Freedom of speech: censorship is also being demanded in Ireland
The Irish Green Party has been following many leftists from around the world this week, and has come out in favor of censorship and speech control. Indeed, the party went completely Orwellian when its chairman Pauline O'Reilly called for "restricting freedom" to protect it.
O'Reilly's comments are part of the introduction to the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offenses) Bill 2022. We've covered this massive attack on free speech before.
It is a law that would criminalize “ inciting violence or hatred ” against people with “ protected characteristics ” as well as “ condoning, denying or grossly minimizing genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace .”
Restricting free speech has become an article of faith for many on the left. I wrote about my unease (as someone who grew up in a politically active, liberal Democratic household in Chicago) to witness the party's abandonment of free speech values. Democratic leaders now uniformly call for censorship and speech regulation. President Biden has even accused companies that refuse to censor opposing views on social media of "killing people." Others denounced free speech as "a white man's obsession."
The movement against free speech has become overtly Orwellian in its claim to protect freedom by limiting it. It also uses terms like disinformation, disinformation, and misinformation to disguise their effort to silence those with opposing views. Instead of using “censorship,” it is referred to as “content moderation.”
That effort was on display this week in Ireland with this anti-free speech legislation.
Speaking before the Irish Senate (Seanad) this week, Green Party Chair Pauline O'Reilly said: “ If we think about it, all laws and regulations are about the restriction of liberty. This is exactly what we are doing here. We are limiting freedom, but we are doing it for the common good ." The classic thought of the left: if freedom has been restricted a little, then it is permissible to continue to restrict it even to the point of completely canceling it.
It's the same message from New York's Democrats who are calling for curtailing free speech to protect democracy. Clinton's former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has declared that free speech is "tyranny."
O'Reilly assured citizens that the surrender of liberty is nothing new or threatening: “ Throughout our Constitution you can see that rights are limited for the common good. Everything has to be balanced."
What's especially chilling is how low the threshold is for withholding free speech, according to O'Reilly. Now it seems that “deep discomfort” is enough:
“If one's views on the identities of others make one's life insecure, and cause such profound unease that one cannot live in peace, our job as lawmakers is to limit these freedoms for the common good.” A personal annoyance, a slight irritation, is worth more than freedom of speech.
What's interesting is that O'Reilly admits there's nothing new in hateful opinions, but it's time to purge those rumours: “ Social media has fueled hate, but it's also showcased for all of us the dirty, filthy underbelly of hatred in Irish society. That hate has always existed .” Of course, it will be you and your majority who decide which opinions create “ deep discomfort ”.
Irish legislation is the product of a society so weak that it fears freedom of expression. It will certainly be imitated by other countries and the European Union has already issued online legislation, the DSA, which is all a call to special powers of censorship, to "Signalers" authorized to censor, to the race to silence non-homogeneous words with the thought of power. Not a word in defense of freedom of speech. But we pride ourselves on being a “liberal democracy”. Liberal in what?
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The article Freedom of speech: censorship is also being demanded in Ireland comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/liberta-di-parola-anche-in-irlanda-si-chiede-la-censura/ on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 06:00:52 +0000.