Patriots & Citizens

There's something to be said for an international thriller author so well-respected that American administrations have asked them for advice on the topic of national security.

Tom Clancy is just such an author.

Through his novels, Clancy has often directed attention to many of the dark corners of the world.

In Patriot Games -- produced as a movie in 1992 -- Clancy examines Irish Republicanism and the Irish Republican Army.

In Patriot Games, Clancy's chief protagonist, Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) is taking a working vacation in Russia when he witnesses an assassination attempt on a member of the royal family by IRA terrorists.

Though retired from the CIA, Ryan bolts into action. He seizes a weapon from one of the terrorists and shoots another dead. British police quickly intervene and capture Sean Miller (Sean Bean).

Despite the best efforts of a particularly sleazy British lawyer who blatantly lies in suggesting that Miller was merely a ski-mask wearing bystander who was assaulted by Ryan.

Upon being led out of the courtroom, Miller swears revenge against Ryan. Following a violent rescue from British custody, he travels to the United States to make good on his threat. He targets Ryan's wife and daughter, and very nearly succeeds.

Ryan responds by returning to the CIA to help work the case.

The battle between Ryan and Miller is a confrontation between patriots. But it's by no means a battle between good citizens.

Miller is a patriot, as all the members of the IRA -- and Sinn Fein -- were.

Patriotism is considered by many to be a key element of good citizenship. But patriotism alone doesn't necessarily make good citizenship.

Miller may be a patriot, but he is not a good citizen. By turning to terrorism he has abandoned the tools of the citizen -- democracy and the rule of law. He has given up making his arguments in the course of democratic discourse and has decided to attempt to take what he wants by intimidating the British.

Some of the members of Sinn Fein -- a political party closely linked to the IRA, although often against the better desires of individuals such as Gerry Adams -- were good citizens by virtue of substituting political action for terrorism. Those such as Paddy O'Neil (Richard Harris), who funnelled funds raised under the guise of Sinn Fein to the IRA unequivocally were not.

Jack Ryan, meanwhile, is a good citizen.

Though, by his occupation, he must often engage in acts of violence, he does so firmly within the rule of law, even when those more powerful than him threaten consequences if he does.

Many would argue that the cause of the IRA and Sinn Fein was actually just. As a Canadian of predominantly Irish ancestry, this author admits to feeling some degree of sympathy for the aim of such individuals, even if rejecting the means by which they pursued it.

The tools of citizenship will always remain the best and most just means of pursuing any political end.

Although they are often patriots, terrorists are, by their very definition, not good citizens.

Doing The Lord's Work

Irish atheists set to challenge blasphemy law

When Ireland recently passed an anti-blasphemy law, it was rightly denounced as an unacceptable attack on freedom of speech.

However, an Irish atheist group is set to take a stand for the freedom of speech of all Irish citizens -- believers and non-believers alike -- in resisting the anti-blasphemy law through provocation.

Atheist Ireland will be publishing 25 anti-religious comments on its website, forcing the would-be government censors to fish or cut bait.

"This new law is both silly and dangerous," said Michael Nugent, the chairman of Atheist Ireland. "It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic states led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level."

"We believe in the golden rule: that we have a right to be treated justly, and that we have a responsibility to treat other people justly," Nugent continued. "Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous."

Rarely has a purer Christian notion been uttered by someone who describes themselves as an atheist. It's interesting to consider that if Jesus Christ had first prophesized in Ireland today, he himself could be prosecuted under Ireland's anti-blashemy laws.

The freedom to criticize religions is necessary in order to reveal the shortcomings of religious dogma. Criticism, properly administered, has at its core the search for truth -- something that religious believers very rarely know for themselves -- even if fundamentalists insist otherwise -- and instead are obligated through their religion to seek it.

In their own way, Michael Nugent and his cohorts in Atheist Ireland are doing the Lord's work. One only wonders if they realize it.

The Idolatry of Anti-Blasphemy

Criticism is essential to religion

A prominent global controversy recently has been the proposal of various anti-blasphemy laws, including a proposed anti-blasphemy resolution at the United Nations.

One of the western states farthest along in the introduction of an anti-blasphemy law is Ireland, where an anti-blasphemy law is set to take effect in October.

The law will impose hefty fines on anyone who "publishes or utters matter that is (intentionally meant to be) grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion."

Unsurprisingly, the law has a vociferous critic in Richard Dawkins.

"It is a wretched, backward, uncivilized regression to the Middle Ages," Dawkins said.

And while Dawkins -- who himself in the name of his quest to "enlighten" humanity by helping to wipe out religion would lead humanity back into the Dark Ages -- is so often so wrong about matters entailing religion, this is one time he is right about it.

Anti-blasphemy laws -- even in places like Ireland, where violence has traditionally surrounded religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants -- place the intellectual and philosophical development of religious thought in peril by threatening to outlaw criticism.

In Ireland, the anti-blasphemy law -- which Justice Minister Dermot Ahern insists merely clarifies anti-blasphemy provisions in the Irish Constitution -- is quite clearly aimed at attempting to quell tensions between Catholics and Protestants by giving the government a means to punish those who stir up tensions between the two.

But as a club with which critics of either religions -- or Christianity in general -- could be threatened with, this law not only clearly plays to the hypothetical and often-imagined "right not to be offended", but also to an imagined right to not have to think about their religion.

Few things could be more devastating to any religion, especially Christianity. CS Lewis once wrote that being a Christian is hard intellectual work. One has to continually be able to reconcile their religious beliefs against real-world realities, or risk falling into dogmatism.

Ireland's anti-blasphemy law imperils the hard intellectual work of the proper-thinking Christian, and serves to encourage the kind of intellectual sloth that gives rise to dogmatism in the first place.

This is the peril of the idolatry of anti-blasphemy.

Happy St Patrick's Day!