acceptable at all tbh.

Well, that's not what the law says in this country. Very few countries have completely unlimited freedom of speech.

You are of course entitled to argue for changes in the law, or even to stand for election on the basis of a free speech platform. I wish you good luck with that.

The politicians have brought this on themselves.

The irony for the aggressive protestors though is that they have played into the hands of the people they are protesting against ! You see the carry on of yesterday tarnishes the idea of protesting itself. Lots of aggrieved citizens will not attend protests if they know the same type of idiots are going to be in attendance.

This is the worst government the country has had in my time, economic growth and almost full employment yet,

housing crisis,

no reform of planning,

no planning for increased population,

infrastructure severely lacking,

HSE uselessness,

crime; random street violence,

opioid problem,

useless inefficient public transport,

increased racism,(which will lead to increased division in society)

The above are issues that should have us all out on the street

As for my comment about them brining it on themselves, political decision making has increasingly over the years been passed on to supranational organisations, unelected NGO's etc so the politicians have become in a sense no better than show ponies. Global corporations and especially banking have as much influence on our lives than the fools in DÉ.

On your first point, fair enough, I would be kicking off it if it a swastika had been on display. But I'd still say they are naive and foolish and nothing more, given that Lenin and USSR were no friends to anyone in the LGBT community.

Counter protest has been a thing for years in all democracies, you appear to be saying it shouldn't happen. I can't agree with that. If you think it's childish that's fair enough, but calling it out on a thread about people who bring gallows to protests, who threaten people and throw bottles of piss around is equivocating the two, which is completely ridiculous and that is why I think you need to cop on. The crowd yesterday were way, way, way out there in terms of their extremism.

On your final point, it's telling that you think trans rights activists are lunatics. They're not, the same way that lesbian, gay and bisexual activsts are not lunatics.

What went on yesterday is not part of a social feedback loop beyond coming out to protest after seeing another protest, I can see your point in that one small aspect.

But the actions on display yesterday are not - nobody protests like that outside a national parliament in this country, I have spent a fair bit of time there, seen a lot of protests there, but never anything like that. And they are nothing like trans rights protestors, or any other protestors - not anti-abortion protestors, not anti-austerity protestors of any description - not anything. Trying to equivocate their behaviour is ridiculous, hence the need to cop yourself on.

My thoughts exactly. a bit of pushing and shoving, bad language, bad manners yes.

And resulting in a few arrests. (Rightly so if they broke the law).

It’s not exactly the Jan 6th riots is it.