Comment and Quotes Policy

Commenting

Let’s keep this simple.

  1. Slurs will get you banned. Racism, ableism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and xenophobia will get you banned. If I think you’re genuine or I’m in a particularly good mood, I might disemvowel your comment and give you a single chance. Or I might not. This is my space, I can be as arbitrary as I like. Get your own blog and post about how hurt your fee-fees are there.
  2. On the other hand, calling me out on my own privilege or asshattery is welcome. Discussion is welcome. Dissenting opinions are welcome. Cursing, swearing, and general pottymouthery are absolutely welcome. Have at it.
  3. Unless otherwise stated (for example, making an anonymous comment for a specific reason and stating as such), pick an identity here and stick to it. Sockpuppetry will have you hurtling headfirst towards the bin faster than you can say “concussion”.

Got it? Excellent.

Reblogging and Quoting

Quoting from and reblogging my articles is fine- welcome, even- under a couple of simple conditions.

  1. Let me know about it. Comment, pingback, tweet to me, message me on Facebook. Let me know you’re using my work.
  2. Attribute. I’m not terribly fussy about exact attribution format- Harvard referencing will make me smile, but this ain’t your PhD. Just say that I wrote it and link back to the original.
  3. Don’t copy entire posts to your blog. Just.. don’t, k?

Thank you!

9 thoughts on “Comment and Quotes Policy

  1. 1

    Unfortunately, there comes a time when you must look for a solution in places that are not immediately attractive. You may even come to realise that while the Roman Chruch is directly at fault, much of Ireland’s problems are because of the Irish people themselves.
    If we look at the case of Saviat Hallappanavar, a Supreme Court has ruled in her favour (the X Case) some twenty years earlier. Yet she never benefitted. The Irish go on to argue that this Supreme Court decision was never ‘translated’ into statute law. But ‘statute law’ does not add one whit of legality to the propriety of the Supreme Court’s decision. In other words, what was done in Galway and what was carefully planned by the Bishops, was already illegal. The Irish Supreme Court, after all, is the ‘final arbiter of fact and law’, or so it hitherto imagined itself to be.

    The delay in translating it into statute law is merely the reflection of the unimaginable power the Churh has over the people, who seem to have absolutly no self- or secular will of their own. So, one should not be surprised to find similar scandals amongst the Irish — all of which have hardly changed the mentality of the people one whit — even if they keep saying to themselves: ‘Oh! How Ireland has changed so much in recent years.’ It’s like a half-believed mantra that Irish people love to say but never quite seem to digest or demonstrate its reality.

    What other scandals in recent times demonstrate the RCC’s power?

    1. After WW11, there was the rattlining of the Nazis, concerning which the Irish people neither knew nor seemed to care nor demanded an apology, which is the usual Irish way of seeking redress;
    2. The trafficking of thousands of illegitimate children from Ireland to the US in the 1950s and 1960s (see Mike Milotte’s paperback ‘Banished Babies”, and within the US and to Canada;
    3. The Ann Lovett case came to light when a 15-year-old schoolgirl’s body was found under the shadow of a statue of the Virgin Mary in a churchyard, having just gfven birth. This was in Granard, County Longford, in 1984. The circumstances of the case were virtually repeated 21 years later (See Irish Independent 14 May, 2005). There was no inquiry and no blame preferred against her school, her church, or the believe-system that caused the event.
    4. Then there is the topic of symphysiotomy Irish style. It’s where Catholic run hospitals engage Irish doctors to break women’s pelvises so they won’t miscarry. This was a uniquely Irish solution to a Holy Roman Catholic problem with women.
    5. Again the question of Gay Marriages gives the RCC full power to divide society from toe to top. There was a time when being Gay was a crime which the Roman Church could not countenance; it’s now an issue of how to prevent them from getting married — and this prevention at the controlling fingers of those who are sworn to perpetual celibacy.
    6. The scandal in the Reformatory Schools and the coverup of widespread and international clerical pedophelia;
    7. The scandal of the Magdalene Lauderies and the attempted coverup by the Church and the Department of Justice and, indeed, the notion put about by the McAleese Report into the Launderies that no physical abuse took place there at a time when abuse was systemically carried out in all Catholic Schools in the Republic of Irleand;
    8. So, the treatment — or lack of it — in Savita Hallappanaver’s case is not an isolated incident of Catholic cruelty… The Irish people must take some blame for their enduring phelgmaticism in the face of such overwhelming superstitious governance. The Irish refusal or inability to become a secular nation is both a tribute to the expertise of the manipulaiting Church as well as to the obduracy of the Irish people themselves.

  2. 2

    Was upset of your dismissal of R. Dawkins as not being of relevance.I live where there is no abortion, no right to a non religious education for my children. The Selfish Gene may be light reading for you but it changed my life and this has given my 4daughters a chance in life without the baggage of religiosity and moralistic norms. In short , he may be no Darwin(neither was Darwin the sole author in this field) but he has made a seismic change in my life. I read his work 1yr. Ago and was so inspired by the easily understood arguments therein that I have gone on to inform myself and by extension my extended family of the value of reason and through further research skeptical empiricism. This is not bad from someone who 2yrs.ago would have offered all her sufferings and those of her family to the glory of god. I presume Dawkins had his faults, despite them I and my extended family owe him a debt of gratitude.

      1. Apologies for way-past-sell-by-date reply; the reorganization of gmail, without telling me, was shoving all my comment-at-blog notifications into a hidden folder. Garrgh. Caitie Hate Change in Working Programs!

        And thank you – I’ll get that done today. 🙂

  3. 5

    I am the same way on my site–I tell nasty commenters to start their own blog; this is MY space. But during the Trayvon Martin situation I left the racists to show the attitudes of people in this country, and made a point of noting why I left them up.

    1. 5.1

      I think things like that are why it’s good to give yourself a fair bit of leeway to be arbitrary. If people want to be terrible, they face either banning or being made examples of!

      1. I’m always struck by the entitlement that must exist in a person to think that “your personal blog is just an echo chamber!” is some sort of insult or ‘gotcha’ message. It is precisely because it is my personal blog that it is an echo chamber. It’s personal – which, as I believe someone may have pointed out before once or twice, is political. And why is it that I’m required to make space for discussions at my place that I don’t want to have? We would scorn as socially unacceptable if someone insisted on coming into our homes, sitting down on our couch, and telling us what we can or cannot talk about, or even what we should talk about. Why do we have to make space in our blogs if we don’t want to? Why is freedom only for angry defenders of the kyriarchy?

        Okay, I actually know the answer to that last one. Privilege™: don’t leave a comment without it!

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