Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on [email protected] for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact [email protected]

Hate Speech Public Consultation

145791085

Comments

  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 114 ✭✭Joker2019


    There is freedom of speech but I cannot gurantee freedom after speech

    -Idi Amin


  • Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    Wibbs wrote: »
    It's not acceptable, but should it be illegal? And where do you draw the line? Like I said earlier, we would have generally quite different lines. I'm willing to admit I'm wrong about where my line lays, are you?

    Which doesn't negate, or answer my point.

    In the vast majority of cases to countries founded on immigration and with few to little social aids and they were hated in quite a few. I'm not talking about actual refugees. How many of those landing up here in the "boom" were actual refugees? That fictitious Nigerian we were discussing earlier who is now apparently "Irish", chances are high they didn't show up here as a refugee or legally. Well, maybe a child was born here in due course which used to make it more legal... Put it another way I know two Nigerian women who came here legally and above board, highly qualified and even then they had to jump through official hoops.

    You're still avoiding my questions. Why are European and White societies so apparently in dire need of diversity and multiculturalism, when others aren't in play? Are those White Botswana citizens African people from Botswana? Not citizens, actual Africans. White South Africans have been there for centuries so they may get a pass, if a debatable and uncomfortable one for many(I'm not so sure of them myself, considering their history). If I moved to Nigeria, gained citizenship, would you consider me a true blue African Nigerian? I doubt it and I frankly won't believe you if you say otherwise.

    Your point - repeatedly stated only amounts to restating the pliable nature of the other that hate is directed towards. The dynamic remains the same. Only so many times it’s worth reiterating this fact.

    Refugees are all ‘actual refugees’. If you’re talking about immigrants, then call them immigrants. I emigrated to a country with social supports. My father did also, thirty years earlier. Plenty of families in this country had the same experience. It’s a country that was reliant on emigration for decades. Again - no need for scare quotes on a naturalised Irish person - they’re Irish.

    I’m not avoiding any question. You have created a narrative in your head about some national hierarchy of multiculturalism. It’s not one I subscribe to, and I’d not know where to start to try and figure out your thinking. If you aren’t prepared to accept an answer you don’t like, it’s probably best not to waste anyone’s time by asking in the first place.


  • Registered Users Posts: 993 ✭✭✭gw80


    My biggest issue with al this will be irelands need to be seen as the poster child of Europe, the need for a pat on the head from Germany,
    Ireland will have to have the best hate speech laws, the most right on than everyone,
    Germany. "Look at our hate speech laws, aren't we the most right on"
    Ireland. "Hold my beer"


  • Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    gw80 wrote: »
    My biggest issue with al this will be irelands need to be seen as the poster child of Europe, the need for a pat on the head from Germany,
    Ireland will have to have the best hate speech laws, the most right on than everyone,
    Germany. "Look at our hate speech laws, aren't we the most right on"
    Ireland. "Hold my beer"

    There’s some awfully deluded notions about. The hate speech bill is a response to an ICCL research paper and recommendations on hate crime in this country. It’s got precisely nothing to do with Germans or anyone else outside Ireland. There is no ‘pat on the head’. I doubt anyone in Germany either knows or cares about it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,304 ✭✭✭1800_Ladladlad


    The consultation ought be better publicised perhaps.

    It makes wonder if it was intentionally released on the hush. There no way 1/2 of the family would have seen this online as they don't have internet are have just begun using touch phones :p I found out about it through a comment section someone where else relating to the same topic. Sure some users on here were not aware of it either. It's not a trivial matter, the call for it to be better publicized is an understatement


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 1,177 ✭✭✭Ironicname


    Its not a law about feelings. Where hate speech directly calls for people to be killed because of their identity it is way more than fellings e.g. the man who set up the facebook page to “Promote the use of knacker babies as shark baitâ€

    In this case his hate speech was putting travellers lives in dangers.

    Are you that easily led? Do you think people will see that page and start using babies as shark bait?
    Its interesting that people seem to think setting up a facebook page called "promote the use of knacker babies as shark bait" is acceptable.

    Acceptable? Not really. Appropriate? Not at all. Illegal? Get t'****.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,611 ✭✭✭WrenBoy


    Ironicname wrote: »
    Are you that easily led? Do you think people will see that page and start using babies as shark bait?

    I think thats an element of it. The people who support "Hate Speech" laws see themselves as being the arbiters of what is/ isn't acceptable in this brave new world.
    In their eyes the rest of the public are just idiots who need to be told what offensive speech is otherwise if they see this facebook page they will all think its ok to kill traveller babies, the arrogance and disdain they have for ordinary people is astounding.

    People can think for themselves some are dickheads but the vast, vast majority are good people who know the difference between right and wrong and don't need Big Brother.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,311 ✭✭✭✭weldoninhio


    alastair wrote: »
    I’ll take their informed statement as having rather more insight than your own uninformed one. Cheers.

    I’m still curious what you want them arrested for.

    “Informed”. That’s some joke. Do they even know where they are originally from??

    Entering the country illegally. Countries have borders for a reason.


  • Posts: 0 Cora Sticky Limb


    alastair wrote: »
    There’s some awfully deluded notions about. The hate speech bill is a response to an ICCL research paper and recommendations on hate crime in this country. It’s got precisely nothing to do with Germans or anyone else outside Ireland. There is no ‘pat on the head’. I doubt anyone in Germany either knows or cares about it.

    it all boils down to whether you think an ICCL paper might have an agenda

    very few papers on behavioural science dont


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,497 ✭✭✭ Kameron Rapid Seacoast


    Its interesting that people seem to think setting up a facebook page called "promote the use of knacker babies as shark bait" is acceptable.

    The purpose of the legislation isn't to decide what's acceptable — it's to decide what's criminal. There's a difference.

    Speech should never be a criminal offence, with the potential exception of incitement to imminent lawless action.

    A recent case from the UK:
    A father of four has taken England’s police association and his own local police force to court after he was investigated by them for “hate speech” because he posted comments to social media questioning the LGBT claim that a man could become female through hormones and surgery.

    Do we want people investigated by the Guards for "hate speech" because they question whether a man can become female? Because this is the direction things will inevitably take — it will create a law that the perpetually offended can use to create fear, intimidation, and censorship, and prevent others from expressing legitimate opinions.


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 536 ✭✭✭Harvey Weinstein


    Perhaps they will make criticism of Zionism and Israel hate speech. Its happened in France recently and I see Trump is pushing for something similar.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,304 ✭✭✭1800_Ladladlad


    Perhaps they will make criticism of Zionism and Israel hate speech. Its happened in France recently and I see Trump is pushing for something similar.

    Any Religion should never be protected from any sort of ridicule. If you start to protect one, its downhill form there.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,497 ✭✭✭ Kameron Rapid Seacoast


    Any Religion should never be protected from any sort of ridicule. If you start to protect one, its downhill form there.

    Some display an obvious double standard, though, eagerly attacking Christians and Jews while regarding any criticism of Islam as "hate speech."


  • Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    “Informed”. That’s some joke. Do they even know where they are originally from??

    Entering the country illegally. Countries have borders for a reason.

    Entering a country in an irregular fashion, for the purpose of claiming asylum is not a criminal act. It’s decriminalised under international law. There’s nothing to arrest them for.


  • Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    it all boils down to whether you think an ICCL paper might have an agenda

    very few papers on behavioural science dont

    Sure - they don’t disguise their agenda - to protect civil liberties.


  • Registered Users Posts: 17,797 ✭✭✭✭hatrickpatrick


    mickuhaha wrote: »
    Well said. Free speech includes expressions that might offend or upset people in the interest of learning and finding truth.

    I am sure Aristotle's ideas upset, angered and offended alot of people and their beliefs.

    If one believes in the generally accepted historicity of Jesus, regardless of one's belief in his divinity or lack thereof, then he is certainly an example of a good man with generally good ideological views deserving of discussion at the very least, who was put to death by the authorities for daring to speak out against their bullsh!t.

    If one actually accepts the "freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences" bullsh!t which has crept into mainstream discourse during the 2010s, the logical conclusion is that Jesus should have kept his mouth shut, and deserved what he got, for having the temerity to criticise the hypocritical religious leaders of his day and age.

    This is the inevitable result of the loophole to accepting intolerance of political opinions which so many people have been pedalling since society's pendulum began swinging away from left wing identity politics.




  • I'm curious about the duality / contradictory aspect of simultaneously holding the following beliefs:

    1. There is zero enforcement of existing Law A
    2. Proposed Law B will be enforced in a totalitarian manner


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,281 ✭✭✭CrankyHaus


    alastair wrote: »
    Sure - they don’t disguise their agenda - to protect civil liberties.


    By supporting measures that endanger freedom of speech?


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,117 ✭✭✭✭Junkyard Tom


    If one actually accepts the "freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences" bullsh!t

    How is the statement 'speech has consequences' not just a description of reality? I don't understand this.


  • Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    CrankyHaus wrote: »
    By supporting measures that endanger freedom of speech?

    We have freedom of expression, but that freedom has always been constrained within laws to protect society. The only freedom constrained by hate speech legislation is, ehh, hate speech. Do you have a stake in hateful rhetoric?


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    How is the statement 'speech has consequences' not just a description of reality? I don't understand this.

    And how is it anything new? It’s older than the State.


  • Registered Users Posts: 19,307 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    CrankyHaus wrote: »
    By supporting measures that endanger freedom of speech?

    They don’t endanger freedom of speech. If you can’t articulate an argument without recourse to hate speech, that’s an issue for you, no-one else. ICCL have been championing freedom of expression for a lot longer than you have.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,117 ✭✭✭✭Junkyard Tom


    alastair wrote: »
    And how is it anything new? It’s older than the State.

    I can't figure out any circumstances where speech doesn't have effects/consequences. I mean, 'speech has consequences' is self-evidently true, isn't it?


  • Registered Users Posts: 288 ✭✭Slowyourrole


    CrankyHaus wrote: »
    By supporting measures that endanger freedom of speech?


    If the exercise of one right reduces the ability for others to enjoy another right then the rights must be balanced. Freedom to say what you want is generally ranked lower than another persons freedom to enjoy their life free from unwarranted harassment.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,281 ✭✭✭CrankyHaus


    alastair wrote: »
    We have freedom of expression, but that freedom has always been constrained within laws to protect society.

    Indeed it has : for example with the laws that came from The Committee on Evil Literature, which censored some of our greatest writers and even deterred Joyce's Ulysses from being sold here; the prohibitions on any information regarding abortion; or the 2009 Blasphemy Act which a Muslim Brotherhood linked cleric called to be used to prosecute Irish people supporting Charlie Hebdo after its offices were attacked by terrorists.

    You're really selling this to me :pac:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,311 ✭✭✭✭weldoninhio


    Any Religion should never be protected from any sort of ridicule. If you start to protect one, its downhill form there.

    One has been protected for years.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,311 ✭✭✭✭weldoninhio


    alastair wrote: »
    Entering a country in an irregular fashion, for the purpose of claiming asylum is not a criminal act. It’s decriminalised under international law. There’s nothing to arrest them for.

    Entering another country and breaking the law to do so is only decriminalised if you are in fear of your life. They had nothing to fear in Europe. They 100% could have been arrested for that, and criminal damage

    I don’t know if it’s laziness or wanting to be the good boy of the EU, but Ireland needs to start enforcing these laws.


  • Registered Users Posts: 40,452 ✭✭✭✭Annasopra


    If the exercise of one right reduces the ability for others to enjoy another right then the rights must be balanced. Freedom to say what you want is generally ranked lower than another persons freedom to enjoy their life free from unwarranted harassment.

    Exactly. This is what it boils down to - the right to free expression versus the right be safe and free from discrimination. It's a difficult balance between them because these rights collide.

    It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

    Terry Pratchet



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,022 ✭✭✭bfa1509


    alastair wrote: »
    They don’t endanger freedom of speech. If you can’t articulate an argument without recourse to hate speech

    This way of thinking is such a dangerous precedent. Who has the authority to determine what falls under the realm of hate speech? We all too often see people who speak the truth being accused of racism, bigotry, xenophobia etc. Why should speaking the truth be punishable by law?

    It's different in the case of defamation because you could consider someone's name to be the foundation of a business/reputation etc. therefore a value can be put on the damage to that person if the accusation is NOT true. The accuser should have to pay damages but their freedom to say these things should not be taken away, which this hate speech legislation boldly does.


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,492 ✭✭✭Sir Oxman


    If the exercise of one right reduces the ability for others to enjoy another right then the rights must be balanced. Freedom to say what you want is generally ranked lower than another persons freedom to enjoy their life free from unwarranted harassment.


    Are there not laws in place for harassment?


This discussion has been closed.
Advertisement