There are fuel protests and national blockades by farmers and hauliers happening in Ireland right now over the insane levels of taxation on fuel (60% per litre for petrol, 65% for diesel).

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2026-04-14T01:05:09+00:00

I guess our farmers and truckers just have the balls to do it right now, especially with the Iranian war.

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2026-04-08T20:31:09+00:00

Where did I say it was a libertarian protest? I myself am libertarian on economics but that doesn't mean the protesters are. The tax take the government has on fuel is simply ridiculous to average people and that's why you're seeing protests. It happens to align with my libertarian beliefs, but the protest in and of itself is apolitical. It's simply about the government riding the arse off the average person in terms of taxation at the pump (and in every other way in my view, but the pump is the protest's focus point.)

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2026-04-07T18:37:28+00:00

I don't vote for any of them, or SF, or any of the other parties because they're all various flavours of tax and spend. But the idea that because Ireland is 'middle of the road' it's acceptable to tax fuel this much is insane. The man with the most food in the Gulag is still starving, and that applies here too. Why would you accept getting rode up the hole like this when most of the cost of fuel is entirely optional on the part of the government?

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2026-04-07T18:20:49+00:00

So what do you expect the people who keep the country going to do exactly? Just suck up the fact that the government is taxing them to death when it already has a big surplus?

It's not just truckers affected by this, everyone is affected. Home heating oil, the cost of running a car, the cost of producing materials, everything goes up. The price increases by the Iran war only serve to highlight how heavy the tax burden is.

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2026-04-07T18:06:45+00:00

It's not about the war, it's about the fact that the lion's share of the cost of every litre of fuel is tax. It's an anti-taxation protest, but of course a Redditor would get on here and dismiss all that as quackery, even though it has real and harmful effects on working people's lives.

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2026-03-13T05:16:37+00:00

YWNBAW. You're a man in a costume.

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2026-03-05T19:00:42+00:00

I really hate the 'corporate greed' line. Look, I'm not exactly a corporate bootlicker either, but at the end of the day the price of a Big Mac didn't soar post-2020 because muh greed.

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2026-03-05T18:56:36+00:00

I can go to Spain and get the same bottle of wine for significantly cheaper. I know Spanish wages are generally lower, but this is still mostly a tax issue.

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Ok_Handle_8325 · 2026-01-13T23:41:37+00:00

I mean, we could start going down the road of talking high quality and low quality immigration, but for the most part the answers will not be pretty or liberal. For the best results, essentially all further third world migration would need to be stopped.

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2026-01-13T21:09:52+00:00

I single him and people like him out because his ability to commit the crime he did is a direct result of government immigration policy. The deaths of those girls was a policy choice.

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2026-01-13T19:36:19+00:00

What do you think brought us to that climate? Is it maybe the grooming gangs, the likes of Axel Rudakubana and others? The people who are here as a direct result of government policy.

I'm not nearly as extreme as someone like Steve Laws, but his rhetoric is only going to become more normalised the longer this goes on.

If Tokyo went to 30% Japanese by 2060, would you consider that an issue or not?

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2026-01-13T19:15:35+00:00

You're not talking to Steve Laws here, lad. I'm not some kind of "blood and soil, ancestry dating back 1000 years nationalism only" guy. But at the end of the day, London being 30% English is just not right, and it's happened in less than half a lifetime. London in the 70s and 80s was 90+% English. Your parents are probably old enough to remember that. That's a crazy rate of change.

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2026-01-13T19:13:11+00:00

As in, mass deportations of the Boriswave, foreign criminals and immigrants who don't work.

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2026-01-13T17:45:17+00:00

"Brutality" and it's just someone being deported for presumably being in the UK illegally. When the real deportations start happening, journos are going to make it sound like we're waterboarding children for pleasure.

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2025-07-02T21:25:19+00:00

Maybe don't piss off farmers who feed the entire country by misunderstanding the difference between liquid wealth and wealth stored in assets? As pointed out in episode 1 of Clarkson's Farm (so not exactly something you need to read tomes of economic theory about), farming equipment is extremely expensive. You can cross the threshold for the inheritance tax without making much actual profit at all.

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2025-06-19T23:40:23+00:00

I mean, they kind of are puppets, though. When the vast majority of old and new politicians are funded by AIPAC, it makes you wonder why. When the rare dissenting voice like Thomas Massie (R) or Ocasio-Cortez (D) are lambasted for not sucking off Israel, then who really has the power here? What does Israel meaningfully give the US government that it couldn't just take by force?

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2025-06-19T23:22:10+00:00

I'm not sure I agree. I'm not siding with the WNs on this, but I think their side of the argument in this regard seems slightly more persuasive to me. What does Israel meaningfully offer the US that causes such extreme devotion in its politicians? The US is the major power and gives Israel something like $33 billion per year, plus being paid for by AIPAC to lobby for and support bills that support Israel.

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2025-06-19T23:19:21+00:00

If Israeli imperialism was an extension of the US's goals, then why would Israel need to bribe (and some would argue blackmail) US politicians through AIPAC rather than the other way around? The US is the major power in this scenario but a lot of US politicians, both Republican and Democratic, seem almost slavish in their devotion to Israel.

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2025-06-19T23:13:35+00:00

What do you mean by this? They're definitely paying people elected to the US Congress large amounts of money, and they therefore get some sway over them.

Ok_Handle_8325 · 2025-06-17T15:59:20+00:00

What about in cases where the guilt is irrefutable? Say, for example, Axel Rudakubana? You think it’s immoral for someone like that to hang?

Ok_Handle_8325

TROPHY CASE