And this turned out to be FAR longer than I expected. Perhaps a bit rambly and weak in areas too.
Obama is met with apathy over here and US politics in general, at least in my area. Not surprising considering where I live is full of Sinn Fein supporters, IRA members and smugglers living in the "borderlands" between Ireland and N. Ireland.
I get kinda cynical about this kind of nonsense because I grew up with it. Constant news of bombs going off and people being shot. Having to go through heavily guarded military checkpoints to cross borders and sometimes getting checked in case we were smuggling illegal stuff across the border. I remember when I was 5, I got lost in a festival in Belfast. One of the British soldiers who was guarding it from any attacks found me and took me back to my parents. Apparently bombs went off that day and some people died, so my parents were really shitting themselves when I got lost.
I also know people who had family members in the IRA and they had stories such as them being shot and friends killed in front of them during various skirmishes between catholic and protestant communities. It always struck me odd on how they could tell me it with a straight face, like it was some casual recollection rather than mentioning a traumatic event.
I do not know the full story about it because in such situations, it's very very hard to find the truth on who did it and why. After all, I was not there to witness these directly. It's partly why atrocities over here are still mostly debated heavily between both sides. People can argue black and blue about what "really happened", back it up with half-arsed articles, videos and testimonials, but I honestly think nobody has a fucking clue and are perhaps making excuses half the time just to bicker and fight some more. The only facts we really know is that shit happened between catholics and protestants, and people died. I guess this is why I'm so skeptical when it comes to this thread, since what I'm presented is in the same form as the news over here when a bomb went off etc.
My point is that you can read up on who did this and that and say it's awful, but do you actually know what happened or are you just relying on the information given to you at face value? You were not there to confirm it, so why believe in it without the proper evidence? Why rely on talking heads, quotes, videos, articles etc. to back up your viewpoint? Wouldn't it be better to question it yourself when looking at the proper evidence at hand, and then investigating into it to find the answers?