#meEjit: Ian O’Doherty and Strawmen.

In Blog, Culture, History, Politicsby Rashers Tierney18 Comments

wickerman shane

 

Remember earlier in the week, we posted how the European Network Against Racism got the Press Ombudsman to kick Ian O’Doherty to touch, over his ramblings on the Roma?

The ENAR’s Shane O’Curry originally complained that the piece called  “Begging – but I thought it was freedom of expression?” was in breach of  Principle 8 of its code of practice for magazines and newspapers – it advocated  the expulsion of all unemployed Roma people from Ireland.

It  stated that Roma beggars formed “a parasitic, ethnic underclass who look on this country as a giant stupid cow to be milked whenever they see fit,” and it asserted that many locals had “found themselves surrounded by beggars – all of whom were Roma  – and then had their belongings filched.”

While the ENAR head served up an elegant piece about how language can dehumanize a people, Ian comes back today with the sort of argument you’d get from a bad drunk at a wedding.

I certainly learned something from reading Shane’s piece, such as his claim that: “500,000 Roma, Sinti and Travellers were exterminated in Nazi camps, with millions more dispossessed and displaced.”

Presuming by ‘Traveller’ he means Traveller in an Irish context, then my belligerent friend has surely uncovered one of the most secret aspects of the Holocaust – the dark and unrecorded extermination of the Travellers in the death camps. I could be glib about such an absurd and insulting misrepresentation of the Shoah to score a cheap point, but really – what’s the point? The statement speaks for itself.

Goodman Ian. It’s a wide eyed combo that tries to rile up “regular folks who are tired of having to keep their mouth shut” against dimwit liberals and punches back with a strawman argument over Shane’s runaway fantasies over Nazi death camps.

It’s a classic technique from the losing corner of a debate. As Wikipedia puts it “a straw man, also known in the UK as an Aunt Sally is a common type of argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position.”

With 50 copy editors gone from the Indo, we can probably expect a load more outlandish shite from the likes of Ian. I know the sort of strawman I’d like for Ian. Oh wait, that was a wickerman wasn’t it?

Background info ERTF & Holocaust Memorial.

Comments

  1. Ian O’Doherty, Eoghan Harris, Kevin Myers and Stephen Collins all wankers

  2. Ian o Donovan it’s a buffoon and a shite hawk. Thing is, he gets people talking about the indo and they love him for it.

  3. Met Ian in Rathmines College in 1990 when he repeated his Leaving Cert after failing to get into DIT to study Journalism. He was a unlikable person who stuck to himself if memory serves. Great to see he remains consistent and now fails in his efforts to be a journalist and is happy to be a cheap ignorant hack. Stay classy Iano

  4. for english language (mostly) news about Roma in europe, like… Roma Virtual Network + ROMEA + European Roma Rights Centre

  5. We’ve been here before with Oliver. J. Flanagan

  6. The less thought given to O’Doherty the better; a thoroughly distasteful individual.

  7. Only in Ireland would such a talentless prick be given a platform

  8. Pingback: Unchallenged Racism On National TV. | www.rabble.ie

  9. Ian O’Doherty and his likes think every African lives on benefits in Europe, he thinks all English are slave traders while all Irish like himself are paedos

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