Hate Speech Public Consultation

suicide_circus

we wont know until the legislation is written but the indications are we are following the UK, cap in hand as usual, with their war on freedom of speech and satire.

Wibbs

Arghus wrote: »

If only there was some way people could make their feelings known about this...

How? Genuine question. All the mainstream political parties have the horn for "multiculturalism". The only naysayers are fringe at best and about as useful as tits on a bull, or voting for PBP, who also have a gargantuan horn for the same "multiculturalism".

When the loophole around getting into and staying in Ireland that kicked off the first and largest wave of non EU immigration into this country was closed, I didn't see any mass demonstrations on Irish streets against it. I would bet the farm that if a vote was put to the Irish people on further limiting entry and Irish passports and "multiculturalism" the results would surprise quite the few.

hatrickpatrick

Boggles wrote: »

It's not really my opinion though, best practice would dictate legislation would be reviewed in a timely fashion, this one is 30, years old it is time.

Any particular example of the media (vast term) not finding some political belief socially unacceptable?

I cited several obvious examples in my post a couple of pages back. Possibly the most glaring example in the international context is the idea of painting Americans who want better border security as racist, and in the Irish context, the idea of being opposed to local examples of foreign immigration (for instance, direct provision centres in one's area) or being opposed to accepting migrants in general into the country, as being racist. Neither of these beliefs are racist, they are nativist. But they are rapidly being defined as socially unacceptable in the mainstream media and by politicians.

Again, nativism is not a racist belief. It is not racist to suggest that a country's resources be reserved for citizens of that country and that the number of foreigners who are given citizenship be restricted to better conserve said resources. There is nothing "hateful" about somebody saying "famines and civil wars in distant countries are not our problem to deal with, and we should deal with our own citizens' problems first and foremost", but it is rapidly being classified as such in the mainstream court of public opinion, spearheaded by the media and many politicians. That is a problem. And it's in that context that hate speech laws are being reviewed.

EDIT: I should point out again, I'm not a nativist myself, which should lend at least some credibility to my defence of those who are. I'm very much on the record as being ok with immigration, but I find it utterly abhorrent that those who are not are being painted as hateful monsters rather than people holding genuine and acceptable political opinions. And attempts to widen hate crime legislation to rope these people in are of great concern to me.

Wibbs

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

God bless your cotton socks. I'd want a Wahhabi 'education centre' bulldozed into the sea with the clerics in it.

TBH I wouldn't let them in in the first place. They're an alien culture and would be backed by a alien power eager to spread that culture. Problem solved.

Has Hitler been mentioned yet? Hitler bitched-and-moaned about his 'free speech' when he was banned from using it at a rally in Bavaria. A few years later people were being hanged by his crowd for saying the wrong thing.

Precisely. About the very first thing the Nazis did was clamp down on free association, press and speech that spoke against them(and many did), even those who had once been convenient allies. They knew the real danger that a people free to speak out about "unmentionable" things were to them.

Yer wan at the UN above. She claims to speak utter nonsense of and behalf of this country and its history and "diversity" and I support her right to do so. However what would happen if someone were to stand up and say to the same assembly that she is talking nonsense on behalf of an unelected sociopolitical movement and her claim to be Irish is about as substantive as the still wet ink on the Harp on her newly minted passport? What support would get that, yet it is on every point factually correct.

Our freedoms need to be protected from those who'd seek to destroy them, some vague sense of entitlement to 'free speech' has potentially dire consequences for reasonable people.

If only "people" were reasonable. Does free speech have consequences? Of course it does. When you're dealing with human beings there are always consequences, positive and negative. However far bigger consequences have come on the back of limiting it.

hatrickpatrick

Wibbs wrote: »

How? Genuine question. All the mainstream political parties have the horn for "multiculturalism". The only naysayers are fringe at best and about as useful as tits on a bull, or voting for PBP, who also have a gargantuan horn for the same "multiculturalism".

When the loophole around getting into and staying in Ireland that kicked off the first and largest wave of non EU immigration into this country was closed, I didn't see any mass demonstrations on Irish streets against it. I would bet the farm that if a vote was put to the Irish people on further limiting entry and Irish passports and "multiculturalism" the results would surprise quite the few.

The fact that so many people were so shocked and appalled by the Peter Casey surge in the presidential election, as well as the fact that supporters of Trump and Brexit were massively underrepresented in opinion polling, implies that there is a very, very large proportion of Western society which is simultaneously opposed to the status quo, and afraid to openly oppose it for fear of societal consequences. That should be seen as a serious, serious problem in any functioning democratic system, but instead, the very existence of such people and such beliefs has been declared to be the actual problem. Not the fact that in a supposedly democratic society, large numbers of people feel they cannot be open about what they believe in without their lives suffering as a result.

The fact that we're in such a paradigm should alarm anyone who cares about democracy as a concept, but it seems our numbers are dwindling every day. Hell, look at the number of people who suggested that age limits or intelligence testing be introduced for eligibility to vote in referenda after Brexit yielded the "wrong" result. It's terrifying to say the very least, and yet absolutely nobody mainstream is talking about it.

Harvey Weinstein

Wibbs wrote: »

This individual talking blatant bullsh1t and is seeking to rewrite facts and history to push this "multicultural" ideology further.

The so called "diversity" of Ireland almost entirely came from conquest and colonisation and all the long strife and human costs that came from that, and as if it needs to be pointed out by neighbouring peoples, who looked the same and had pretty similar cultures. Our very genetics reflect this. Most of the Irish genetic makeup is "local", with some small Scandinavian and British influences going from east to west. Religiously? How in God's name could anyone sitting there listening to this nonsense keep any semblance of a straight face? Outside of a tiny number of Jewish folks, over the last one and a half thousand years we've had the one religion, later split in two, which caused a bit of hassle... Yet even this lack of "diversity" reshaped this country and still does to this day. Has this multicultural mouthpiece heard of the north of Ireland in her travels? Or maybe her script writers didn't mention that.

Can you imagine if some White freckle faced Irish woman carrying a newly minted Japanese passport that was statistically more than likely issued on the back of having a kid in Tokyo after entering Japan illegally, representing Japan at the UN to claim that Japan was always been ethnically, linguistically and religiously diverse and now she's magically Japanese? GTFO! Neck like a jockey's bollocks would likely be the more tame of descriptions.

Who is she? What is the wider background to this? Who is supporting and paying for this junket/trip to the UN? What are their goals? What vested interests are they promoting on behalf of the Irish people? Why is nobody in authority calling rightful bullshit on this?

Good luck with that question...

These are the Irish reps at a recent UN summit on racism.
They also believe we should start teaching kids about Irelands terrible history of colonialism in the Caribbean. I think they've got that one the wrong way around myself.

Arghus

Wibbs wrote: »

How? Genuine question.

The OP provides a handy link.

Wibbs

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Not the fact that in a supposedly democratic society, large numbers of people feel they cannot be open about what they believe in without their lives suffering as a result

Last year I was at a dinner party consisting of a bunch of around a dozen people I didn't know(it was kind of a date thing. Which worried me, but that's for another day ) and these were what one would expect to be middle class, middle of the road, university educated suburbanite voters, strongly centre left types. You know the broad type. Flip a coin FG/FF come each election. And what I heard on a few matters genuinely surprised me. Particularly around "diversity". It started off tame enough, until people seemed to feel more "free" to expand and much of the stuff said wouldn't bear repeating. We're talking hardline from another time attitudes and these folks were in their 30's/40's. Of those people I know well, the majority of whom would be again centre left in general it seems to have gone broadly 50/50. They've either gone full on xenophobic and almost exclusively along "race" lines, or they've doubled down on their left leanings.

alastair

Slowyourrole wrote: »

You realize you are linking a Tweet pushing the racist White Replacement trope?

Of course he does - he’s on board with all the tinfoil conspiracies - check his timeline.

Wibbs

Harvey Weinstein wrote: »

These are the Irish reps at a recent UN summit on racism.
They also believe we should start teaching kids about Irelands terrible history of colonialism in the Caribbean. I think they've got that one the wrong way around myself.

Oh so they're kicking off with the usual Multicultural play list of rolling out the guilt trip for White Europeans already? On one of the few European countries that has itself fought against colonisation, tyranny and indentured slavery and exclusion along ethnic lines for centuries? Whatever they could pull with the European colonial powers, they have some hard bloody neck to pull the same playlist here. Though another on that same copypasta playlist is the urgent population crash and the need for "diversity" to help bolster the local population(never of more White people you'll note, Asians barely count either). Again this might go over to some degree in Italy or Germany, but Ireland has the highest birthrate in the EU and our population is consistently growing and in no need of any extras coming in.

That they pull the same bull every time, with few local changes for the local realities says much and much of that is that this is a concerted effort by a minority to push an agenda for their own vested interests of a prepared script and it has worked before. Though the "great replacement" conspiracy is just that, a conspiracy and a completely retarded one at that, which falls on its arse after the simplest mathematics, I can kinda understand why some people believe it.

Arghus wrote: »

The OP provides a handy link.

and pointless one. Do you really think if a majority said no, go away with this, it wouldn't get written up and passed? Unless it went to referendum the Irish government hasn't a great record when it comes to this kinda thing. It would be bloody brilliant if it did go to the polls, but I seriously doubt anything like this ever will, unless it conflicts with our constitution.

Arghus

Wibbs wrote: »

and pointless one. Do you really think if a majority said no, go away with this, it wouldn't get written up and passed? Unless it went to referendum the Irish government hasn't a great record when it comes to this kinda thing. It would be bloody brilliant if it did go to the polls, but I seriously doubt anything like this ever will, unless it conflicts with our constitution.

Possibly, but any more pointless than putting a lot of time and effort into arguing about it ad nauseum in an obscure corner of the Internet?

alastair

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

The fact that so many people were so shocked and appalled by the Peter Casey surge in the presidential election, as well as the fact that supporters of Trump and Brexit were massively underrepresented in opinion polling, implies that there is a very, very large proportion of Western society which is simultaneously opposed to the status quo, and afraid to openly oppose it for fear of societal consequences. That should be seen as a serious, serious problem in any functioning democratic system, but instead, the very existence of such people and such beliefs has been declared to be the actual problem. Not the fact that in a supposedly democratic society, large numbers of people feel they cannot be open about what they believe in without their lives suffering as a result.

The fact that we're in such a paradigm should alarm anyone who cares about democracy as a concept, but it seems our numbers are dwindling every day. Hell, look at the number of people who suggested that age limits or intelligence testing be introduced for eligibility to vote in referenda after Brexit yielded the "wrong" result. It's terrifying to say the very least, and yet absolutely nobody mainstream is talking about it.

Brexit wasn’t under-represented in opinion polling at all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum

Likewise the polls on the Trump/Hillary two-way race tally well with the final outcome (more votes for Hillary than Trump): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_2016_United_States_presidential_election

People were entirely open to pollsters on both issues.

Casey was comprehensively beaten by a candidate that reflected the electorate’s preferences.

jmayo

Wibbs wrote: »

Last year I was at a dinner party consisting of a bunch of around a dozen people I didn't know(it was kind of a date thing. Which worried me, but that's for another day ) and these were what one would expect to be middle class, middle of the road, university educated suburbanite voters, strongly centre left types. You know the broad type. Flip a coin FG/FF come each election. And what I heard on a few matters genuinely surprised me. Particularly around "diversity". It started off tame enough, until people seemed to feel more "free" to expand and much of the stuff said wouldn't bear repeating. We're talking hardline from another time attitudes and these folks were in their 30's/40's. Of those people I know well, the majority of whom would be again centre left in general it seems to have gone broadly 50/50. They've either gone full on xenophobic and almost exclusively along "race" lines, or they've doubled down on their left leanings.

Recently at a conference and just sitting having lunch with number of people and the topic of Trump came up.
Then people started talking about how a fair amount of people voted for him because they feel politics, the media and society has left them behind and they are pi**ed off and at this stage feel they have nothing to lose.
Same for Brexit voters.

It gradually turned to how nowadays people are afraid to say things lest they be labeled non pc and/or racist.
One item was about how we now have a groupthink in mainstream media and politics, often driven by social media, which doesn't allow any divergent thought on certain matters.

All of the people were in 30s, 40 and 50s I would say.

This proposed hate speech legislation is the establishment's answer to Peter Casey and Noel Grealish.

Don't debate them because you do not have the answers to some of their very valid points.
Label them racists and try blacken their names.
Then when that doesn't work have the threat of legal action to shut them up.


Also could the expert on settled people's littering habits, my joeytheparrot, please answer my question about whether he thinks those two politicians should be targeted for hate speech ?

hatrickpatrick

Wibbs wrote: »

Last year I was at a dinner party consisting of a bunch of around a dozen people I didn't know(it was kind of a date thing. Which worried me, but that's for another day ) and these were what one would expect to be middle class, middle of the road, university educated suburbanite voters, strongly centre left types. You know the broad type. Flip a coin FG/FF come each election. And what I heard on a few matters genuinely surprised me. Particularly around "diversity". It started off tame enough, until people seemed to feel more "free" to expand and much of the stuff said wouldn't bear repeating. We're talking hardline from another time attitudes and these folks were in their 30's/40's. Of those people I know well, the majority of whom would be again centre left in general it seems to have gone broadly 50/50. They've either gone full on xenophobic and almost exclusively along "race" lines, or they've doubled down on their left leanings.

This is hardly surprising to me though. Forcing people to talk about their political beliefs only in echo chambers with like minded people produces just one outcome. Silencing people and demonising them for beliefs they legitimately hold causes they to double down on said beliefs.

My ex-girlfriend has been pro-life and vehemently anti-abortion for as long as she can remember, for extremely personal reasons relating to the circumstances of her own birth, and because my generation so shamefully refuses to separate the personal from the political, she has been almost entirely ostracised by family and friends (all of whom are broadly pro-choice and campaigned as such in the referendum). Apparently I'm the only person of a liberal persuasion who still values her friendship, and I have good reason to believe she's not exaggerating in saying that.

One side effect of this has been that she has drifted considerably towards the right wing in recent years. She used to be a typical D4 millennial in all of her political views except the issue of abortion, but because she has been so comprehensively shunned by her social circle, and probably because this has resulted in her only being able to socialise with conservatives for the past few years, she has been influenced entirely by conservative thinking and is now a card carrying Trump and BoJo supporter among other things. If you knew her, you'd understand just how incredibly bizarre it is to see her espousing these views now, given the things she believed in when we first met back in 2011 - but this, to my mind, is the result of being shut out of mainstream discourse in the manner in which she has.

I'm sure many on my own side would regard me as some kind of traitor for this, but I have been consistent in encouraging her to stand up for what she believes in and get involved in politics, from cheering her up over the phone after rough days on the "vote no" campaign trail, to explaining how to find out when a bill is up for committee discussion and which TDs are on said committees, so that she could lodge objections. She is now intending to enter politics herself and has become very close with several right-leaning senators who are actively helping her to achieve that.

My point? This is what believing in democracy is supposed to be about. I disagree with almost everything she believes in politically with one or two exceptions, and I will support and encourage her every step of the way in campaigning for those things I so fundamentally disagree with - because that's her right in a democratic society, the same as it's my right to campaign for the things I believe in. The fact that she has lost friends and family over this is f*cking insane. But it has resulted in her drifting very significantly to the right, primarily on account of being unable to keep any social company to the left of herself because of their intolerance.

I have absolutely no doubt that this story is in no way unusual. Experiencing political intolerance and ostracism for daring to oppose the zeitgeist is the perfect gateway drug into doubling down and becoming more extreme in one's own beliefs. I support her and anyone else who feels strongly enough about their believes to actively get involved and try to change the world, but at the same time I am absolutely furious with the bulk of my own side in politics for allowing this climate of intolerance to develop to the point that this is the inevitable result.

You know when you see members of PBP bragging on Facebook about tearing down or otherwise vandalising the election posters of the opposition? This is the kind of sh!t I'm talking about. This is what happens when you create a climate of political intolerance, and that climate of political intolerance is exactly what is going to be furthered with the trojan horse of hate speech laws. How long before it becomes "hate speech" to suggest, for example, that social housing creates ghettoes and that people on the dole are layabouts? Anyone who knows me on this forum will know that I very, very vehemently oppose both of these statements, but I will happily choose defending those who espouse those views as my hill to die on, because that is the essence of democracy, and democracy is humanity's greatest achievement to date.

Wibbs

Arghus wrote: »

Possibly, but any more pointless than putting a lot of time and effort into arguing about it ad nauseum in an obscure corner of the Internet?

What's troubling A is that about the only place it is being discussed is on obscure corners of the internet and unlike here most of them are echo chambers of an increasingly divisive sort.

Boggles

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I cited several obvious examples in my post a couple of pages back. Possibly the most glaring example in the international context is the idea of painting Americans who want better border security as racist, and in the Irish context, the idea of being opposed to local examples of foreign immigration (for instance, direct provision centres in one's area) or being opposed to accepting migrants in general into the country, as being racist. Neither of these beliefs are racist, they are nativist. But they are rapidly being defined as socially unacceptable in the mainstream media and by politicians.

Again, nativism is not a racist belief. It is not racist to suggest that a country's resources be reserved for citizens of that country and that the number of foreigners who are given citizenship be restricted to better conserve said resources. There is nothing "hateful" about somebody saying "famines and civil wars in distant countries are not our problem to deal with, and we should deal with our own citizens' problems first and foremost", but it is rapidly being classified as such in the mainstream court of public opinion, spearheaded by the media and many politicians. That is a problem. And it's in that context that hate speech laws are being reviewed.

EDIT: I should point out again, I'm not a nativist myself, which should lend at least some credibility to my defence of those who are. I'm very much on the record as being ok with immigration, but I find it utterly abhorrent that those who are not are being painted as hateful monsters rather than people holding genuine and acceptable political opinions. And attempts to widen hate crime legislation to rope these people in are of great concern to me.

A nativist is essentially a bigot, it's not a flattering term.

I think it's unfair to call people who want border security in America or don't want a direct provision center in their locality as Nativists.

It's far more nuanced, like most things. Context is key.

If you want a wall built because you think all Mexicans are rapists, then you are a dribbing simpleton.

If you don't want fordiners in your locality because you think all Africans are spongers then you are dribbling simpleton.

Whether they are racist or nativist or whatever doesn't really form my opinion, they are dangerous idiots and in lots of circumstances just absolute scum.

alastair

Wibbs wrote: »

Oh so they're kicking off with the usual Multicultural play list of rolling out the guilt trip for White Europeans already? On one of the few European countries that has itself fought against colonisation, tyranny and indentured slavery and exclusion along ethnic lines for centuries? Whatever they could pull with the European colonial powers, they have some hard bloody neck to pull the same playlist here. Though another on that same copypasta playlist is the urgent population crash and the need for "diversity" to help bolster the local population(never of more White people you'll note, Asians barely count either). Again this might go over to some degree in Italy or Germany, but Ireland has the highest birthrate in the EU and our population is consistently growing and in no need of any extras coming in.

That they pull the same bull every time, with few local changes for the local realities says much and much of that is that this is a concerted effort by a minority to push an agenda for their own vested interests of a prepared script and it has worked before.

Some straw man action there.

alastair

jmayo wrote: »

This proposed hate speech legislation is the establishment's answer to Peter Casey and Noel Grealish.

Don't debate them because you do not have the answers to some of their very valid points.
Label them racists and try blacken their names.
Then when that doesn't work have the threat of legal action to shut them up.

Casey and Grealish had their respective idiotic claims deflated in the cold light of day. Not sure how you missed all that.

jmayo

alastair wrote: »

Brexit wasn’t under-represented in opinion polling at all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_European_Union_membership_referendum

Likewise the polls on the Trump/Hillary two-way race tally well with the final outcome (more votes for Hillary than Trump): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_2016_United_States_presidential_election

People were entirely open to pollsters on both issues.

Casey was comprehensively beaten by a candidate that reflected the electorate’s preferences.

Except you are conveniently ignoring the fact that a not very coherent or good candidate went from around 2% to over 20% support in a couple of weeks despite the entire Irish media targeting him, despite the fact that he had no political party behind him and in fact they were all entirely ranged against him.

Nah those facts don't sit too well with you.
What Casey achieved was a monumental success when you look at his ability and those ranged against him.

It would be akin to the Wicklow football team pushing Dublin to extra time in a Leinster final.

pjohnson

jmayo wrote: »

What Casey achieved was a monumental success when you look at his ability and those ranged against him.

Jaysus doesnt take much to please his base does it :pac:

alastair

jmayo wrote: »

Except you are conveniently ignoring the fact that a not very coherent or good candidate went from around 2% to over 20% support in a couple of weeks despite the entire Irish media targeting him, despite the fact that he had no political party behind him and in fact they were all entirely ranged against him.

Nah those facts don't sit too well with you.
What Casey achieved was a monumental success when you look at his ability and those ranged against him.

It would be akin to the Wicklow football team pushing Dublin to extra time in a Leinster final.

Except it’s not. Casey offered no competition to Higgins at all.

Wibbs

alastair wrote: »

Some straw man action there.

That's not an argument, it's barely a response.

That an unelected vested interest group rocks up to the UN to drum up support for their sociopolitical movement tries to pull the White guilt colonialism and call for "re-education" on a people and nation that were colonised, at one point starved to death because of such policies and represented as little more than apes for centuries and well into the modern age and wheels out an African to do it is some example of a bullet hard neck with no sense of shame.

Oh and the population demographic crises does not apply to this country and no amount of BS by vested interests and flag wavers for same can deny that.

bfa1509

Since Swing-gate has put a plug in the exaggerated claim department, this hate speech legislation would make a fine new utility for members of the victimhood culture.

alastair

Wibbs wrote: »

That's not an argument, it's barely a response.

That an unelected vested interest group rocks up to the UN to drum up support for their sociopolitical movement tries to pull the White guilt colonialism and call for "re-education" on a people and nation that were colonised, at one point starved to death because of such policies and represented as little more than apes for centuries and well into the modern age and wheels out an African to do it is some example of a bullet hard neck with no sense of shame.

Oh and the population demographic crises does not apply to this country and no amount of BS by vested interests and flag wavers for same can deny that.

More of the same straw man guff. Can you point to where this delegation are referencing a demographic crisis at all?

And national NGO’s have always reported to the UN, keeping governments‘ accountable on meeting their commitments - it provides a very useful counter to massaged government reports.

Here’s their actual report, if you can bear to tear yourself away from your own fictional narrative: https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/INAR-ALTERNATIVE-REPORT-to-CERD-WEB-1.pdf

Wibbs

pjohnson wrote: »

Jaysus doesnt take much to please his base does it :pac:

It didn't P, but J has a point in that even though he was a useless eejit and his only notable pronouncement was blurted out on TV, he still got way more votes and support than was ever expected at the start. That is worrying. Imagine a non eejit with populist leanings and a flashly run campaign coming out with similar and worse, that's when dangerous types can get in.

I mean look at Trump. I know, I know P, but he's a thundering, bullying, dangerous and shabby fcukwit with verbal twitter dysentery with tiny pig baby hands and a combover, who went up against a host of his own party and won, and then he went up against US political royalty with the non nutter media on her side and a reasonable enough campaign and he won, he got half the bloody votes. I remember back in the day some thought it funny to put Dustin the Turkey on presidential ballot papers. Imagine if this became our new leader...



Hail to the chief.

It doesn't take much for a society to shift. Surprisingly little as history has shown. I suppose Ireland and the Irish "nature" is helpful here. For all our self belief in the "Irish rebel" we're actually and thankfully by nature a middle of the road, sure it'll be grand people. We're probably more likely to actually have a President Turkey than a Sean O'Hitler.

Arghus

Wibbs wrote: »

What's troubling A is that about the only place it is being discussed is on obscure corners of the internet and unlike here most of them are echo chambers of an increasingly divisive sort.

So I'm guessing you haven't availed of even the small opportunity afforded in the public consultation to register your discomfort at the thought of the proposed changes to the legislation? To me that's akin to giving out about the government, while refusing to vote. I guess it's easier to hyperbolise melodramatically about goosestepping out of our civil liberties and.. eh.. Ireland's colonial history?

I don't think the Internet is the only place these conversations are happening in Ireland at the moment, certainly not in the last 6 months.

I also wouldn't classify boards as an echo chamber in general, but I do think that this forum has a reactionary and conservative nature, especially when it comes to matters relating to what we could term "the other." You may think that fair enough, but it's a brave poster who wades into threads like this with a Liberal perspective.

Wibbs

Arghus wrote: »

So I'm guessing you haven't availed of even the small opportunity afforded in the public consultation to register your discomfort at the thought of the proposed changes to the legislation? To me that's akin to giving out about the government, while refusing to vote.

Maybe you missed this wrote: »

And yep I sent a submission, though knowing our political class it will be a waste of keystrokes as the end result has almost certainly been preordained. I'm reminded of when that idiot Sean Sherlock was in the midst of "discussing" Copyright legislation and invited industry people to debate, when the ink was still wet on the legislation. A PR exercise as I suspect this to be. Plus when it's couched in terms like "hate speech" most normal people will naturally think "oh no I don't want hate involved in anything" without looking at the wider consequences of such legislation.

So nope, afraid not. Guess again A.

I guess it's easier to hyperbolise melodramatically about goosestepping out of our civil liberties and.. eh.. Ireland's colonial history?

It was some African Irish woman and her vested interest NGO supporters at the UN who came out with the melodrama and complete historical nonsense about past Irish diversity and calls for "education" for us about our "colonial past". That's hyperbole and melodrama, while pushing a political agenda. And you're surprised anybody might think WTF and not suggest she and they are talking bollocks?

I don't think the Internet is the only place these conversations are happening in Ireland at the moment, certainly not in the last 6 months.

Which side of the debate gets the more airtime and column inches?

I also wouldn't classify boards as an echo chamber in general, but I do think that this forum has a reactionary and conservative nature, especially when it comes to matters relating to what we could term "the other." You may think that fair enough, but it's a brave poster who wades into threads like this with a Liberal perspective.

I can't see what's "brave" about it TBH A. One either has a cogent argument or one doesn't. The "reactionary and conservative" side has its yahoos of that there's no doubt, but the argument with many of the "liberal perspective" is either to deflect, ignore or outright go off on a bigot/racist angle, either under the breath or overtly to further deflect or even to try and shut things down.

alastair

Wibbs wrote: »

So nope, afraid not. Guess again A.

It was some African Irish woman and her vested interest NGO supporters at the UN who came out with the melodrama and complete historical nonsense about past Irish diversity and calls for "education" for us about our "colonial past". That's hyperbole and melodrama, while pushing a political agenda. And you're surprised anybody might think WTF and not suggest she and they are talking bollocks?

Which side of the debate gets the more airtime and column inches?

I can't see what's "brave" about it TBH A. One either has a cogent argument or one doesn't. The "reactionary and conservative" side has its yahoos of that there's no doubt, but the argument with many of the "liberal perspective" is either to deflect, ignore or outright go off on a bigot/racist angle, either under the breath or overtly to further deflect or even to try and shut things down.

On that cogent argument thing - perhaps consider some, rather than rolling out claims that don’t actually tally with the facts? Just a suggestion.

Arghus

Wibbs wrote: »

So nope, afraid not. Guess again A.

I was in the wrong there.

Annasopra

ThunbergsAreGo wrote: »

Thats actually a very good point that I had never thought of.

Never before have we needed legislation such as this, we are an open tolerant society already

Except thats not true because we have had legislation on it since 1989