---

Dáil Eireann, the lower house of the Irish Parliament, has passed the most radical hate speech law in the history of the Irish State.

The likely effect of this law, if it is passed in its current form in the Seanad, or Senate, will be to create a chilling effect around any speech that could be construed as critical. It will generate an atmosphere of insecurity for many citizens, due to the hopelessly vague and subjective manner in which hate speech offences are defined.

As currently written, the hate speech law will assume anyone in possession of hateful material can be presumed guilty of wanting to spread it, unless they can prove themselves innocent.

Last Thursday, Irish Senator Sharon Keogan released a video explaining the powers the bill gives to the Garda or Irish police.

Careful Now! Don't be caught with the wrong opinions. This video explains the #Gardai powers under the new #HateSpeech bill. pic.twitter.com/yV44hv3Ns5

— Senator Sharon Keogan (@SenatorKeogan) May 11, 2023

Two days before, speaking at a Free Speech Ireland event held on 9 May in Dublin, Senator Sharon Keogan said the government’s new hate speech bill is partly designed to keep political dissenters quiet. “You [would be] treated like the local drug dealer,” she said, painting a picture of a scenario where someone comes under suspicion of being in possession of hateful material, resulting in their home being raided and their electronic devices seized.

David Thunder, a researcher and lecturer of political philosophy at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, has also been trying to raise awareness and has highlighted some of a few key elements of the bill in an article HERE.  John Waters is another who is urgently trying to get the message out to his fellow Irishmen to sit up and take notice.  The following is Waters’ latest article.

The Internment of Thought

By John Waters

Once again, Ireland finds itself functioning as the petri dish of a predatory experiment orchestrated by the motherWEFfers and their puppet masters.

The Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill, 2022, now at the final stages prior to enactment, and without other than token parliamentary resistance, is the prototype for a form of thought-control previously associated chiefly with the great tyrannies of the twentieth century.

In the past few weeks, largely thanks to the sterling ingenuity of activists like Keith Woods, Ireland’s latest descent into shame and degradation has come to the notice of international figures, like Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson. But even yet, the message has failed to penetrate the mainstream of public discussion, in Ireland or elsewhere, so that the former free West continues to sleepwalk into the digital dungeon being prepared for it.

Two years ago, I wrote of the then-threatened legislation:

Unless constitutionally overturned, the ‘hate speech laws’ . . . will turn Ireland into a two-tier society of adult-children who cannot be looked crooked at and will have no responsibility for anything, and adults who will require to tiptoe around the adult-children for fear of offending them, to be held responsible for every conceivable remotely slighting meaning of their words or actions. The Bill, therefore, if made into law, will achieve all the things the authorities currently claim are resulting from our “racist” society. It will divide the “community”; it will give rise, in the absence of the capacity for verbal exchanges, to violent interaction; it will turn Ireland into a profoundly racist society. There are those who say that this is the intention behind it; that, as a Cultural Marxist instrument, it is designed to foment division and chaos, leading eventually to civil war. If so, it will in time be a resounding success. 

In recent weeks, as the Bill made its way – with minimal resistance – through the Irish parliament, I have been working in common with other Irish writers and commentators to alert and inform the outside world of what is happening in our country, and to warn them that it is soon to happen to their countries too.

Below are links to two of the interviews I’ve conducted in the past week. One is with Patrick Henningsen of the alternative podcast platform, 21st Century Wire; the other was conducted on The Freeman Report with James Freeman, and broadcast on TNT Radio, Australia.

We have provided individual links for each of the interviews so that they can be shared separately as well as in the form of the complete post.

Please share the links as widely as possible.

Underneath them is a link to a comprehensive analysis of the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill, 2022, first published on Substack last October, which includes also links to previous articles I’ve written on the same subject. Please also share however possible.

Links:

• Link to Sunday Wire interview with Patrick Henningsen: HERE
• Alternative link for 21st Century Wire podcast: HERE  (On this version, the interview starts at 31 minutes)
• Link to James Freeman Show on TNT: HERE
• Link to my October Substack 2022 analysis of the Irish version of “hate speech” laws: HERE

About the Author

John Waters is an Irish columnist and author. He started his career with music and politics magazine Hot Press and also wrote for the Sunday Tribune newspaper. He later edited the social magazine In Dublin and the investigative and current affairs magazine Magill. He became a regular columnist at the Irish Times and then the Irish Independent.  He has also been a member of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.  After leaving Irish journalism, he has published articles in First Things, frontpagemag.com, The Spectator, and The Spectator USA.

Waters has authored 10 books and devised The Whoseday Book which raised 3 million euros for the Irish Hospice Foundation. He regularly publishes articles on his Substack page ‘John Waters Unchained’ which you can subscribe to HERE.

Featured image: New hate speech laws kick up a storm in Ireland