Ireland Is On the Cusp of Criminalizing Speech

Over transgenderism. Of course.

We'll lose all of our rights so that 0.1% of the population can feel "validated" and "seen."

Oh -- and speech will be criminalized to protect immigrants, too.

LIMERICK, Ireland -- Ireland is on the verge of passing the most aggressive hate crime law in the European Union, which includes the first legal protections in the EU for transgender individuals. Government officials say the bill offers necessary protections at a time when immigration is on the rise and traditional ideas about sex and gender are being challenged.

>b>Critics counter that the bill's vague language could be used to enforce the increasingly progressive Irish government's increasingly woke agenda and forcibly muzzle critics of unpopular government policies.

The legislation, the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Act, underscores a divide between Ireland's leaders and many of its people. The bill is making its way through Parliament, winning approval last month in the Dáil Éireann, Ireland's lower chamber, by a vote of 110-14.

But Irish citizens, in a 2019 consultation phase, overwhelmingly expressed a worry that the proposal was an unnecessary expansion of the country's existing hate crimes law. Seventy-three percent of respondents took issue with the bill's potential for encroachment on free speech and questioned what qualifies as "hate speech," particularly asking who crafts that definition. Less than 25% of those polled approved of the legislation.

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The ongoing controversy opens a window into how quickly Ireland, which only legalized abortion in 2018, is moving from its long religious traditions at a time when leaders in other European countries and the United States are seeking to create laws that punish not just deeds but thoughts.

Over the past 30 years or so, the Irish nation has become increasingly progressive. In 2015, the Emerald Isle legalized gay marriage, just two years after the progressive vanguard of France did the same. That same year, Ireland was ranked among the top 10 most LGBT-friendly nations in the world, and the present taoiseach (Ireland's word for prime minister) Leo Varadkar is openly gay. The proposed law would expand the 1989 law's purview by adding gender, sex, descent and disability to the list of protected categories, which already includes race, color, nationality, religion (including "the absence of a religious conviction or belief"), national or ethnic origin, descent, gender, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, or disability.

The bill treats not just public presentation or dissemination of material deemed hateful, but also private preparation or even storing of material deemed hateful, such as memes on your phone or books on your shelf. Individuals convicted on such charges face fines of up to €5,000 (about $5,400) and anywhere from six months to two years in prison. Furthermore, as McEntee noted, a conviction "will allow for the 'hate criminal' label to follow an offender in court, in garda [police] vetting, and so on... "

Paul Murphy, a member of the left-wing People Before Profit-Solidarity coalition, even warned the bill will legislate "the creation of a thought crime." Conservative chairman of the Irish Freedom Party Michael Leahy told RealClearInvestigations that the bill "represents the most far-reaching and invasive attack against civil and religious liberty enacted in any Western democracy since the Second World War."

Incredible. From "European Tiger" to communist gulag sh1thole in ten years.

posted by Ace at 02:00 PM

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