"For God's sake, stop turning a planning dispute into genocide. It isn't. "
My only reference to "genocide" has been in response to our rabid right friend's racial abuse of Travellers and the pleasure he has expressed at the fact that Traveller children can only look forward to short life-spans thanks to the efforts of people like him and cheerers-on-from -the-sidelines like you. That is totally reminiscent of the events that sent a quarter of a million Gypsies to the gas chambers.
What I have said (and what has been suggested in The Times this week in its remarkably balanced reportage of the matter) is that what is happening at Dale Farm is a part of a process of ethnic cleansing, which I believe to be the case.
Our seig-heiler friend is quite right, Travellers do have a shorter life span due to their not having access to running water, sanitation, proper medical care and a permanent place to stop in order to live a safe and secure life.
They are constantly under threat from racist thugs and have been marginalised virtually out of existance by the authorities, the majority of the settled community and a corrupt and thuggish predatory police force.
There was some progress towards co-operation made in the seventies and part of the eighties, but Thatcher's "there is no such thing as society" largely put the brakes on that one.
Once again you ignore what has been said about taxes; bastards who have off-shore accounts screw the countries out of far more tax in a year than any similar sized group of Travellers ever could in a lifetime, and take far more of the benefits out of our society. It is people like our bankers, financial speculators, and incompetent and corrupt politicians who have driven the western world to the point of major recession - not the Travellers.      
I ask again - if the Travellers paid tax, would that give them legal stopping places, clean water, education for their kids, access to warmth and light, or to health and social amenities.... bollocks it would!!
On your earlier point; Britain, along with all other "civilised" countries, is now answerable to the world on the question of human rights and abuses of same. Not only have I the right to discuss Britain's record on how it treates its Travelling population and other ethnic minorities, but the British government has a duty to treat its itinerant population in a manner that it does not break the rules that have been agreed on, on the question of the treatment of ethnic minorities.
"It's about the responsibility you take on when you buy property."
No it isn't - it's about how you behave to your fellow human beings -
Moving hundreds of Travellers off a former scrap yard because they haven't got the appropriate bit of paper is an excuse by a spiteful an bigoted local authority to persecute an inconvenient minority out of existance.
One more time - this will cause far more problems than it solves for both the settled and Travelling communities.
"UK race hatred laws do apply to Irish Travellers"
Yes they do, in theory, but not worth the paper its written on if you can still go around our towns and cities and see "no travellers served here" notices displayed on pubs and shops. Try puttin one up saying "No blacks, Irish, Pakistanis, Irish" up and see how long before you endup in court.
Just prior to those rights being (technically) recognised, the Cnservative government pulled away the only safety net Travelles had to having somewhere to stop, the 1968 Caravan and Camping act.
Now Travellers are illegal if they stop and illegal if they continue Ttravelling, and if they move into a house they are at risk from every brain-dead fascist who fancies a bit of 'Gippo-bashing'.
AND NO - things are no better in Ireland than they are in Britain though rural areas do have a long tradition, sadly now disappearing, of close co-operation and reliance between the two communities.
Unfortunately bigotry and racism seem to be an international price for "progress".
Jim Carroll