And the others that were sacked or you wanted sacked for this level of corruption are?
Who do I want sacked? The other tds who had their points removed, obviously. Same crime, same punishment. Who else? Other corrupt politicians. The likes of Lowry, Ahern and all should have been sacked when the were found to be corrupt. The fact that they weren't punished doesn't mean Ming shouldn't be punished.
It was you who accused him of acting, on no basis whatsoever.
And you are not judging him by his actions, the bloke has been politically active since the late 80's and you are having a go at his lifestyle being an act and judging him on one action.
I should have been clearer here. I wasn't saying his lifestyle was an act, I'd say that's probably quite genuine, though I can't know that for sure without knowing him. It was the image of him as a holier-than-thou "man of the people" outsider that I thought was contrived. For example, he might genuinely have thought the Dail dress code was stupid. But I do think he very deliberately ensured he was seen to be against the dress code as it conformed to this image of him as someone who wasn't going to be like the rest of our politicians. Basically I thought he was more of a shrewd politician than a so-called ordinary guy.
I can't judge him personally, for all I know he could be a generally honest, nice man who genuinely wants to do good. I can judge him as a politician though, and as a politician I've found him to be shrewd, populist and, unfortunately, a hypocrite. That opinion is based solely on my interpretation of his actions.
Had you heard of him? What are your thoughts on him?
I hadn't heard of him, now that I have I think he should be punished. I think it's a shame that his case wasn't highlighted in the same way Ming's was. That doesn't mean Ming's case shouldn't have been highlighted or that he shouldn't be getting this criticism though.
Wow, that would only be not mental if we didn't have a continuous line of utter criminals running the country into billions of debt for the last 3-4 decades.
You are equating Charlie and Bertie to a quoshed ticket that wouldn't have even made the news had it been someone else?
You're right here, that was stupid. All corruption shouldn't be punished equally, all corruption should be punished harshly. What Ahern and the rest did was much worse than what Ming did, there's no question about that. The same principle applies though. Acting as if minor corruption is no big deal helps to create the culture that allows major corruption to flourish.
Yes. But that's not the point, just the context. The context of the huge overreaction to this individual offence. This is not the norm and that does make it unfair on Ming. To get harrangued and punished where your peers didn't is unfair in my opinion. Punishing him is not unfair, punishing him alone is.
It's not an overreaction to Ming that's the problem, it's the lack of reaction to everything else that's wrong. The fact that others won't get the same reaction doesn't mean the reaction itself is wrong. We shouldn't have sympathy for Ming just because he was caught, he still did the crime.
If that's the new way, then happy days, but it's not, it's because people don't like him. Sully said it himself.
I said I didn't like him because it would have been pointless to pretend otherwise, full disclosure and all that. My reaction to what he did has nothing to do with me not liking him though, it's based purely on his actions. I would be saying the exact same thing if any other td was in Ming's position. I think you're more biased than me on this one. Would you be defending a FF or FG td if they were in the same situation as Ming? After all, they do good work in the community too. I suspect that your opinion here is somewhat influenced by the fact that you like Ming and what he stands for.
