Tuesday, June 05, 2018

We'll Do The Rest



After spitting in a tube my adult children sent me for Fathers’ Day last year, then mailing it out and waiting six weeks, ancestry.com sent me DNA results. My sputum — or 98% of it at least — matches that of people living today in three regions of Ireland: the Inishowen Peninsula in County Donegal; County Mayo in west/central Ireland; and the southwestern counties of Cork and Kerry.


None of this surprised me. Those DNA findings confirm forty years of research into family origins and three trips to various parts of Ireland, but one thing did puzzle me at first. The McLaughlins I met while traveling in Inishowen told me the Gaelic version of our name — MacLochlainn” translates to “Of the Vikings” so I expected to find DNA traces from Scandinavia. Viking raiders started raping and pillaging the Irish coast during the 9th century, then established settlements in many places over the next 400 years. They founded Dublin itself, so many Irish should have Scandinavian DNA after all that.


Further research into ancestry.com's site explained it. My DNA profile matches people living in those regions of Ireland now — many of whom would likely have Scandinavian ancestors, whereas people living in Denmark, Norway, or Sweden would not tend to have Celtic ancestors from Ireland. The Irish didn’t raid or settle in those colder regions, so my DNA would not match many people now living in those countries.


Most historians agree that Celtic people first settled in Ireland only 2500 years ago — around 500 BC. There were already people living there when the Celts arrived, but historians disagree about who they were or where they might have come from. Some claim they arrived from northern Iberia and I’ve read claims of migration from North Africa, the Fertile Crescent, and what is now Russia going back 5000-8000 years. Recent DNA research at Dublin’s Trinity College offers corroborating evidence for these claims.

After Vikings were assimilated, the British took over large parts of Ireland by the 14th century. Some Irish accepted British conquerors but most continued to resist and were banished westward to rocky hills and bogs “beyond the pale.” The “pale” was line of wooden stakes driven into the ground as a boundary. That now-familiar English phrase has come to mean “outside the bounds of acceptable behavior” and both meanings were applied to my ancestors by British conquerors.

When Oliver Cromwell began his depredations in Ireland around the 1640s, he further banished rebellious Irish “To hell or Connaught.” The latter is in western Ireland “beyond the pale” where most of my forebears lived before emigrating to America beginning in the early 1800s. Some, including the Haggertys and McDonalds, then settled around Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and worked in the coal mines. They moved north to Boston in the early 20th century, intermarried with the Fitzgeralds and McLaughlins, and begat me.


While all that interests me and I’m still researching ancestors named Sullivan, McQuire, Harrington, Mahoney, Cassidy, and others, I think of myself as 100% American. That’s not an ethnicity; it’s an attitude. It’s an idea for organizing humans to the extent they wish to be organized. To be American is to believe the Constitution is the most brilliant governing document ever written, even if Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg disagrees.


As an Irishman who calls himself “Bono” said:

“America is an idea, isn’t it… That’s how we see you around the world: as one of the greatest ideas in history… The idea is that you and me are created equal… the idea that life is not meant to be endured but enjoyed, the idea that if we have dignity, if we have justice, then leave it to us; we’ll do the rest. This country [he was speaking at Georgetown University] was the first to claw its way out of darkness and put that on paper. And God love you for it…”


He was referring, of course, to the Declaration of Independence, but the ideas expressed there were soon after codified into our plan for government: the US Constitution. To the extent that we preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, as so many of have sworn to do, we preserve the idea of America. The Constitution curtails government and confers “liberty and justice for all” — then leaves it to us to do the rest as we see fit.


It’s the idea of America that makes us great. It makes us the kind of country to which so many others want to come. We have many races and ethnicities in America. They’re all welcome so long as they endorse the idea. If not, they shouldn't be allowed in.

24 comments:

Jared J Bristol said...

Amen to your last sentence (the rest is good too). That makes me a bona fide islamophobe. Oh well. Now before Anonymous spouts off, let me tell him/her that islamophobia is a made up term by the Muslim Brotherhood to "shout us down" and shut us up. Not going to work. A phobia is an irrational fear like fearing open spaces. But since Islam is evil, a fear of it, or at least considerable caution with it, is rather rational and sane. Sorry Anon. If we're not very attentive to Islam in a precautionary way, its supremacist jihad will destroy us. So, like Tom says here, if they won't adhere to the Constitution and push their lovely Shari'a, they should not be allowed in the country. Period.

Anonymous said...

All man-made laws, especially our U.S. Constitution, are subordinate to Sharia. Assimilation is a myth. YES, some Muslims may appear to have become Westernized and peacefully go about their daily lives while living in a non-Muslim country....until their numbers grow.

There were Nazis who smiled, loved their families and weren't much different than German citizens until the call came from Herr Hitler. The Quran says that Muhammad is the perfect man to emulate (68:4, 33:23). He was clearly a barbaric warlord who converted non-Muslims by the sword. Democracy and Sharia don't mix.

Fmi on non-assimilation, see: https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/quran/loyalty-to-non-muslim-government.aspx

Mr ED said...

You two are worried about Sharia, when you have the Royal Queen still in power, what the hell you been smoking?

Tom McLaughlin said...

A commenter on another site posted this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eirq4laOhcU

It's funny, and as with all good humor it has an element of truth. Were you to click on the link in the column above about my trip to Inishowen ten years ago to research my great-grandfather, you'd see verification of that truth. He was a drunk, and there are plenty more of those in my family tree.

Brian said...

Since you respect Bono enough to include his thoughtful comments on America, which I agree with, let's see what else he has to say on the subject:

"Look, America is like the best idea the world ever came up with. But Donald Trump is potentially the worst idea that ever happened to America. I think of Emma Lazarus, those lines, 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,' this is America,this is not from Donald Trump's playbook. I think he's trying to hijack the idea of America. And I think it's bigger than all of us. I think this is really dangerous."

"For the first time in many years, maybe in our lifetime, the moral arc of the universe, as Dr. King used to call it, is not bending in the direction of fairness, equality and justice for all"

Wise words indeed from Bono.

And a side note to Jared....keep being afraid, that is how your sheep herders want you, as you are easier to control that way.

Montedoro44 said...

Brian, your gratuitous insult noted. Here are some polling statistics from

https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2015/06/23/nationwide-poll-of-us-muslims-shows-thousands-support-shariah-jihad/

> (51%) agreed that “Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to shariah.

> (51%) of U.S. Muslims polled also believe either that they should have the choice of American or shariah courts, or that they should have their own tribunals to apply shariah. Only 39% of those polled said that Muslims in the U.S. should be subject to American courts.

> Nearly one-fifth of Muslim respondents said that the use of violence in the United States is justified in order to make shariah the law of the land in this country.

What is missing from the arguments/invective writings of Tom's trolls is consideration of the underlying mission that motivates Islamic violence all around the world: global spread of Islam, with the corollary application of the Islamic sharia. Islamic sharia is the essence of Islam, cannot be separated from the just-another-religion parts that refer to individual Muslims' relationship with Allah.

Islamic sharia when applied, governs all of the infidels in the territory as well as the Muslims. Yes, trolls, there are many American Muslims who either personally do not promote the sharia or do not want to submit to it. They are not a new kind of Muslim and they do not define a reformed kind of Islam; they have strayed or can even be counted as apostate, and sometimes they pay the price, even in America.

Maybe you have heard of Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim M.D. from Arizona, who founded an organization: https://aifdemocracy.org/ . Zuhdi is the model of a "moderate" Muslim, rails against "political Islam", and promotes American constitutional democracy eloquently. He and his organization have no traction in the American Muslim community; his audience is infidel Americans who want to believe that he represents a benign Islam. CAIR despises him; the local Muslim gazette in the Phoenix area published a cartoon of him caricatured as a mad dog chewing on the legs of real Muslims. There was no backlash from the community for it. He cannot get anywhere with the Muslim community because he has deviated from essential Islam, and under sharia, that is punishable. He is alive today because he lives in America.

There are other such tiny Muslim organizations. Good luck to them, but they just don't have a theological leg to stand on. The Muslim organizations that you have heard of -- Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Taliban, Hamas, Hezballah, et al., are much in accordance with Mohammed's Islam, as are the non-violent organizations, like CAIR, ISNA, ICNA, MSA, et al., whose modus operandi is to legitimate Islam and encourage Muslims to rise to power in their host country. You have heard of Linda Sarsour, one of the organizers of the Women's March, a darling of the Left. She promotes sharia in the USA, as if it is benign, wonderful.

Trolls, as long as you ignore the essence of the struggle, confining yourselves to insulting word-bombs, dismissing out of hand every voice that dares to analyze and criticize Islam and the mainstream Western blindness of the underlying obligations placed upon Muslims by the tenets of Islam, you are only showing the limitations of your worldview, lockstep with mainstream media, who generally does not dare to include informed commentaries from leading knowledgeable voices, except so as to revile them.

Of course, you don't like any of the above. We don't either. But it is real, and if we don't stand up to it, it will get much worse for us. "Us" includes Muslims who really do want to get out, but can not.

Brian said...

Here is some information not being given to you by State run Fox News and it's other fear mongering talking heads with whom you faithfully walk lockstep with:

"What it comes down to is that this survey never should have been taken to indicate anything meaningful about American Muslims. And yet, because it appeared to confirm people’s worst suspicions about this group, it blew up, helped along not only by Donald Trump but, shortly after its release, by Bill O’Reilly."

https://www.thecut.com/2015/12/survey-company-trump-is-misusing-our-survey.html

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/09/donald-trump/trump-cites-shaky-survey-call-ban-muslims-entering/

https://www.factcheck.org/2016/03/trumps-false-muslim-claim/

Brian said...

For at least a generation, right wing homegrown extremists have been far and away the largest source of terrorism in the United States.

The threat of domestic terrorism motivated by extremist ideologies is often dismissed and overlooked in the national media and within the US government. Yet we are currently seeing an upsurge in domestic non-Islamic extremist activity, specifically from violent rightwing extremists. While violent leftwing attacks were more prevalent in the 1970s, today the bulk of violent domestic activity emanates from the right wing.


Despite this grave reality righ twing pundits have viciously attacked and silenced anyone who tries to bring up right wing violence in the framework of terrorism. They have grown touchy about their own ideological and rhetorical proximity to the extremism that is fueling the violence.

In American public life today there is an alternative dimension, a mental space beyond fact or logic, where the rules of evidence are replaced by paranoia. It is a space that has been opened up and fortified in no small part by rightwing media, and that has proven fertile ground for domestic terrorism.


Alt-America is an alternative universe that has a powerful resemblance to our own, except that it’s a completely different America, the nation its residents have concocted and reconfigured in their imaginations. In this other America, suppositions take the place of facts, and conspiracy theories, often pedaled by media outlets from Infowars to Fox News, become concrete realities. Its citizens live alongside us in our universe, but their perception of that universe places them in a different world altogether, one scarcely recognizable to those outside it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/26/alt-america-terrorism-rightwing-hate-crimes

Fred said...

If anyone is wondering if they are getting "a fair and balanced" news report, here is a litmus test. If the news you are watching is trying to paint the cancellation of the Philadelphia Eagles visit to the White House as being about the National Anthem issue, then you are getting played. Driving home I spent some time listening to facts about how NO Eagles players knelt during the anthem all year, and how after Trump realized this he then accused them of staying in the locker room during the anthem, which it turns out none of them did, and how the Eagles players have said that there are many, many reasons they did not want to attend but the Anthem issue was really a non-factor. Then I flipped over to Fox News and heard them ranting and raving about those that won't stand for the anthem and how Trump is standing up to that.

Like the previous post mentions, an alternate universe.

Zev said...

Couldn't agree more as far as the constitution and what you said is concerned. Which makes me wonder how someone who supposedly endorses and claims to understand it can support the Zionist state. It is truly amazing. The founding fathers would be appalled, as you must know. But one doesn't need founding fathers to see the insanity of our support of this rogue nation. We give an estimated ten million a day, a day, to Israel while our country suffers. They haven't signed the nnp treaty while constantly, shamelessly, and embarrassingly point the finger at Iran. They have and use chemical weapons and not one peep from our media or congress. I've watched idf snipers shoot kids and laugh about it on youtube. They have attacked the United States for crying out loud. Repercussions? None...we have dual Israeli citizens making policy decisions on the Middle East. It's insane.

So please, how does an American constitutionalist justify supporting Zionism. And I am talking about Zionism. Not Judaism. Not the same thing. How many more of our sons and daughters have to die for Israel? And I fully realize this is not a one sided situation. But Palestine has no army, no navy, no Air Force. They don't have an economy to speak of. They don't get near the financial support. They have no representation in the US congresss. Nor in the media..

I would love to hear a cogent response to how a Christian American constitutionalist who knows the federalist papers can embrace Zionism and keep supporting egregious crimes against humanity.

Montedoro44 said...

Zev, please clarify something:

You listed some Israeli atrocities and you connect them with Zionism. It looks like you are making the argument that these atrocities (and perhaps others that you did not list) convince you that Zionism is despicable. Q1: Is it the case that before these atrocities happened, you didn't despise Zionism, or did you always despise Zionism?

If you always despised Zionism, then these atrocities are irrelevant your opinion of Zionism; you must believe that the Jewish state of Israel has never had the right to exist. Q2: Is that the case?

If you at some time approved of Zionism, then you approved of the formation of the Jewish state of Israel on the day that it became a state. You know that the next day it was attacked by the combined forces of its neighboring Muslim states, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq, in a war whose goal was annihilation. In this case, then you must have disapproved this war on Israel. Q3: Is this the case? You didn't say anything here about despising the 1948 atrocity, the combined attack to destroy the new state of Israel.

It remains the case that forces of Islam desire the annihilation of the Jewish state of Israel; every skirmish can be regarded as a battle in that continuing war. The Hamas Covenant

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp

("Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it", etc.)

is perfectly clear that their mission is to olbliterate of the state of Israel, by force. Q4: Do you oppose Hamas?

The Palestinian Authority also opposes the existence of the Jewish state of Israel:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/03/arab-league-rejects-israel-as-jewish-state-201439161231209704.html

It is possible that if the two Palestinian governments did not oppose the existence of the Jewish state of Israel, then the atrocities that they support and the atrocities they endure would stop, even if there remain plenty of details to work out. Q5: Would you be on board with that?

Five questions for you.

Zev said...

Sorry Monte, that's not how this works. When you can answer the question I posed in my Iinitial post then we can advance.

Here it is again. How can an american Christian who purports to know the constitution and the federalist papers support the Zionist state?

Fred said...

I forgot to mention that Fox News got caught trying to pretend a photo of Eagles players kneeling during a prayer service was during the National Anthem. Was that them simply being incompetent, or being liars. Most likely, like Trump and his Trumpettes, both.

Montedoro44 said...

Fred, you also forgot to mention that Fox News apologized for their error as soon as they found out the truth. Can you substantiate using using the phrase "trying to pretend"? Instead of, say, "goofed". I don't know any more than the sequence of events, nothing about intention. If Fox knowingly passed this off, then I'm happy to revile them for it. Verifiable evidence only, please.

BTW, trolls, I never watch Fox News, or any other TV news, so your comments about walking lockstep are only mysterious.

Fred, what exactly did you mean by the term "State run Fox News"? I see that the term is in vogue in Leftist media, and you seem to be parroting it, but does it mean more than something like "some Fox News opinion is partial to the Right"? Verifiable evidence only, please.

I'm remembering the case of Ben Rhodes:

Ben Rhodes, the man who majored in creative writing and then ended up the Deputy National Security Adviser for President Obama, told The New York Times about the “echo chamber” he was able to create and feed:

In the spring of last year, legions of arms-control experts began popping up at think tanks and on social media, and then became key sources for hundreds of often-clueless reporters. ‘We created an echo chamber,’ [Rhodes] admitted, when I asked him to explain the onslaught of freshly minted experts cheerleading for the deal. ‘They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.’


from Washington Times. Is this kind of relationship what you mean?

Montedoro44 said...

Responding to Zev:

Your question is serious; at least, I am taking it that way, and your implied bargain taken. Here are two answers to your question:

1) The Federalist Papers deal with the organization of America's internal government, and say nothing about foreign policy.

2) Your descriptor "egregious crimes" is fantasy, at least compared to behaviors of other countries. Are you applying different standards to Israel than you apply to other countries? That constitutes antisemitism.

Israel's democracy is #30 out of 167 (with #1 the best and #167 the worst) according to the Economist Intelligence Unit Index of Global Democracy, the most respected survey of its kind. You can find the list here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

The US rates #21. This list may be out of date (2017). I heard that now Israel is #29 and US is #22), but I haven't seen it. Doesn't matter.

No Mideastern country (read Muslim majority, Islamic government) ranks lower than 69 (more democratic), and almost all rank worse than 100.

Israel's army, according to the head of the US Jt. Chiefs of Staff and the commander of British forces in Afghanistan and N Ireland, is among the most, and possibly the most, humane and restrained of any modern army. Israel's ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths, the total number of combatant deaths it has inflicted, its treatment of prisoners, its respect for minority rights, the independence of its judiciary, are superior, in most cases far superior, to the records of Russia, China, India, the US, the UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Morocco, Myanmar, the Philippines, and some 40 other countries -- none of which face security threats comparable to those facing Israel.

Whether or not you are comfortable with this response, Zev, this is two fact-based responses to your question, with one opinion added -- that you exhibited antisemitism by singling out Israel by applying different standards of behavior to it. On the possibility that you were unaware of this evidence of Israel's relatively high democracy rating, I would not place that label on you unless you dismiss all this and go on with your (vicious) opinionating.

Zev, in your response to this post, please include clear answers to my 5 questions.

Fred said...

You give Fox credit for apologizing after they got caught? What else are they going to do? I guess Trump has lowered the bar so much by never apologizing, and doubling down on blatant lies like crowd size. I guess it could be true that Fox News really is so incompetent that they didn't verify the facts before reporting. But then how do you explain their behavior for continuing to pretend, yes pretend, that the issue in question was kneeling during the anthem after that was clearly shown not to be the case? When they do things like that they no longer get the benefit of the doubt that they had earlier just "goofed".

You need to watch Fox News for yourself if you want to see why it is commonly referred to as state run. You are the one who who scolded others for doing research they could have done themselves. You will see the very definition of "lockstep". And perhaps "state run" is not the right word, because it is Trump basing his actions off of Fox News reporting that is the real problem, rather than the rah rah cheerleading in support of every bit of flatulence from Trump.

Gustav said...

Haha is this montedoro character for real? Just watch max Blumemthal and dan cohen's documentary "killing gaza" to refute, absolutely, the Zionist fantasy this guy promotes via lies, deception, and pathetic attempts at rhetoric. The propaganda doesn't hold up to the images of egregious, yes, truly egregious, crimes against humanity. Anyone with the internet can see it montedodoro44. Sorry.

And this pathetic and tired cry of "anti-Semite" is simply ridiculous. Enough, please. If you can't form a logical, coherent argument then don't try. Repeating this inane term and trying to frame arguments is absurd.

Fred said...

I have a question for Monte, who says he watches no TV News (I don't either, although I listen to some on Sirius radio during my commute):

Where do you get your news from? If you were hearing conflicting reports, what would be your go-to, most trust-worthy source you feel you can count on to get to the bottom of things?

Zev. said...

As I suspected Montedoro44, you don't know what you're spewing but it doesn't matter as long as you can concoct some inane and contrived "anti Semitic" bs. In fact the first five volumes of the federalist papers mention influence of foreign powers, but I'm probably an anti Semite for pointing that out. Haha.. So, no, you are wrong and my guess you've never read them. Nor the constitution, which clearly outlines how our support of an apartheid state who lies about weapons of mass destruction while operating the largest open air prison in th world is illegal.

You're desperate attempts to paint me as some kind of racist based on, well nothing really, while you support actual racism and ethnic cleansing is behind the ridiculous. And gustav is correct. Just watch "killing gaza" it's all there. Watch how" the only democracy in the region" shoots little kids! Haha..the more you try and claim to be some just and civil democracy while referencing some inane list only makes you look more insane considering reality.

BDS! Now! If you claim to be a Christian especially. Supporting Israel is supporting murder, ethnic cleansing, land theft, and the worst of what humans are capable of. This is all documented fact folks. Anyone can prove this. Of course you need to have some critical thinking skills when the us media is involved,

And Tom. Anytime you want to try and justify your support for Israel please go ahead,

Montedoro44 said...

Zev, I hope you will fulfill your side of your bargain now: "Sorry Monte, that's not how this works. When you can answer the question I posed in my Iinitial post then we can advance."

Maybe that was just tricky wording. Is that how this works?

Fred said...

Lots of demands for answers coming from somebody who has avoided so many questions himself!

Montedoro44 said...

Fred, I was waiting for closure on the interaction with Zev to respond to your question about what news sources I see, and also include a compliment to you that I appreciate your politeness and willingness to engage in non-abusive discussion -- unlike the other trolls here -- even if we are far apart in worldview. So, despite your latest post, I appreciate your politeness.

Very well, my main news sources are NPR, Google News, SmartNews. I occasionally visit Al Jazeera, Jerusalem Post, JihadWatch, Memri, Honest Reporting, Gatestone Institute, others that don't come to mind at the moment. Cruising Youtube often, I bump into others, like Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and others, including private Youtubers. When I see an article anywhere that mixes opinion with news of an event, I generally follow links to primary sources, and this picks up worldwide journalism containing a variety of POVs. So e.g., when I read here something like Zev's "Just watch "killing gaza" it's all there.", I know that it isn't all there.

I will peek in here hoping to see if Zev answers my questions, but it is clear to me that further discussion will invite more derogatory commentary, including insults to Tom, so that's all from me. Mutual relief, to be sure.

Fred said...

This should help explain calling Fox News "state run"

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/sean-hannity-donald-trump-nunes-memo

Fred said...

And this:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/05/trump-media-feedback-loop-216248