A Roast By Any Other Name

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The August issue of Village magazine is out now

Village is unashamedly Leftist. Its agenda is equality of outcome, sustainability and accountability.

These are all driven by the overarching goal of treating people as equals.

The right labours freedom to the detriment of equality, tending to fixate on the provision of choices rather than on how in practice those choices are exercised.

The non-ideological, non-visionary parties of the pragmatic centre hold little appeal for Village.

Depressingly, with a signal in June that it wants to go into coalition with Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, Sinn Féin has signalled its immediate destination is that pragmatic centre.

For fourteen years Village has tried to champion parties taking egalitarian stances but it’s been difficult.

Our left has been – and let’s be blunt – remains a disaster, a let-down. That is not an accident.

For historical reasons most Irish people, though they have a weakness for leftist rhetoric, are conservative and property-fetishising with a limited sense of the common good.

Many are viscerally hostile to an agenda of treating people equally….

Editorial, Village magazine

FIGHT!

Our Hopeless Left (Village)

Village

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25 thoughts on “A Roast By Any Other Name

  1. Andrew

    “most Irish people, though they have a weakness for leftist rhetoric, are conservative and property-fetishising with a limited sense of the common good.”

    I agree with all of this.

    1. Andrew

      Having said that I fail to see how a left wing party will deliver the results The Village demands.
      We have plenty of ‘supposedly left wing councillors and TD’s and none of them have any ideas beyond virtue signalling on homelessness, Israel and legalising cannabis.
      The weakness for leftist rhetoric is particularly apparent amongst our very well remunerated media and academic circles.
      Leftists in Ireland are middle class mostly and live in middle class parts of Dublin.
      Diversity to this cohort means new restaurants and Philipino home help.
      They actually keep the poor where they are; as increasing welfare is their answer to everything, rather than encouraging and enabling opportunity.

      1. Annon

        “equality of outcome”

        Are their demands even possible?

        Equality of opportunity is one thing but equality of outcomes is another thing entirely.

        1. Dr_Chimp

          Only remotely possible if it is backed by government force. Its a disgraceful concept that robs you of your individualism. You can consider people as equals, in terms of their rights and responsibilities, without resorting to forcing arbitrarily defined equality of outcome. I do not identify as a member of any group so it will ultimately come down to the subjective judgement of whoever is in charge to give me a label and force me to do things I don’t want to do. For the greater good of course.

        1. rotide

          OK, a party called the United Socialist Party of Venezuela , set up by Chavez and which endorses the principles of Socialism, Marxism and Bolivarianism is not a left wing government?

          It’s ‘Alternate Facts’ time.

      1. jusayinlike

        No it’s not, a right wing government excepting they have a massive heroin and subsequent related crime issue and taking a pro active steps to tackle it doesn’t make it a left wing government.

        FAIL

    1. Elizabeth Mainwaring

      Squinty McCusker from the National went to Cuba on holidays and says it was definitely under the thumb of a left wing government because everyone seems to want to leave.

  2. Joe Small

    I resent the implication that, to have a strong sense of the common good, you must support the hard left in Ireland.
    The hard left have a disproportionate impact in the Oireachtas (in terms of PR) and in the media but don’t look like translating this into real political power anytime soon. Their control of Dublin City Council has resulted in all sort of rubbish resolutions and flags being flown from City Hall but no noticeable improvements.

  3. Jesús, María, and Josépha

    Is The Village closing down?

    Does anyone take it seriously when one of the main movers behind it denies there being any drugs in evidence on the Liffey Boardwalk in Dublin? A letter to the Irish Times would have done (though he’s not good enough to get it published there).

    Perhaps he’s trying to sell up and go…

    Glorified student magazine….

  4. b

    well the first mistake there was hitching your wagon to Sinn Fein as the saviour of the Left – they’ll always do what’s best for SF first and the idealogy can fit around that

  5. Alan McGee

    Our liberal intelligentsia elite is who we are failed by the most. Fintan O’Toole, Una Mullally, Dylan Haskins, Diarmaid Ferriter, bloody Apres Match comedians (that’s the only satire we have albeit Irish Pictorial Weekly was quite good while it lasted).
    Leadership of the left comes from the likes to these sorts but we’re completely betrayed by them as their interests are solely self serving.
    Remember Fintan O’Toole, Dunphy, McWilliams Et al. tried in the depths of despair of 2010 to form a new party – Democracy Now. That’s as close as we have got to leadership from the left. I wouldn’t say they were able to sit in the same room such was the air of self aggrandisement.

    1. Dr_Chimp

      One of the problems the ‘Left’ in general seems to have is that they’re all trying to ‘out-left’ each other. Nobody is ever left wing or liberal enough and anyone even marginally to the right of the most extreme left is basically Hitler.

      1. Alan McGee

        It’s called intolerance. The left have mastered the art of it. You become what you pursue.

  6. Cian

    We’ve 6 left wing parties with elected reps

    Add a ‘new party of the left’ and at best, we get 7 left wing parties with elected reps…

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