The President Has No Right to Respect!

Bet that got your attention!

"STORY OF THE WEEK!" (as many of the excellent CUT BACKS videos used to begin ... wish they were still being produced)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPqkq-J3bTA


The story of the week last week was: RESPECT.

A Dublin man was alleged to have insulted, offended and disrespected President of Ireland Michael D Higgins.

Well, the simple fact is that President Higgins has no right to respect.  No man has.

Respect is not a right.

Free speech is a right.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny travelled to Paris just a few weeks ago to stand with heads of government in defence of the RIGHT of free speech and in SUPPORT of a French publication which offends many muslim people of the Nation of Islam.  This week Enda Kenny did a complete "volte face" (having picked up a bit of the lingo apparently) and was outraged at an Irish citizen's comments aimed at his country's President.

President Higgins may be ENTITLED to respect, but he has no RIGHT to it.  Respect is an entitlement, but first it has to be earned.  Michael D Higgins has spent his entire political career championing human rights and social justice, both at home and around the world, and is absolutely and unquestionably entitled to respect for doing so.  But when his own people, whom he represents as the nation's President, are in their hour of greatest need for many many years, he has remained silent.

Ireland is a country bound in tax and debt slavery, entirely thanks to a lazy, corrupt, self-serving political elite, bought by global multinationals and a predatory banking system.  Enda Kenny's Fine Gael (and Joan Burton's Labour) did not "inherit" a crisis.  They were totally complicit in what has happened in Ireland.  They sat across the house in Dáil Eireann and enjoyed their position as first class passengers on the runaway gravy train.

Throughout the tiger years NOBODY in Fine Gael or Labour were warning of the unsustainability of the construction driven economy which was building nothing but a house of cards.  And neither can they claim "nobody else was" because there were political commentators, financial experts and even credible Irish economists who tried hard to sound the alarm bells.  Their voices were heard and ignored ... dismissed as nay-sayers and prophets of doom.

The outrage at "m1dj3t-gate" is farcical.  Of course nobody believes that politicians are actually losing sleep over it but it has been headlined as "an attack on democracy".  What they are actually saying is "sit down, shut up and bow to your masters!"  Can their arrogance, self-righteousness, elitist mentality, psychopathic mindest be any clearer. 

No one can tell one man that he has to respect another.  THAT'S! what fascists do ... Mr. Hayes.  YOU are the real threat to democracy.

And that is what has happened to the psyche of the Irish people over generations. I've written this before (bloglink) but it bears revisiting.

In every city and town in the country we were taught to respect the local Parish Priest, respect the local Bank Manager, respect the local TD,respect the Garda and Magistrate.

Today we know what the Church has done to us.  We know what the banks have done to us.  We know what our politicians have done to us.  And we know what our Garda force and our judiciary are doing to us.

We are not children any more.  We have grown up.  And we have learnt that what we are taught was wrong.

I don’t respect these people any more.

Respect is something that should be taught to children.  But after childhood Respect is something that must be earned.

Respect must also be mutual.  If not mutual then it is not respect!  It is the "respect" of a slave for his master.  It is the "respect" of a peasant for a king.  What

Our politicians, lead by Kenny, Varadkar and Hayes (both donning their armour for a not-too-distant leadership contest) are demanding that the President be shown respect.  Well for my part I am happy to show any man the same respect that he shows me.

Two years ago this week I sent a letter by registered post to Enda Kenny asking important questions about the existence of company named "An Taoiseach", seemingly registered off-shore with an address at Mr Kenny's constituency office. the letter.  Two years on and Mr Kenny has refused to show me the respect of a response...  Why should I show him any respect?

RIGHTS are ABSOLUTE.  Even rights that are denied are not extinguished.

If respect was a RIGHT then it would not be something that could be lost.  Respect is an entitlement that is earned and it can be lost.

President Higgins has lost the respect of a lot of Irish citizens - even those who voted for him.  It now turns out that the principles on which he has based his own political ideology do not apply to the citizens of Ireland.

The good news is that he can earn it back.  That's up to him.  A man of honour would do the right thing.