Some fairly stupid statements from the year…

A few selected from the last twelve months or so.

I think this one may be close to the top of the pile…

The hubris of our age is the idea that moral progress has tracked technological progress, so that our behaviour becomes the criterion by reference to which church teaching is to be judged, rather than the other way around.
Those who, in their arrogance and pride, believe themselves to be above God’s law are never far from abuse. This is what allowed abuses – clearly contrary to the law of the church – to be perpetrated and facilitated in the past.

But this is close behind it from the same week:

The Government wants to reduce the average alcohol intake of each Irish person from 11 litres to 9.1 litres by 2020. Such thorough authoritarianism!

Yesteryear’s religious moralists were never this ambitious in the policing of people’s lifestyles.

Speaking of matters religious and secular…

Meanwhile John McGuirk, communications director for Save the 8th and master of the counter-productive taunt, was tweeting at length about “angry repealers”. “Once all the ‘oppression’ is gone, they’ll have to confront the fact that their misery is their own.”

Or not. Probably not.

Still this exercised some no end:

The debate is not about maternal healthcare in Ireland, do not be fooled. It is an ideological question: do you really want abortion on demand at least up to 12 weeks? Do you really want to give carte blanche to your Government for abortions up to 6 months’ gestation? Legalising abortion will inevitably and inexorably create a general malaise in Irish society, at every level, in every family, between neighbours, in medical facilities, everywhere.

And it would be simply unfair to ignore this person… and wonder at their predictive powers!

The President’s attachment to a left-wing agenda, which manifested itself in his tribute to Fidel Castro and his consistent criticism of the free-market philosophy which has underpinned the economic policies of successive governments might expose him to attack from a more mainstream opponent.

Or marvel at their analytical powers!

One of the problems is that the lessons of the crash were never fully absorbed at political level, never mind in consciousness of the public, and that means politicians find it hard to resist the temptation of repeating the mistakes of the past.
For instance, the widely accepted view that the crash was caused solely by the banks has allowed politicians of all parties to shirk the fundamental truth that “austerity” measures were necessitated by the fact that public spending and tax revenue went completely out of kilter.
On the spending side the rapid rise in public-service pay to unsustainable levels due to benchmarking was an important factor. This was accompanied by a narrowing of the tax base with almost half the workforce removed from the income tax net.
When tax revenue suddenly collapsed the money was simply not there to pay the public salary levels agreed and hence the emergency legislation to control the public pay bill and the rapid rise in income tax to help narrow the gap between revenue and expenditure.

Still, let us end on this more entertaining note – from April:

Finally in a different category all its own, in the paper of record, an interview with a ‘specialist’ in ‘astrocartography’ (a “form” of “astrology” that “helps people choose where to live”) now relocated to the US.

How did your move to Boston come about?
After two years in Italy, I reluctantly returned to Ireland to continue my astrology studying and to develop and extend my client base there, which included starting to teach astrology.

And this is priceless…

In January 2017, I learned of Norwegian airline’s proposed new low cost routes between Ireland and the US, consulted my own astrologer and saw that Mars (which rules passion, drive and inspired action) was strong in my chart in Boston.
So I booked my flight in June 2017, and put it out there in a Boston women’s Facebook group that I was looking for a holistic shop to work out of. I got several replies, contacted ZuZus Healing Arts Shop outside of Boston, who were happy to have me work from their shop one day a week.