I
reland has voted to remove blasphemy as a punishable offense from the country’s constitution — a move that could allow the repealing for Ireland’s long-controversial crime for speech deemed offensive to religious sensibilities. Ireland has held the ignoble distinction as one of the few non-Muslim countries still criminalizing blasphemy. I have previously criticized the law (here and here and here). Some 65% of the voters supported the removal of the blasphemy reference in the Constitution.
The problem, as I discussed recently, is that many nations have shifted their efforts to impose blasphemy crimes in favor of broader hate speech and discrimination laws. Thus, I would be more excited about this move if Ireland seemed prepared to buck the overwhelming trend against free speech. The painful reality is the Ireland does not need blasphemy to kill free speech. Hate crime and discrimination laws have been far more successful in that effort as Western nation plunge headlong into speech criminalization and regulation.
It would be one sided in the USA. The left doesn’t allow religion.
In the past, I did not believe anti-blasphemy laws were a good thing, but I am evolving. A country needs a central religion, whether you think it is a delusion or not. It is a “broken windows” sort of thing.
The sad truth is, the crazy preachers who said that Elvis Presley was the Anti-Christ, were probably not as nutty as we thought. Because rock and roll led to sex and drugs, and the silly baby boomers, and the boomers ones on the Left who never grew up.
Even sadder, the old slaveholders and segregationists are probably not as nutty either. Because the old slavers said that the colored folks were the white man’s burden, and if they didn’t have white masters to watch over them and guide them, they would degenerate into a pack of savage spear chuckers, the one who didn’t starve to death first. The segregationists were not quite so grim in their predictions, but they mostly believed that most blacks could not compete in a white world. And darned if we don’t have a 77% illegitimate black birth rate, about half of them with criminal records, and an average net worth(assets minus liabilities) for the black females of between a whole $5 to $8.
Sooo, maybe some of these old ideas need to be reconsidered. Along with the whole democracy thing
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Try living in Russia.
Russian Orthodoxy is a fine religion in my opinion.
And, sovereign states may rightfully elect to have an established state church. But the US wants to impose its version of secularism on the whole planet. It’s main outfit to accomplish that is this thing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Commission_on_International_Religious_Freedom
They say, Russia bad! David you are always marching in tune with such UN & NGO social engineerings.
“Cat O Licks” Ireland is full of them.
Perhaps the US could be encouraged, by Ireland’s revelation(s), to make some major changes to its holy system(s).
JT, you are really getting to be a glass half-empty kind of guy. I am beginning to think you would complain if they hung you with a fresh rope.
I approve of what Ireland did and I approve of this ad.
Again, an equivalent of a blasphemy statute will be maintained (and, unlike the old one, actively enforced). What’s immune to derision or even criticism won’t be what Cdl. Daly holds dear, but what Fintan O’Toole holds dear.
Ireland was once a decent place. Now it’s a sinkhole of Eurotrash decadence.
yes it is a stinkhole! oh he said sinkhole. that too!
The EU Human Rights Court recent ruling abandons Free Speech for all of Europe unless someone has the courage to reverse it. This becomes the most ominous causality in the fall of Western Civilization in Europe.
oh a lot worse things have happened to western civ than this. this is just one week’s outrage. it takes a long time to hammer a mountain into sand.
“Its Constitution”, not “It’s Constitution”
Amen