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Guilty Until Proven Innocent in Ireland
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoTwo and a half years ago, Ireland abolished blasphemy laws. They're back already, and with a vengeance.
- ls612 3y agoThe only thing that changed was which religion it is a serious crime to blaspheme
- lucideer 3y agoThis bill bears no resemblance to the blasphemy laws. I'd recommend reading it before engaging in hyperbole.
- throwawa14223 3y agoYou really can't see the parallel between uttering ill of the elect, and uttering ill of the new elect?
- lucideer 3y agoI can absolutely see the parallel if you read a headline and have not made any effort to understand the subject matter in any depth, yes.
- karaterobot 3y agoCan you bullet point some of the key differences, for people who want to learn but don't have time to read the entire text of two different bills? It seems like you have done this work already, and it would be a valuable contribution to the discussion.
- lucideer 3y agoI have not "done this work already" (I have read but summarising and bullet pointing is separate work). The tone of your comment seems facetious - you seem to be expecting me to accept the burden of you being informed enough to comment on a topic. If you want to form an opinion on a topic I'd suggest doing the work learning about it. If you're too lazy to, I'd suggest refraining from commenting in ignorance (though I guess I can do nothing to prevent you).
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoYour tone is quite insulting and condescending. Are you sure that your comments are legal in Ireland?
- karaterobot 3y agoYour original comment made it seem like you had read the bills you were accusing others of not understanding as well as you, so I was giving you an opportunity to lay out some evidence or make an argument.
- lucideer 3y ago> I was giving you an opportunity to lay out some evidence While the is very generous of you, typically I find in these matters it's customary to place the burden of evidence on the person making the initial claim (in this case that being the the bill is a repeat of / resembles Ireland's old blasphemy laws)
- lucideer 3y agoJust for context on the publication here - "Persuasion" seems to be a Substack blog run by Yascha Mounk, a US political commentator who's mostly known for campaigning against "multinationalism" in Germany. The points made in the article aren't a reflection of broad public sentiment within Ireland - in particular the following statement: > Despite outcry from civil-liberties activists, the bill sailed through the lower house of Irish Parliament Civil-liberties activists within Ireland are overwhelmingly in favour of the bill. The word "outcry" links to an article reporting that Donald Trump Jr is against the bill, and that the Irish Council for Civil Liberties supports it. In short: this is blogspam wildly misrepresenting its own references.
- raxxorraxor 3y agoI would imagine that some civil liberties unions would have a lot of trouble with criminalizing "hatred". Not sure how accurate that fits the bill, but if it does, it wouldn't be the brightest bill among the stars or Ireland presumably.
- lucideer 3y agoAre you referring to American civil liberties unions, or Irish? I would recommend familiarising yourself with the bill & contributions to it from actual Irish bodies - its being carefully scrutinised & debated already, with a lot of nuance covered.
- raxxorraxor 3y agoNeither nor, I assume some universality among civil liberty unions. You maybe can sanction insults, although I wouldn't recommend that either, but can not legislate hate, love, solidarity or apathy. It is a fantasy and will surely at some point collide with the freedom of individuals, which civil liberty unions should protect.
- lucideer 3y ago> I assume some universality among civil liberty unions This seems like an extremely naive outline which I would read as basically saying "I assume everyone in the world should align with my personal cultural perspective". > can not legislate hate This is in my experience an Americanism that isn't particularly widely shared outside of the US.
- bwb 3y agoWow this is terrifying, I read some of the details and if a bad government gets in power this is the type of law that could bring incredible abuse against journalist, comedians, etc... crazy town. Does anyone know how it prevents misuse? As "hate" can be construed in such different ways.
- lucideer 3y ago> Does anyone know how it prevents misuse? As "hate" can be construed in such different ways. Its been carefully scrutinised and amendments submitted by many groups - including the Irish Council for Civil Liberties who support the final draft of the bill. If you're reading about the context around the bill this blogpost is a bad place to start: the author is pushing a racist agenda & the blog misrepresents its own linked references.
- bwb 3y agoYa I am very curious how it protects against misuse and defines these things. Have you found any good links? Everything I found online seems to indicate it needs to be better thought out and was pretty negative. Even EuroNews which I didn't think was anything but neutral on most things? IE, if a comedian makes a religious joke, why do they not face prosecution under this?
- lucideer 3y agoThe Euronews article leads with Donald Trump Jr's objections, and finishes with the Irish Council of Civil Liberties supporting the bill with some minor reservations which they submitted amendments on (as is normal in democratic procedure). The bill went before the house in september 2022 so there's been quite a lot of discussion, submissions and amendments accepted. Public engagement has been high. On whether Euronews is neutral - I don't know much about it tbh. Wikipedia says it's French and has been accused of having ties to Orbán of all people, which would align with the Trump representation. > IE, if a comedian makes a religious joke, why do they not face prosecution under this? The qualifier is direct encouragement of violence toward a group and there's explicit protections listed for "a reasonable and genuine contribution to literary, artistic, political, scientific, religious or academic discourse,"
- jmclnx 3y agoMight as well lockup the whole country :) I spent a bit time there for work many years ago, along in Scotland. It was a large project that involved Ireland and Scotland and the US. It also had people from England working it too. So, depending upon who I was with in the caf, the Irish would "talk hate" to the Scottish. But the Irish and Scottish would talk hate to the English. And all three would do the same against Americans (me). I thought it was funny. But with this law being active back them, and depends upon the law system, might as well lock us all up. I got my digs in too :) I think some refinement is probably needed.
- motohagiography 3y agoIf you have to make laws against people laughing at you, you have already lost.
- cjs_ac 3y ago1. This blog post is far from the first to do this, but I object to the use of the term 'lawmakers'. For one thing, the term is an unnecessary simplification, and refusal to use the proper titles for members of legislative bodies (in this case, Teachtaí Dála and Seanadóirí) only exacerbates our cultural solipsism. For another, the nature of these 'lawmakers' is crucial to understanding their motivations and intentions: a 'lawmaker' can be any of the following: * A person elected to represent a constituency that has an equal share of a population, e.g., a Member of Parliament, Deputy or Member of the House of Keys; * A person elected to represent a constituency that has an unequal share of a population, e.g., a US or Australian Senator, or a US congressperson; * A person elected to partially represent a multi-member constituency, e.g., a Teachta Dála; * A person elected to a legislative body on the basis of proportional representation albeit with no specific constituency, e.g., a list MP in New Zealand; * A person appointed to a legislative body on the basis of merit (e.g., a Canadian Senator or some life peers in the House of Lords); * A person appointed to a legislative body ex officio, e.g., the Lords Spiritual; * A person appointed to a legislative body on the basis of ancestry (e.g., the seventy-two representative hereditary peers in the House of Lords or the now-defunct Fijian Council of Chiefs); * A lobbyist or employee of a non-government business or organisation writing 'ready-to-enact' bills; * A non-political monarch, viceroy or other head of state who provides Royal Assent (or otherwise signs bills into law), e.g., the King of the United Kingdom, the Governor-General of Australia, or the President of Fiji; * A political monarch or head of state, e.g., the King of Saudi Arabia; or * A person appointed to political office, e.g., the Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia or a US cabinet secretary. 2. Irish Parliamentarians are elected by the people of Ireland to solve problems for the people of Ireland. Every right granted limits other rights, and so governments must balance these competing rights for the benefit of their people. The article makes no mention of the actual situation in Ireland, of examples of problematic discourse in Ireland, or examples of problematic suppression of discourse in Ireland. This is, again, cultural solipsism.
- jimlongton 3y ago2. The majority of the public do not want these laws. There is a lingering distrust of such things due to the decades long heavy hand of the church on Irish life. There is also no epidemic of 'hate speech' or any such extreme situation warranting them. Individual instances of opposition to immigration for example (which is causing serious issues with hotel and student accommodation at the moment) are so rare that the make national headlines for days or weeks. These laws are a solution in search of a problem. Unfortunately these "lawmakers" are rushing to sacrifice the rights of citizens for a quick PR win.
- GloomyBoots 3y agoIt bears mentioning that despite the Justice Minister’s unsubstantiated claims to the contrary, polling consistently shows that the vast majority of Irish people are opposed to this. Which in itself isn’t unusual, but the Irish seem more energized around such issues than others at present. will be a place to watch in the near future.
- jimlongton 3y agoI campaigned to end the Blasphemy law in Ireland. This law is hoestly sickening. We all know if will be weaponised to fight culture wars and target political dissent. I cannot wait until someone asks for the Archbishop of Dublin or the Chief Rabbi or Imam to be arrested under these laws - but they won't be of course. Taken literally it even permits people in possession of a Bible or Koran to be arrested - texts which promote slavery, murder of unbelievers and homosexuals, genital mutilation, praises genocides and the mistreatment of women and so on.
- lucideer 3y agoDo you have a link to such polls? Quite a lot of the established Irish media has, roughly speaking, been opposed to the law, but there seems broad public support for it.
- GloomyBoots 3y agoThe most official source is gov.ie’s public consultation results. These have been reviewed by others, with a little under a quarter in support of such measures and a little under three quarters against them, with very few conflicted on the subject. These are the same consultation results cited by Helen McEntee when she claimed it had the support of “the vast majority of people”. https://www.gov.ie/en/consultation/c3d5e9-hate-speech-public-consultation/ https://www.gov.ie/en/consultation/c3d5e9-hate-speech-public... And other polls tend to bear out the same result. https://www.thejournal.ie/ireland-freedom-of-speech-3178693-Jan2017/ https://www.thejournal.ie/ireland-freedom-of-speech-3178693-...
- lucideer 3y ago
- ofcourseyoudo 3y agoI trust the assessment of the ACLU about this kind of law, but I will point this out: almost EVERY time you see an instance cited about how some "woke" ideology went wrong, if you follow up the original incident you will see there is more to the story. For example, in this article they cite Glasgow police arresting LGBT protesters because of their sign. Read the link, here is what happened to the protestors from their point of view: "Bradley detailed the incident: “We went to the front of the march in an attempt to lead it ourselves. We were quickly jumped on by uniformed officers. I was wrestled to the ground, cuffed in a very painful way, and taken to the side, my friend was held in a chokehold and another was arrested too. We were charged with breach of the peace, and let out after seven hours in custody.” Another queer activist arrested on the day, Rob, related his experience to Dazed. Rob says that after activists unravelled their banner they experienced “immediate aggression” from officers. Two activists were pinned to the floor, with more eventually cuffed. “The officers proceeded to detain us by pinning us against a fence nearby with little to no explanation of why,” they explain. “It took them 10 minutes to decide we were being arrested after alternating between excuses – initially I was told it was because I told a cop to ‘fuck off’ through the megaphone, though videos show no swears leaving my mouth throughout the entire action. Later it was decided we were disrupting the peace.” The explanation that they were arrested because their sign said "f**ts" was what the POLICE said was the reason why. Grains of salt all around, and a recognition that reactionary forces will have no qualms about exploiting the appearance of "woke gone wild" to defend their brutalist tactics.
- lucideer 3y agoJust to clarify the general thrust of your comment - you open with trusting the ACLU. I haven't seen them assess this particular law & I'm not familiar with similar assessments; what's their stance?