The evil that men do

The viciously sectarian-hate monger Ian Paisley died today in Belfast, age 88.

Paisley, an ordained evangelical Protestant minister, was huge in the anti-Catholic campaigns in Ulster during the second half of the 20^th Century. To listen to his guttural voice spewing hatred on the news was to call to mind some of the speeches of the Nazi greats, spittle and all.

He fomented violence because, you know, God was a Unionist.

I understand British Prime Minister David Cameron pronounced Paisley “one of the most forceful and instantly recognizable characters in British politics.” Yeah, like Martin Bormann. Or Tomás de Torquemada.

(That would eat his lunch, being compared to a Dominican.)

We’re told that Paisley suffered from heart ailments, but I find that a bit of a stretch. Because you would need a heart in order to have problems with it.

Yes, in the past seven years or so, he acquiesced to the notion of a “shared” government in Northern Ireland. But by that time both Ulster and Britain had reaped the whirlwind he’d sown with such fervor.

My take is that whatever good was in him leached out of his bones at least 70 years ago; the evil he is responsible for will be with us for a long time.