Last night, I posted on the “pressure group” that calls itself “Scottish Protestants Against Discrimination” and their unintentionally hilarious response to the Celtic fan who managed to get a Nine flag up the City Chambers official pole.
To call what they produced an over-reaction is to give it understate the issue.
The demanded an apology. They claimed it was proof that their culture was being threatened.
If you thought this response was limited to them, guess again.
This was a reaction that was all too widespread across Sevconia and it has allowed them to indulge in some of their most wacky conspiracy theories to the fullest extent. You would struggle to see a better example of everything that is wrong with their support.
A number of key themes have been combined here … and it is quite breath-taking when you look at it all.
It’s as if it’s this, as much as anything else, which has finally sent these people absolutely off their nuts.
This is an examination of their latest meltdown and the issues that it raises.
This Proves They Are Treated “Differently” Than We Are.
One of the more braindead ideas they are batting around is that, to some of them, it proves that we are “treated differently” than they are.
To put that another way, they don’t believe that one of them would have been “allowed” to get away doing this.
Let’s take the obvious first; since their pitiful club has never won a league title we can’t know that for sure.
But I do know that when Rangers were winning things a few similar stunts were pulled in places all over the country.
Furthermore, this is July, a month when all sorts of flags fly from places they shouldn’t all over the West of Scotland.
Like their brethren from the North of Ireland, they get very animated over flags. It’s not the first time they’ve protested over what’s flown above the Chambers or other public buildings either; there was a lot of this kind of moaning during the independence referendum.
I thought it quite funny that they were standing up for the Saltire yesterday … a flag many of them would ban.
I’m struggling to see the logic of this one though.
The person who did this, if he’s caught, will face almost certain prosecution.
If he’s a council worker he’ll lose his job.
This is exactly the same as would happen to one of their own … how exactly do they reckon that this proves we’re treated differently?
All told, the individual has already been caught … which is fast work when you consider that he or she is allegedly protected by such a wide-ranging conspiracy.
This is a barmy notion.
A Celtic flag flying on a pole proves they are treated differently than we are?
I can’t even get my brain to make that leap of logic.
This Is Some Kind Of Attack On Their Culture And Identity.
This is a good one, and it’s another one where you wonder at the leap of logic it took to get there.
Some have ranted and raved that this is an attack on their culture and their identity.
That this in some way is designed to make them feel like second class citizens.
Good God. I mean, how thinned skinned do you have to be to feel your entire worldview is under attack because somebody put a flag on a pole? They see everything as an attack on their identity these days; this is why they’ve spent the last few weeks in George Square protecting statues that weren’t under the least threat.
Black Lives Matter, which had damn all to do with the world as they see it, had somehow become a threat to Protestantism.
I mean, Jesus wept. This is such craziness.
They forget too that this week opened with their club tweeting pictures of their new club crest being projected onto public buildings.
Was that an attack on our culture or identity? Most of it views it as a hilarious example of their egotism gone mad.
None of us felt threatened by it, as they claim to feel here.
Who knew they were so easy to intimidate?
This is July. Today they are out marching … turning our streets into Halloween.
Their “culture” – as backward as it is – seems to be doing just fine … unfortunately.
This was somebody celebrating our culture and our identity and our accomplishments as a club, it’s got sod all to do with attacking theirs.
This is a city they regarded as their own for decades; that might be what troubles them most.
Which brings me neatly to the next point …
This Is n Example Of How Brazen “We” Have Become.
This is the time of the year when they celebrate their “supremacy” over us.
And quite the thing it is too.
How many years since an Ibrox club last won a trophy again?
Didn’t we just make it eleven of them in a row?
Who’s running Glasgow and Scotland right now?
Not the forces of unionism and white Protestant privilege any longer.
Some supremacy. You wonder that they want to even bother with the marching.
Everything they believe in is nuts. Ask them what this time of the year is about and they’ll tell you it’s a celebration of their “liberation” from Rome.
Madness.
Because, of course, William’s army was paid for by the Pope who was worried that an alliance of Catholic monarchies in Europe might threaten the supreme political power of the Holy See … and they would have too, breaking the Catholic Church in two and threatening the strength of the Papal throne.
They helped maintain the Pope’s power. This is what they celebrate.
Their more immediate concern is that we’re no longer “at the back of the bus” and this little stunt is what proves it. And you know, on this one I am willing to admit that they are quite right. Because this is an example of our assertiveness.
This was probably done in direct response to their pitiful “our city” nonsense from earlier in the week … and we’re not wearing that anymore.
They can be as pissed about that as they like.
This Could Only Have Happened In “SNP Scotland”.
This is one of those frequent refrains from them which makes me think they have completely taken leave of their sanity.
They believe that part of their suffering at the moment comes from the fact that we have an SNP government in Holyrood.
Try and work this one out.
Sevco is a pro-unionist club. That could not be clearer.
They spell it out. They wear it on their sleeves.
But the Scottish Government is not in the least bit interested in keeping them down and fighting them.
Would it be easier if Unionism did not have such a standard to rally around?
Of course it would.
But in spite of the ideology that surrounds the club the SNP knows that it brings a lot of money to Glasgow.
The idea that the SNP wants to crush their club is absolutely bonkers.
This was not a major incident although they are determined to make it into one. The idea that “we” – and bear in mind that this was one guy, not a conspiracy involving hundreds – could only have done this in “SNP Scotland” is ludicrous that it barely needs pointing out.
But check out their forums … they absolutely do believe it.
This Proves That The Conspiracy Is Real.
Think of the mentality it takes to believe that a guy flying a flag proves that a gigantic conspiracy exists against Protestantism, Unionism and the Ibrox operation.
But here’s the thing; this is the operating assumption on their forums.
Because, of course, how could one man get into that spot?
Where were the police?
Where were the council security staff?
If the person worked in the building who knew what he was planning?
Did someone in officialdom approve it?
If he didn’t work there who let him into the building?
Who let him onto the roof?
How could this happen unless others were involved?
And of course even once the person involved is disciplined and, or, prosecuted the very fact that this was “allowed” – and that’s the word they are using, allowed – is the proof that Scotland hates them, that the Grand Conspiracy of The Unseen Fenian Hand is real.
This, of course, is an example of The Unseen Hand showing itself.
Jesus wept.
Scotland Got Like This When They Were “Relegated” In 2012.
This is another familiar one; that none of this would have happened had their club been stronger, and had their fans stood up more for it, in 2012.
Because it was the “relegation” of their club – in unfair circumstances – that led to all this.
Did you know that? That the referendum campaign in 2014 would never have gotten near winning except that Rangers had been “relegated” two years before?
That the SNP rose to power only because their club was not in the SPL?
And of course, we knew this in advance, which is why all of Scotland turned on them in that dire year of the great stab in the back.
It’s almost as if they believe that a single trophy victory will turn back the clock, and reframe all of politics in Scotland …
Incredibly, some of them do believe this.
Some of them believe the opposite; that in order to be “allowed” to win in Scotland again they will have to bring down the government by all getting together and voting for unionist parties.
This, they think, is the only way their club will ever be successful … when they once more have the strings of power in their hands.
Were We As Crazy As This During Their Nine?
This was a guy putting up a flag. That’s all.
Can you believe that a simple incident has sparked such paranoia and unleashed such rampant lunacy?
This is what nine in a row has done to the Peepul.
It has driven them to the edge, where every small thing has power to the nth degree.
Can you even imagine what ten is going to do to them?
I really do believe that many of them are going to come all the way unspooled.
You can tell that the process is starting already.
Their forums have always been breeding grounds for this kind of nonsense, but lately it has gotten worse.
Much worse.
To the point where you feel like having a shower every time you come off of them.
I do enjoy their forums just the same, because this stuff reminds me of just what we’ve done to them in a psychological sense.
Were we like this in their nine? Were we behaving this crazily in the run up to their ten campaign? I seem to remember a lot of determination, a lot of hope, a lot of passion for our club and our cause … I do not remember it being like this, not at all.
This level of insanity is theirs and theirs alone …
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