As their popularity continues to plummet, Ireland’s increasingly unpopular government have made moves to consolidate the votes of infantile intolerant liberals.
After legalising extended opening hours for nightclubs, they have now moved to make a more sinister form of cheap stunt. This one will be the introduction of laws designed to criminalise people who criticise the government's ’s social policies.
Embattled Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, has been universally criticised for refusing to police Ireland’s borders (even allowing thousands to enter the country without a passport) and allowing the violent crime to increase with little visible police or judicial response, with the capital's thoroughfare O'Connell Street becoming a virtual no go area, a den of drugs and aggression.
Yesterday, McEntee announced that she will impose totalitarian new anti speech measures on the Irish people, designed to stifle dissent.
McEntee's press release said:
‘Minister McEntee said that hate speech is not about free speech – hate speech is designed to shut people down, to shut them up, to make them afraid to say who they are and to exclude and isolate them’.
The draft bill states that the following criteria will be used to convict thought criminals:
Evidence of the perception of any victim or witness to the event as to the motivation of the defendant
Evidence of comments, written statements, gestures or other indications by the defendant of hostility toward a protected characteristic immediately before, during or after the event
Ethnic, religious or cultural differences between the perpetrator and the victim
Evidence of the defendant’s affiliation with or membership of any organised hate group
Whether the location or timing of the offence has any particular significance in terms of a protected characteristic
Patterns or similarities to any frequent previous crimes or incidents which were motivated by prejudice
The nature of the incident itself and whether any aspects of this suggest a bias motivation
The absence of any other credible motive
The most interesting is number 4.
It is very likely that a blacklist of groups opposed to the government will be composed which defines people as ‘an organised hate group’ very easily. The state has made clear that it regards many Catholic groups as meeting this very definition.
Only this week, Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan rambled at length about the Iona Institute, saying:
“We know that foreign money is flooding into Ireland and other European countries to stoke discord. In 2021, the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights published a report called The Tip of the Iceberg. That report outlined the Iona Institute's interaction with funds from Fondazione Novae Terrae”.
In 2020, her Green Party colleague Roisin Garvey said “I would really appreciate it if Senator Mullen would keep his rosaries off our ovaries, for once and for all”.
In 2021, Senator Martin Conway said that women (and possibly pregnant people) “are being subjected to the saying of the rosary and all that sort of caper”.
Is the Rosary in danger of being designated as a hate symbol? Do not discount the possibility.
In December 2019, Simon Harris, who has worked as a Minister for a number of years, launched a witch hunt against an obscure parish in the Midlands because they had stated church teaching on In Vitro Fertilisation. Harris stated that the comments were ‘extremely hurtful’. The same politician also tweeted ‘Please make it stop!’ when an Irish bishop tweeted something that disagreed with state policy.
The state also singled out Catholics for excessively harsh treatment during the lockdowns, with priests regularly harassed if they allowed even an extra mourner at funerals. There was also the case of Fr. PJ Hughes who had his whole village surrounded in order to prevent him from saying Mass to a dozen people. This took place as politicians still held parties in private.
An interesting part of the laws is that it will be illegal to deny or mock a UN recognised genocide.
This actually puts the Irish government in a strange position as they themselves deny the Armenian Genocide.
It also means that one can deny that the Famine was genocide with legal protection.
What is to come, if this government lasts, is another decade of crime, emigration and social disintegration.
The only ‘hate speech’ that will be permitted will be the abuse of Catholics.
Speaking of which, one group who will likely be exempt are the Orange Order, who have increasingly become the subject of sincere support from Leo Varadkar, Neale Richmond and others.