(LifeSiteNews) –– Ireland is moving ahead with some of the most draconian speech laws in the world. As reports now show, the new legislation provides for the criminalization of Christianity.
As I reported in May, the measures will designate the transmission of Church teachings as a criminal offense.
READ: Ireland ‘hate speech’ bill could criminalize defense of traditional Catholic teaching
The Criminal Justice: Incitement to Hatred or Hate Offenses Bill 2022 is passing through the Irish chambers of government. In this video, an Irish Green Party representative is seen justifying the criminalization of speech as a “safety” measure.
Ireland’s descent into authoritarianism continues.
This is Irish Green Party Senator Pauline O’Reilly weaponising the concept of “safety” to justify censorship and other encroachments on freedom of speech.pic.twitter.com/qdD59IDE07
— Andrew Doyle (@andrewdoyle_com) June 15, 2023
When opposition equals public support
In an extraordinary interview with Gript Media’s Ben Scallan, Irish Justice minister Helen McEntee has claimed the law enjoys widespread support, describing the only people who oppose the laws as “fringe commentators.”
Justice Minister Helen McEntee says that “the vast majority of people” want hate speech laws.#gript pic.twitter.com/BZy6MBgKLp
— gript (@griptmedia) June 14, 2023
Despite a recent poll showing that 65 percent of Irish people are against the laws, McEntee continues to insist these draconian measures enjoy popular approval. She then cites Irish government studies which do not support her claims.
McEntee then simply states: “That’s incorrect to say the vast majority of people don’t want this.”
Her case is reinforced in her own mind by referring to minorities who are suffering from “hate speech – just because of who they are.” She is likely referring to the “transgender” minority, whose protection has been invoked by Pauline O’Reilly, Irish Green Party senator.
“When one thinks about it, all law and all legislation is about the restriction of freedom. This is exactly what we are doing here,” O’Reilly argued. “We are restricting freedom but we are doing it for the common good.”
The common good versus the common people
This “common good” is uncommon outside the imagination of Open Society politicians.
McEntee said that the debates in the two houses of Irish government, the Dail and the Seanad, showed that there was widespread support to criminalize religion, jokes and disagreement. It was pointed out to her that these are debates between politicians. She ended the interview with her refusal to answer the question intact.
As Scallan reported on May 3:
A total of 73% of respondents to the government’s consultation – 2627 individuals total – did not support the government’s plan to ban hate speech. Many argued that the only valid restriction on free speech should be credible threats or incitements to violence, but stressed that simple offensive speech should not be criminalized.
What is the question?
The question here, as elsewhere, is why these laws are being enacted without popular support. No one is clamoring for criminal penalties to be attached to speech, opinions, the profession of the Christian faith or to funny pictures on your phone.
The language used to justify these measures shows the deep influence of NGOs and their Open Society agenda to subvert the traditional culture of sovereign nations.
Helen McEntee refers to a process of “extensive public consultation” which has been ongoing since 2019. As the Irish newspaper The Journal reported on June 18:
This included a short public survey; detailed written submissions; seven independently facilitated discussion workshops around the country; and a series of meetings with stakeholder groups, civil society, academics, law enforcement professionals and other experts, said the minister.
Who or what are “stakeholder groups”? What is “civil society”? These are terms familiar to anyone who is familiar with the jargon of the world’s leading philanthropist.
Aside from McEntee’s own connection to the transgender industry – her husband is an executive for a company which sells “puberty blockers” – she displays an attitude common throughout the political class. She is convinced that she is right, and that is the reason these policies will be enacted.
After all, history appears to be on her side. In a move which is seen by legal campaigners as a blueprint for the rest of Europe, Ireland is once again taking a pioneering move towards “social justice.”
The ‘opening’ of Ireland
In 2015, Ireland became one of only four countries worldwide to legally enshrine the right of “self identification.” Months after a referendum in favor of same sex “marriage,” Ireland passed a gender recognition bill which allowed for people to “legally change gender.”
Pressed by advocacy groups such as the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, these measures are advertised on the left-wing billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundation site as evidence of a natural and “evolutionary” social process.
As written by Open Society Foundation at the time:
Ireland has been experiencing a massive cultural shift that cannot be explained by one factor alone. What was for centuries a Catholic stronghold has rapidly evolved into a much more socially liberal place.
One factor that is not mentioned is that groups like the ICCL have benefited from millions of dollars in donations from foreign “philanthropists” – such as Soros himself and U.S. billionaire Chuck Feeney.
Soros’ foundation continued:
The Yes Equality campaign established by GLEN, Marriage Equality, and the ICCL – groups working for equality for LGBT people for many years – along with many supporters and collaborators, was pivotal to Friday’s victory.
Over the past several years, these groups have learned to adapt their strategies to changing social and political opportunities and setbacks. They have perfected their positive framing and messaging with a campaign focused on equality, love, and compassion, rather than minority rights and privileges. (emphasis added)
The Open Society Foundation celebrates the above measures as victory – for the very methods of subversion which it teaches to groups such as these.
Now it is leading the charge of progress once again, with Lawyers for Justice Ireland warning of another dangerous precedent – the use of propaganda under lockdown.
How could Ireland – one of the most solid Catholic nations in the world – so completely lose its way? The island of saints and scholars is becoming a place where the mention of Christian morality is a crime.
Progress, tolerance and the Open Society
In a forthcoming piece I will show how formerly “closed” societies, such as that of Ireland, have been “opened.”
Their transformation from traditional family-based cultures into supermarketplaces of sin and insanity is not an inexorable process. It is the result of deliberate campaigning by wealthy NGOs and their partners in so-called “civil society.”
The Open Society Foundation of the Soros family is heavily invested in the promotion of abortion, rainbow “rights” and the peculiar idea of tolerance it borrowed from Karl Popper’s eponymous book.
In The Open Society and its Enemies, from which Soros took the name of his foundation, Popper presented a model of tolerance which is clearly exampled in the push to criminalize speech and captioned pictures.
He argued that a tolerant society must not tolerate intolerance, or it will become intolerant itself.
This paradox is seen as very wise by people who are extremely skilled at spotting “hate” in the word of God, and in jokes and other basic remarks about reality.
At the same time, these wise people are incapable of noticing that the intolerance they are criminalizing is the word of God and basic observations about reality.
What is being illegalized is the accurate description of the truth. This is “progress.”
Soros’ Open Society Foundation had a campaign targeting Ireland for its “closed” position on abortion.
Ireland now legally recognizes the right to call yourself a woman, a man or anything else regardless of the facts – and the contradiction of this deranged fantasy is to be criminalized.
It will likewise be perilous to remind the sinful of the consequences of their disordered behaviors, just as the new laws will also provide for the criminalization of protest against a vast wave of migration.
The Irish people are ignored and their creed, culture and rights are being removed by a political class which does not inhabit the consequences of their actions. The template of the Open Society, and its “intolerance of tolerance” is the reason that Christianity is now redefined as hatred, and the noticing of reality a criminal offense.
The Open Society and its enemies is a prescient title for the politics of our time. As the example of Ireland makes clear, the enemies of the Open Society are the common people and their Christian culture. Everything that is sacred is hatred to the open-minded.
The normal is marginalized, and the marginal is normalized.
In Ireland, soon it will be a crime to mention it.
If you would like to know more about this story, follow the excellent Lawyers for Justice Ireland.