Thursday, January 22, 2015

Time to review Ireland's over-liberal homosexuality laws

The past few weeks have made it clear; the Irish people does not want to allow sex with minors, be it Church-originated or an emanation of Dublin's muesli belt. This is particularly the case for – ahem - “man/boy love”

Until the mid-1990's, the status quo ante was that there were draconian laws on the books, dating from the Victorian era, which were never enforced. While that is unacceptable, it is doubtful that the present dispensation is any better.

Currently, an “attractive, older man” can wine and dine a boy from the wilds of western Ireland for his 17th birthday before initiating him into a lifestyle that nature most certainly did not intend. The older man can also propose civil union and - if Katherine Zappone gets her way - marriage, regardless of what the boy's bewildered parents want.

The fact remains that what takes place in that scenario is state-sponsored rape., and the older man should be locked up for a sentence approaching that of murder. As for the 17-year-old, there is much propaganda out there telling him he is just tuning into his natural impulses. In the past, he might have become a priest or brother and continued the cycle of hate and dominance/submission on younger men. Now he is told he is something called “gay” and commits to a Stockholm syndrome existence

The facts remain, that even in “liberal” societies, older gay men suffer disproportionately from depression;

New data on lesbian, gay and bisexual mental health

The “gay lifestyle” is a promiscuous one, with sites like grindr.com ensuring the rest of us will be paying an aids bill for generations. When youth has fled, the lack of the civilizing influence of women becomes a terrible burden.

What this is fundamentally about is the attempt to create a political force from the “gay” population – which is in the natural state restricted to people with a chromosomal/hormonal problem for which they are decidedly not to blame. Alternatively put, look how far the Irish Green party on foot of its civil unions bill – and I am willing to grant that the 1.8% who voted for them included every “gay” person in the country.

For the record, the true prevalence of homosexuality is perhaps 1% with - according to Nate Silver - perhaps 4% engaging in recreational same-sex coupling; genes determine the neural basis of sex, so "intersex" minus a genetic component should be treated as mental illness.
 Finally, it would be great if gay men stopped approaching straight men in normal bars.Given S, Fry's "marriage" to  man 30 years his junior it is not a stretch to imagine a gay seduction  of a 17-year-old, a rushed marriage after elopement, and the Free state granting inheritance rights. As for Sinn Fein, it will be compulsory singing of "god save our glorious Queens" ar scoil gach maidin

PS (21 u Bealtaine 2015)  Referendum tomorrow - the "yes" side has EVERY political party, many semi-states like the IDA, and unions on their side. Yet it is likely to be close, with a "No" vote so hard core in areas like Clare that it is physically  unsafe even for seasoned pols like Pat Breen to canvasss there - so he now sticks to the Malls

What went wrong? First of all, it will still probably pass. Yet it is interesting to note what are effectively soft gay porn posters of attractive same sex young people making love on Ireland's streets, thus promoting homosexuality as an attractive lifestyle choice. Likewise, using an ugly transvestite modeled on the early Eddy Izzard as far back as early 2014 to launch the campaign showed a degree of confidence in the final result that has been complemented by both Senator Norris and President McAleese breaking the law this week.

In short, flushed with confidence, the "yes" side may have overplayed its hand.In either case, the critical issue of surrogacy has been kicked down the road. This leads to the consideration that conception may be initiated by a gay man masturbating with gay porn in a sperm bank. That sperm is then applied to eggs paid for by a donor, who will often suffer cancer as a result. John Edwards' wife died because of such fertility treatment. Then another woman must be paid to carry the child

While humanity has used many styles of child-begetting, spraying sperm over eggs is pre-mammalian, and is to this day used by fish. It is fascinating that  a system of reproduction discarded by mammals, the cutting-edge of evolution, is being hailed as "progressive"

PPS 25u Bealtaine Remarkably, the poll precisely reflected a canvass on p.ie a few weeks ago; what we learned is that p.ie is more representative than we thought

The more interesting thing is the split with FF. Avril Power's resignation allowed Mattie M finally to break rank and follow McGuinness et al. So there is now an anti-liberal faction within FF. What might save Martin is the fact that Renua gifted him the bye-election

PPPS It gets better - it turns out that they got the wording wrong. The wording people voted on emphasised that "beirt" can enter into marriage. An assumption was made that "beirt" refers only to two people. Many of us knew from conversations with native speakers that was wrong;


http://www.rte.ie/news/nuacht/2015/0507/699390-reifreann/

So linguistics will be the acid test. That discipline accepted the practise of spoken language as critical some time ago for its definition. so, even apart from foclóir Uí Dhónaill (the dictionary) correctly insisting that "beirt" can refer to things, we have a corpus from Donegal saying that two female or male sheep can now get married;

- beirt chaorach (Teileann, Co Dhún na nGall)

The state response has been that they redefined an official version of the Irish language in 1958 in which this is not possible. In that case, there was a coup in 1958 and we need to reverse its effects




Friday, January 9, 2015

Legal and regulatory reform



Ireland suffers from a justice system with the following legal components;

  1. Common law;
  2. Consequences from a written constitution, which initially at least was partially a sectarian catholic document. Much of what passes for "legal reform" as of 2015 consists of attempts, often hamfisted like the 2013 abortion legislation, to reverse this ethos; ;
  3. Unconstrained use of resources by the state in civil proceedings, leading to enormous law firms and an elision of individual legal rights that is in violation of the 2005 ECHR Morris and Steee ruling

It also suffers from a smorgasboard of regulatory agencies, some private, some public. A list is appended. The civil service increases 15.5% in size from 2001 to 2008. Many of these staff not dealing with the public have no discernible function, and will be hard to dismiss even if negligent, with enormous pensions calculated historically from the moment of their retirement

Finally, despite all this, the country collapsed between 2008 and 2010 largely to a LACK of enforcement of regulations. The Financial_Regulator Neary famously handed out 7 billion euro to Anglo Irish bank, who knew that it was merely going to buy some time ahead of their inevitable collapse. Legal proceedings in the USA indicate that the CEO used this time to pocket several million for himself. Neary, who still has a very generous pension, was judged in court in Ireland to have directed officials of Anglo Irish bank to behave in a criminal manner.

The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement has taken no successful proceedings since its formation in 2001, with the High court rescinding what initially looked like a success. The DPP has failed to prosecute in the Anglo Irish and music copyright cases, with American litigation proving necessary, leading to questions about the necessity for the Irish state itself


It is not controversial to suggest, in the year following the “penalty points” revelations, that regulation has historically been abused politically to favour the friends of those in power.So what can be done? The answer lies in this writer's opinion in the fact that the game theory notion of “perfect information” is being approximated as smart phones colonize the citizenry; few indeed are those without some access to the internet, if only at the local library.

THE SOLUTION

Many Irish citizens have hard copies of documents they submitted to the relevant regulatory body, documents that were treated dismissively. A first step is to scan these and post them in a central site on the internet. Clearly, if the correspondence was done electronically, this posting is easier.

The second step is to allow entrepreneurial lawyers take cases - if necessary against the state and/or private regulators – based on these documents This will involve waiving the statute of limitations as has been proposed in Massachusetts for child sex abuse.

A third step is to dismiss civil servants who have been proved negligent and/or corrupt with a guilty verdict at trial seen as tantamount to a verdict in a disciplinary procedure. Such civil “servants” would lose their pensions if retired. Funds used for this initiative will be recoupable from this process.


At the end of a five-year period, it should become clear which of the agencies below are necessary It should also be clear whether private regulators like the law society can be trusted to continue and whether the state should intervene.

One example of how this might work out in practise may suffice The peculiar phrase “autonomous statutory responsibilities “ keeps coming up in reply to questions about the Irish universities both in the Dail (including questions from Joe Higgins) and as we've seen from civil servants. So they are responsibilities, but autonomous, so effectively not responsibilities; moreover this paradoxical state has been enshrined in statute.

The phrase does not occur at all in the 1997 act, and “independent” itself is NEVER used in this context but usually correctly refers to concerns about academic freedom. The section 25 referred to time and again by the “mandarins” bears no relation to autonomy, Far from being statutory, it is clear that a civil servant (originally Padraic Mellett of the HEA) invented this phrase to allow universities' management do whatever they wanted to staff, students and the taxpayer.

Ironically, the HEA is the body tasked with preventing precisely the grotesquely expensive legal processes on the 200's that cost the state 10's of millions. Clearly, either Mr Mellett should lose his job, pension and pay compensation if he was wrong. If he was right, he should lose his job as the HEA now has no role.

Sean O Nuallain PhD

Here is a list of regulatory bodies;

13
Database of Regulatory Bodies – List of Bodies
1. Department of Agriculture and Food
1.1 Department of Agriculture and Food
1.2
National Milk Agency
1.3
Veterinary Council
2. Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism
2.1 Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism
2.2
Fáilte Ireland
2.3
Horse Racing Ireland
2.4
Irish Greyhound Board/Bord na gCon
Private Bodies
2.5
The Turf Club - Office of the Governing Bodies
3. Department of Communications, Marine and Natura
l
Resources
3.1 Department of Communications, Marine and Natura
l Resources
3.2 Broadcasting Commission of Ireland
3.3 Commission for Communications Regulation
3.4 Commission for Energy Regulation
3.5 Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority
3.6
Fisheries Boards and Commissioners
3.6.1 Central Fisheries Board
3.6.2 Eastern Regional Fisheries Board
3.6.3 Northern Regional Fisheries Board
3.6.4 North-Western Regional Fisheries Board
3.6.5 River Moy Commissioners
3.6.6 Shannon Regional Fisheries Board
3.6.7 Southern Regional Fisheries Board
3.6.8 South-Western Regional Fisheries Board
3.6.9 Western Regional Fisheries Board
4. Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Af
fairs
4.1 Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Af
fairs
4.2
An Coimisinéir Teanga
4.3
The Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Beque
sts for Ireland
4.4
Waterways Ireland
5. Department of Defence
5.1 Department of Defence
6. Department of Education and Science
6.1
Department of Education and Science
6.2
FETAC: Further Education and Training Awards Counci
l
6.3
HEA – Higher Education Authority
6.4
HETAC: Higher Education and Training Awards Council
6.5
National Educational Welfare Board
6.6
National Qualifications Authority of Ireland
6.7
State Examinations Commission
6.8
The Teaching Council
14
7. Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment
7.1 Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment
7.2
Companies Registration Office
7.3
Competition Authority
7.4
Health and Safety Authority
7.5
Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority
7.6
Irish National Accreditation Board
7.7
Irish Takeover Panel
7.8
Labour Court
7.9
National Consumer Agency
7.10
Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs
7.11
National Standards Authority of Ireland
7.12
Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement
7.13
Office of the Registrar of Friendly Societies
7.14
Patents Office
8. Department of the Environment, Heritage and Loc
al
Government
8.1
Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local G
overnment
8.2
An Bord Pleanála
8.3
EPA – Environmental Protection Agency
8.4
Private Residential Tenancies Board
8.5
Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland
(
Local Government Authorities are listed separately
)
9. Department of Finance
9.1 Department of Finance
9.2
Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ir
eland
9.3
Commission for Public Service Appointments
9.4
Institute of Incorporated Public Accountants
9.5
Irish Stock Exchange
9.6
Irish Taxation Institute
9.7
Office of the Appeals Commissioners
9.8
Office of the Revenue Commissioners
9.9
Standards in Public Office Commission
9.10
The Financial Regulator
10 Department of Foreign Affairs
10.1 Department of Foreign Affairs
11. Department of Health and Children
11.1 Department of Health and Children
11.2 Adoption Authority of Ireland
11.3 Food Safety Authority of Ireland
11.4 Health Insurance Authority
11.5 Irish Medicines Board
11.6 Mental Health Commission
11.7 Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council
rivate Bodies
11.8 An Bord Altranais/Irish Nursing Board
11.9 Dental Council
11.10 Medical Council
11.11 Opticians Board
11.12 Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland
15
12. Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform
12.1
Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform
12.2
Censorship of Publications Board
12.3
Dublin Carriage Office
12.4
Film Censor’s Office
12.5
Office of the Data Protection Commissioner
12.6
Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner
12.7
Private Security Authority
Private Bodies
12.8
Bar Council
12.9
Law Society of Ireland
13. Department of Social and Family Affairs
13.1 Department of Social and Family Affairs
13.2 Pensions Board
14. Department of the Taoiseach
14.1 Department of the Taoiseach / Central Statisti
cs Office
15. Department of Transport
15.1
Department of Transport
15.2
Commission for Aviation Regulation
15.3
Commission for Taxi Regulation
15.4
Commissioners of Irish Lights
15.5
Córas Iompair Éireann
15.6
Irish Aviation Authority
15.7
National Roads Authority
15.8
Railway Procurement Agency
15.9
Railway Safety Commission
15.10
Road Safety Authority
16. Local Government Authorities