Far be it from me to interrupt your sentimental meanderings through the Irish psyche with a request for facts, aqvarivs, but...

>>The battle for Northern Ireland is no different and is an extension of the 1919-1921 War of Independence, which is an extension of the 1916 uprising, which is an extension of the 1848 Rebellion, and anyone worth their salt can trace the many Irish battles to keep their sovereignty and independence back to the first English invasion<<

The piece that is missing is any information on “the first English invasion”.

Could you possibly enlighten us all – when exactly did this “first English invasion” take place?

After all, if “anyone worth their salt” can do it, I'm sure that you can.

Save the taunts for the school yard pericles, your ham fisted approach and dismissive attitude to history, and your willingness to massage events to suit your preconceptions leaves little room for honest commentary and any sharing of opinion. I grow bored and am being distracted from honoring the subject matter of this thread. Now, if you would like to post your opinion of what would make healthy young Islamic Britons take up with religious extremist, to savage their living environment and society, I'm more than willing to read it. Well, as long as you don't suggest it's all about religion.

Pericles might be correct that many conflicts start with religion. However, he may have a hidden agenda of anti-gods and promoting Darwinism.

What has the Buddhists in Thailand to do with the invasion of Palestine and Iraq? Nothing. Yet Muslims in south Thailand killed about 2000 Buddhists since 2004. Now it seems that some Buddhists have organized themselves into vigilantes to protect themselves and targeting Muslims. After tolerating Islamic violence for so long, they have to fight back or be exterminated.
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/195415

Tawfik Hamid has been proven correct many times in saying that that unless you deal as forcefully with the Islamic believers (Islamists) as they deal with non-Muslims they would not respect you and seek to destroy you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ho8bSaWL-w&mode=related&search=

So, you finally resorted to the history books, aqvarivs.

>>anyone worth their salt can trace the many Irish battles to keep their sovereignty and independence back to the first English invasion<<

There was none, was there?

But your point is not lost.

Politics and religion have been fundamentally intertwined since... well, probably since religion was invented. They are both, after all, merely a matter of rallying public support behind a set of ideas that is different from the set of ideas that some other guy is rallying support for.

My point is not that "religion causes pain". In fact, as I have said many times in many threads, I fully understand how religion per se - the structuring of thoughts around a particular view of spirituality and a deity figure - is a comfort to millions of people.

It is, however, also a means of wielding power, and exerting control. So the temptation to invoke a particular brand of religion - when the true purpose is simply the exercise of power - is often overwhelming, thanks to the emotional, as opposed to rational, pull that religion exerts.

There is nothing intrinsically violent in religion itself. It is all about living in peace with yourself, your fellow man and your "maker". But when it is used as a control mechanism, and to accrete power, it is not the overt goal of that power grab that is front and centre, but religion.

This is not a one-size-fits-all argument. But we have evolved from tribes into "society", and that process incorporates not only territory, homeland or whatever, but also beliefs and spiritual directions. The former Yugoslavia, for example, was a political conceit that eventually fragmented along religious, rather than geographical, faultlines.

Unfortunately, many people were hurt along the way. My objective is only to point out that it is actually less painful to be tolerant of others than to keep getting in their face and telling them they are evil.

Philip Tang, with the multinational expansion of terrorism and the autocratic political-religious ideology that follows, the world is indeed covered by these self-same brushfires. Generally speaking I think you will find this taking place in countries where law is not upheld universally and the balance of power and wealth controlled by a minority in a multi tribal environment. In western countries such episodic acts are usually muted and quickly stifled thanks to the laws, and start again in part thanks to the openness of our society by law. However I do think such openness is a thing of the past as more and more people confine their thinking to restricting “thinking” and not enforcing the laws related to “acts” against existing laws, rather focusing on the issue in an anti-religious pogrom type of fashion. And those willing to excuse 'culturally' and not enforce the law. Those of the western population, who are proponents of a socialist world order, and protest their governments involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan or Somalia, the Sudan and elsewhere to quash these authoritarian regimes, who are not answerable to the people, encourage such examples as what is happening in Thailand and elsewhere by hamstringing the democratic governments on the world stage. These potentates know by experience and history that by the time the U.N gets involved they will be well established and solidly in control politically and militarily. These autocrats are also very aware of the limited time frame the “West” has in prosecuting any regime change and freeing the people to a democratic form of government before the Left start voicing anti-government rhetoric and avidly working to bring down their own government. The left insuring that the only direction is appeasement. Thus the spread of autocratic governments and a decline in democracy. And the pendulum swings. And the world is in the process of creating the next Hitler. We have an ample supply of Chamberlains at the ready.

Aqvarivs, what you describe to an extent is true - however I think you're seeing only half of the situation and completely miss the other half of the pendulum.

The reason why western governments have been so open and have accommodated free speech, is largely due to those who protest attempts of authoritarianism. The Left, which you quickly accuse of having "hamstrung" western governments in their action, are also those who prevent those governments from becoming dictatorial in the manner of those countries which they criticise.

So whilst what you're saying isn't wrong - it's only half right.
How long do you think it would be before we had an authoritarian government, if nobody was willing to criticise the actions of our politicians? Do you honestly think they wouldn't act in their own interests? Because I don't have that much faith in them.

Besides, if recent US interventions have taught us anything, this 'Left' of which you speak has done a pretty poor job of having 'hamstrung' their actions. I'd argue the Left has been totally ineffective anyway and it's only now that the abject failure of such intervention is coming home to roost, that the Left is having any success.