Thus things go on; it is impossible they can last...
Big night tonight in the Button Factory in Dublin where despair at the uselessness of Ireland's political class has energized the political cabaret Leviathan to debate "A New Constitution: A Second Republic?" The host for the evening is that very talented tweeter Mark Little.
We've been here before, of course. In his 24-page "Letter to the citizens of Dublin", Henry Grattan wrote that to "save the country" it was "absolutely necessary to reform the state." The "continuation of the old system" would lead to Ireland's ruin because the people had lost confidence in the Irish parliament he said. That was... 1797!
And guess what happened? The following year, a bloody revolution took place and its outcome was the 1801 Act of Union. Ireland lost its legislative independence and would have to wait another 120 years before it had a parliament it could call its own again. All at the cost of savage bloodletting, naturally. And now? It's time to re-read Grattan:
"Make your people honest, says the court; make your court honest, say the people. It is the higher classes that introduce corruption; thieving may be learned from poverty, but corruption is learned from riches. It is a venal court that makes a venal country; that vice descends from above; the peasant does not go to the castle for the bribe, but the castle candidate goes to the peasant; and the castle candidate offers the bribe to the peasant, because he expects in a much greater bribe to be repaid by the minister. Thus things go on; it is impossible they can last..."
Dublin Castle is still standing and it'll make a fine HQ for the shock troops of the ECB as they begin their 120-year rule. There will be no shortage of castle candidates, either, and they'll be well versed in bribery, too. But maybe Leviathan can save Ireland from such a terrible fate.
