We have previously discussed the growing anti-free speech movement in Ireland. As discussed in The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in the Age of Rage, these crackdowns on free speech tend to come with periods of public panic or anger. Anti-free speech advocates use such periods as opportunities to get the public to surrender this core right to government censors or prosecutors. Right on schedule, Ireland is now pushing one of the most chilling crackdowns to date.
The excuse for the latest rollback of free speech was a riot in Dublin leading to the arrest of 34 people and extensive property damage in anti-immigration protests. The protests have challenged the government policies on handling undocumented migrants.
The bill criminalizes any “preparing or possessing material likely to incite violence or hatred against persons on account of their protected characteristics.” That includes any material concerning national or ethnic origin, as well as protected characteristics including “transgender and a gender other than those of male and female.”
The bill includes crimes relating to “xenophobia” and can be committed merely by the”public dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures or other material.”
Elon Musk has flagged the law as have other free speech advocates.
Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Leo Varadkar has rushed to ride the political wave after the recent Dublin riot to announce that he would fight hatred by taking away rights. He declared his intent to “modernize laws against hatred” by criminalizing speech that his government decides is “incitement.” He insisted that the existing legislation is “not up to date for the social media age” and needs to have a broad reach of criminalized speech. He wants to crackdown not just on violence but on those who say things that might “stir up” others.
What was particularly chilling was a speech by the Irish Green Party Sen. Pauline O’Reilly who admitted that “We are restricting freedom, but we’re doing it for the common good.”
That is all it takes to get citizens to surrender core rights, a declaration that fewer rights is better for the common good. It has become a Siren Call on the left not just abroad but in the United States.
I have previously written columns about the rising generation of censors in our country. After years of being told that free speech is harmful and dangerous, many young people are virtual speech phobics — demanding that opposing views be silenced as “triggering” or even forms of violence. A recent Pew poll showed just how much ground we have lost, including the emergence of the Democratic Party as a virulent anti-free speech party. Pew found that “Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are much more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to support the U.S. government taking steps to restrict false information online (70% vs. 39%).”
Ireland shows how public disorder can play into the hands of government officials in further limiting the right of free speech. As O’Reilly explained, free speech is simply too dangerous and denying the right is now viewed as a public good.
Of course, some have more direct measures. Dublin Councilman Abul Kalam Azad Talukder has reportedly called for protesters to be “shot in the head or bring the public in and beat them until they die.”
I thought Ireland was a “free” and “democratic” country. No Western country has voted for open borders and mass, unlimited immigration. The elites, both corporate and leftist have decided what is “best” for us since the rubes cannot be trusted to know what is best for them.
https://vdare.com/
https://www.numbersusa.com/
And remember s@@libs, before you call me a slur, I am Hispanic and cannot be one of the bad slurs leftists love to use against anyone who disagrees with their attempts to fix the world.
antonio
“The bill criminalizes any ‘preparing or possessing material likely to incite violence or hatred against persons…'” Yes, a compelling argument could be made for the State to restrict the (actual, not imaginary or politically expedient) incitement to violence. Pick a side and flip a quarter.
What business does the State have in deciding what people may or may not “hate?” Does it, therefore, follow the State should, must, and shall compel the citizenry to “like,” “approve of,” or “endorse” other stances or issues? If a certain person “hates” broccoli, should the State criminalize them until they recant — presumably following a reprogramative education experience — and develop an intense fondness for it instead???
Governments can govern actions. Once they begin governing thoughts, governments become tyrannical persecutors. Emmanuel Goldstein would, perhaps, write a sequel to The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism to examine Ireland’s efforts.
“Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull […] Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death. ”
– 6079 Smith W, 1984
There is a Freedom From Religion Foundation. These anti-free speech advocates should establish an “Anti-Free Speech Society”. It would be interesting to see who, and how many, join.
The Irish crackdown didn’t include the Banshee:
A female spirit in Irish folklore who heralds the death of a family member, usually by screaming, wailing, shrieking, or keening.
““Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult.
CS Lewis
This is really, really sad. Irish culture was still comparatively very rich – one of their own just took home the Booker prize for literature, and it was deserved. Those days may be gone going forward. The verbiage and policy on these ‘hate’ laws is nearly identical to the UK’s.
The fascist globalists are doing everything they can to extinguish the human spirit, and their tendrils are everywhere. This is worse than the 30s – covid showed us how easily and nonchalantly they will target the *entire* planet, this isn’t brewing in a handful of small countries. What will it take for people to stand up? Protect the 1st and 2nd here at all cost.
A few days ago 3 Palestinian students were shot in Burlington Vt. Now I might be with the Israelis on what happened over there recently, but even though these students were wearing something that identified them as Palestinian, that right still comes under free speech. Doesn’t it. Those students were here in our country living under our laws.
Which is worse, One man off is rocker shooting 3 people. Or a mob of 100’s chasing down and corning in few Jews . . . on a college campus? Our college infrastructure has been incubating hate for decades. Their graduates filling rolls in govt , academia, and business. I’ll take my chances with the kook, over the college trained bigots
Perhaps the Irish (half of my heritage – as a disclaimer) should remember what it was like under The Crown, and stop this stupid sh*t. Toss out all the liberals and progressives and stand tall like the Irish who defended their freedom from the Romans and all others who would subdue them. The problem with the prog/left is that they use subtle indoctrination rather than confrontation to get their way.
Those who ignore history are destined to relive history.
Which is why the left insist on gaslighting everyone about what happened a year ago, or 8 years ago, or 80 years ago. Because history exposes the disasters that befall their agenda. Crime and education are two huge examples. The result of Democrats getting exactly what the want.
Anyone that votes for any Democrat are fully supporting the fact that 40% of Baltimore Schools lack a single student that can read or cipher at grade level. That is exactly the outcome Democats seek.
In Ireland like in the US the leftist government cracks down with arrests and banning opposing views (by marking them as forms of hate speech or criminal incitement, leading to censorship and criminal prosecution) on the political opposition, conveniently broadly defines as anyone who disagrees with the political fashion of the day/priorities of the left. When voters react by voting for candidates who prefer freedom and prioritize the national interests (and not the interests of the globalists) an outcry of surprise, disgust, and fearmongering follows. See what happened when Trump was elected, or the new President of Argentina, or Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. References to A.H. are immediately made. Indeed, A.H was a nationalist, but as the name of his party indicates, he was also a socialist, while the candidates preferred by the voters are nationalists to some extent but certainly not socialist, rather libertarian/conservative.
This will not stop until the populace speaks loudly with every upcoming election (unless the election is rigged) and if that does not help, I fear pitchforks, tar, and feathers are needed to stop the belated arrival of 1984.
Diversity over principals. The democratic/dictatorial duality.
Dear Prof Turley,
Does your free-speech absolutism extend to your students? What if your students draped themselves in ‘free Palestine’ flags chanting ‘hey, hey, ho, ho genocide Joe has got to go’?
Everything is relative and sometimes enough is enough. If Joe Biden spits in your face and tells you it’s raining long enough. .. it’s time to fish or cut bait.
*’there’s a little give and take .. . love will stretch a little bit, but finally it’s going to break’ ~ EBTG
“if your students draped themselves in ‘free Palestine’ flags chanting ‘hey, hey, ho, ho genocide Joe has got to go’?”
I think the professor is OK with free speech, but it stops when you and your anti-Semitic friends take free speech and extend it to violence. I don’t think he supports your idea of mass killings by Hamas or even the occasional killing and terrorizing of innocent civilians.
There is no justification for Bibi/Biden IDF killing thousands and thousands of women and children trapped in Gaza. None. .. and I hear the stench and decay from the rotting bodies still buried under the rubble is presenting unique challenges for urgent humanitarian aid to the remaining population.
It’s like a holocaust. Hell on earth.
*btw, there were no ’40 beheaded babies’ in Israel .. . that’s another lie.
“There is no justification for Bibi/Biden IDF killing thousands …”
Dgsnowden: There is no justification for attacking unarmed civilians, killing, raping, and mutilating them while taking hostages. There is no justification for Hamas to fire missiles into Israel using the cover of a hospital or elementary school. You have to be pretty sick to think there is.
In the meantime, IDF soldiers are giving their lives trying to protect the innocents your type of rhetoric harms. They don’t ask to be used as human shields. You are virtue signaling, and that is a sickness when so many lives are at stake, which includes Palestinian and Jewish lives.
“It’s like a holocaust.”
You don’t know what a holocaust is. Ignorance is something some people use to promote their heinous ideas that they cannot deal with intelligently. Israel has been attacked on an almost continuous basis by Hamas since shortly after 2005. How can Israel protect itself and the Palestinian people free themselves from Hamas terrorists?
“no ’40 beheaded babies'”
In war, there is a fog, so we don’t know. You get your numbers from Hamas headquarters except for the 40 beheaded babies, which is fog. We saw people being burned to death, and we saw the heinous acts of Hamas, but you can’t see it. Why? Anti-Semitism?
Turley has made his position on disruption to campus speakers abundantly clear. People have a right to protest, but they don’t have a right to do so in a way that fundamentally prevents other people from speaking or listening to others speak. Presumably, if those students disrupted his class, he would ask them to stop, then ask them to leave, and then as a last resort ask campus security to remove them.
I am waiting for the first s@@tlib to explain why this really isn’t a suppression of “free speech” and thus a good and necessary thing. No free speech for “nazis”, right? And if you oppose the enrichment brought by “diversity” you must be one.
S@@tlibs are salivating everywhere and thinking, “How do we implement this here??
antonio
What a fiasco. Is this the IRA running the Irish government? The IRA notoriously did not tolerate much freelancing or disagreements in the days of struggle. They expelled the British and now they are acting even worse, although the UK is well on the road to outlawing true Free speech also. Europeans have always paid only lip service to a real democracy. They have covered them up with monstrous government bureaucracies, and multiple tiers of decision making (The European Union is a good example) that mute, if not eliminate a popular democracy. Hardly surprising. Makes me want to trash my Irish heritage. I have French, Irish, Scottish, and English heritage, none of which, right now, seem to like free speech. Guess I’ll just have to remain an American and ditch any references to the heritage.
This is a Twitter/X post from Ireland: Free speech is the soil from which all other freedoms can sprout. There is a reason why those who came before us put Free Speech as the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Are we so arrogant to believe that we know better? The reason is that they recognised that without free speech, all other freedoms are made far more difficult to achieve. What do you do if you cannot use your voice for your freedoms and rights. We know the answer to that. But wise men and women knew that too and it is why Free Speech is at the centre of free society. It is beyond compare arrogant for a gay Head of State And female Justice Minister that have risen to these positions by the wonderful equalising power of free speech that they would now turn their back on it. Turn their back on that which made their careers and lives flourish to their fullest potential. It is free speech that exposes. It is free speech that shines a light. It is free speech that brings us together. It is free speech that allows us innovate. It is free speech that makes us laugh, cry, love and yes hate. Hate. Of course, hate. But a brave people. A sane people recognise that and are not afraid of it. And are brave enough to deal with hate with strength, courage and LOVE. We seem hell bent on letting the freedoms that generations spilled blood for, be taken from us. While our little country sleeps, freedom is actually being taken under the age old guise of keeping us safe. I lament my little country and the total lack of love and strength that her guardians seem to display. Dúisigh Éire. If you are not on your knees when you hand over your freedoms, you will be when you ask for them back.
Love that last line.
😀👍👍☘️💚
Did you forget that 1916 was a Socialist and Nationalist revolt? Connolly was as red as they get; Current is communist as they admit.
Hard to believe the people of Ireland are going to sit still, but then again let’s see how still Americans will sit?
If anyone listened to Eric Schmidt’s testimony to Congress on AI, so to be AGI, then you haven’t seen nothing yet. It was chilling to hear.
“Public disorder can play into the hands of government officials” ? You mean like the Corona Virus did ? Prime Minister Conor Mcgregor sounds pretty good right about now Jonathan. Just sayin…..
The Irish took a left turn, now they’re paying for it.
Sounds like it is about time for another revolution in Ireland. [Oops! I guess I had better cancel my Ireland vacation plans unless I want to go to jail.]
Only totalitarians think denying free speech is a good thing.