The Highwire with Del Bigtree - IRISH ‘HATE SPEECH’ BILL COULD SET DANGEROUS PRECEDENT

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Dr. David Thunder, professor, researcher and political philosopher, looks into the details of Ireland’s new Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Crimes Bill 2022, which has already passed the lower house of the government. In the bill, citizens could be jailed for up to 5 years for simply possessing materials contrary to what is deemed appropriate by the Irish government.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

A lot of the focus of this conversations today is on censorship, who's controlling speech, who's making decisions in the government, and are we going to be allowed to speak out and say, hey, I don't agree with that. Are we going to lose that opportunity? But all these conversations are censorship, which is after I've posted something, after I've put something out. But so many dystopian novels and books and, you know, movies out there have been about, what if you were being arrested for things you're thinking about or just looking at or reading or researching or what if somebody tweeted a question to you that somehow could be considered as capable of inciting violence? Even if it's hidden in the middle of your home and was never going to be out in the light of day, there's a new law that's being tested out in Ireland where they can kick in your door and come and arrest you for things that you're reading and thinking about. Take a look at this. The Minister for Justice is to strengthen the law against hate crimes and hate speech with the aim of making it easier

to secure convictions in the courts. But some cautioned that they will be examining the published bill to ensure there is no impact on freedom of speech. What we don't want to do here is to have a piece of legislation that ends up criminalising the wrong people. Even to be in possession of material

without even sharing it, anybody can get a knock on the door, a warrant from the Gardee, they can come in, search my home, search everybody that's in my home, take all their devices. take all our computers, take any material that is relevant to them that they see to be relevant to the case. What you don't want to have is somebody in an altercation who says something stupid

that is then labelled a hate criminal. This is designed to cut public discourse. To shut down conversation about immigration, shut down conversations about a whole series of topics that the government don't want to talk about. I think this legislation that they're bringing in is certainly just to try and keep those that have dissent on government issues to keep us quiet. It's going to catch ordinary people who have no painful agenda whatsoever, but just want to talk about things that they believe in in normal, sane and rational fashion.

And they will suffer the most. Well, this bill, this hate bill in Ireland, is just past the lower house and is moving its way into the Senate, and many believe it's going to pass there. And it really may be a vision of things to come for other nations around the world, which is why I think it's important to have this conversation. And I'm joined now by David Thunder, who's been doing a lot of writing and reporting on this very bill and the problems around it. And I'm honored to be joined by him now. David, first of all, just is this a brand new bill or is this, you know, an adjustment to something that's already existed? What exactly is happening here? This bill, thank you for having me on.

This bill is essentially an update of the 1989 incitement to hatred act. So, in fact, there has already been hate speech legislation on the books in Ireland for a long time, for many years. and what this bill does is it expands the categories of protected characteristics to include things like gender and it makes some other modifications but in many respects this bill reiterates and repeats what we already had on the books in Ireland. So if people are worried about this bill, they should be worried about the legislation that's already on our book. Right. Now, when you say expanding, I know like there's these issues really all around the world that we're now dealing with, with, you know, gender, trans, all these new words for sort of sexual orientation. Obviously, race is, you know, always been an issue, but has got a sort of heightened sensitivity around it. Are these the types of things that are sort of being folded in here now?

Yes, there are two characteristics that are being folded in that are kind of interesting. One is gender and the other is sex characteristics, which I'm assuming means something like if you're a man or a woman. Maybe they also mean if you've had some kind of hormonal therapy. I'm not sure hormone therapy. But the gender category is particularly interesting because the way they define gender here is the gender of a person or the gender which a person expresses as the person's person's preferred gender or with which the person identifies and includes transgender and a gender other than those of male and female. So what on earth does this actually mean? It seems to mean whatever someone wants it to mean essentially.

You know, if I identify with gender X or Y or Z or I invent a new gender, then that becomes a protected category. So it's an extraordinary radical redefinition of gender. And what worries me about this in particular is that it may have a chilling effect on speech because if somebody, for example, wanted to question the agenda of the trans lobby, if they just wanted to question whether or not, for example, trans men should participate in women's athletic contests or whether or not children should receive trans therapy, hormone therapy, they could be branded as purveyors of hate speech, as inciting hate speech, and they could be prosecuted and put in jail for up to five years.

Now, in my reading of this, and if I'm stepping too far, let me know, but this isn't just things you're seeing saying in public. If I have a friend that text me, let's say, an article saying that, you know, transgender isn't real or that this is a psychological problem, it's not a real manifestation, or let's say I'm doing my own research for my child in my house, and I have books that are laying out a differing perspective. I'm looking at different perspectives.

Actually having literature that is not, you know, expressing the narrative that my government is supporting, that could be considered hate speech, could it not? And I can be arrested for that, for having those materials in my house? Yes, there's one proviso that is that they can, if they reasonably assume that you're preparing that text for publication. But the problem is that the burden of proof, if they reasonably assume this, reasonably assume it, then the burden of proof is on you to prove that you did not intend to publish it. So they've reversed the burden of proof and put it on the person who's being charged.

So I now have to prove that I do not intend to publish something that's on my computer if the prosecutor is assuming that it is intended for publication. But the really worrying point here is what you're saying, which is that a text that I have never published that is sitting on my computer or on a piece of paper in my drawer could be a ground for prosecution and for imprisonment. I'm sure for an American audience where I know the tradition of free speech

is especially strong, it's probably especially shocking to think that a police officer could knock on my door and arrest me because of a piece of text that I have on my computer that I have never published. That's extraordinary,

an extraordinary attack on the private sphere, on the right of freedom of expression, even of freedom of thought, because the thoughts that are on my laptop are essentially my thoughts. And the idea that somebody could arrest me because of this is extraordinary, is truly extraordinary and quite shocking. It really is. And, you know, look, I think the problem with this word hate is,

I don't think anyone, any reasonable, decent human being, you know, believes in hate or allowing for hate. But what is the definition of hate when it's, comes to this law. How well defined is that term? This law does not define hate in any place. It simply says that it defines as a crime speech act, a public speech act or behavior that would be likely, likely to incite hatred or violence against the group. It never defines what hatred is. And the flaw in this act is a flaw that we find in all hate speech legislation all over the world,

which is essentially that it makes me the speaker criminally liable for the emotional effect of my words on my listeners. So if somebody's listening to a speech or to an article that I've published that is defending, say, man, woman marriage, or is critical of some aspect of trans-education. or the trans movement, then if they feel in their heart some kind of hatred towards one of these protected groups

as a result of what I've published, then suddenly I'm criminally liable for that feeling that's in their heart. And to be more precise, I'm criminally liable if a judge deems that my text would be likely to incite such a feeling. there's no legal certainty there for the citizen there's no real protection of citizens rights in this bill because how can I have any certainty about whether I'll be prosecuted or not based on this vague catch-all category of hate speech of incitement to hate it's a very woolly

kind of charge that I've incited hate and it's extremely subjective and there's really no way for a judge to objectively distinguish between hateful speech and reasonable discourse. Why? Because all discourse that is polemical and is controversial and is vibrant is likely to incite strong feelings in listeners. And sometimes it will incite hateful feelings. But are we really suggesting that we should shut down any speech that could potentially, you know, cause a feeling of hatred in someone? you're basically saying we should shut down public speech in general political speech it's it's nothing short of orwellian really when you think about it just this idea that language has to be you know you know washed before it can be consumed or that i even think i mean

not to you know be too outrageous but it's a bit of a minority report you know idea where i'm being arrested for something that something on my computer may potentially caused harm or maybe printed or I have got to prove that I wasn't intending to use this in some way, like intentions. And it really turns the political system on its head because as you've sort of described in many ways, I'm guilty until I can prove myself innocent versus the opposite, which is I'm innocent, at least in the United States of America, the way our system, you're innocent until proven guilty. These are accusational crimes around, as you've pointed out, very, very emotionally charged issues. You know, these are, and in some ways they're being, you know,

inflated by media, um, for whatever reason, so that anyone that goes near this conversation, even at our dinner tables, you know, even at my own home, you know, if I disagree with someone in my family, this, these conversations get, you know, very emotional, very quickly, which used to be okay. I mean, you're Irish, you know, I've, you know, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, you know some German and Native American background and you know we were a loud family and we're you know emotional intense it's almost as though if anything creates emotion then you could really be in trouble and how does journalism survive this how are journalists allowed to write you know articles and ask important questions about for instance the science which is is so infantile when it comes

to transgender drugs and procedures on children. So little is known, but is as a journalist my questioning the value and quality of the science there, you know, creating hatred towards this group that believes that it's necessary? I mean, there's a really, really slippery slopes. Absolutely. I think that this is an important point that journalists will be particularly vulnerable because they regularly put out in the public sphere controversial arguments. And it's worth pointing out that this is going to politicize the criminal law

because the criminal law will be aligned with certain political causes. And the way that works is that if you draw a boundary around certain categories, around certain characteristics, and you say that any speech that could incite hatred or hateful feelings against those groups specifically, and not other groups, but those groups, then what you're saying is that some speech, is vulnerable to hate crime prosecution, hate speech prosecution, and other speech is not.

Which speech is vulnerable to prosecution? Speech surrounding controversial issues like transgender operations, trans participation in contests, speech surrounding same-sex marriage, or issues surrounding homosexuality and its role in society. So issues surrounding feminism and the role of men and women, These are all issues that could potentially land somebody in jail if their speech is perceived by others as hateful,

or if a judge perceives their speech as being likely to elicit or incite hateful feelings. So I go back to that point that really, it's an entirely subjective category, this idea of incitement to hate, and in practice, it will be used in a way that favors certain political, causes and disfavors others.

So, you know, Ireland, as we've reported, you know, a lot of the work that we've done on the high wire was, you know, looking at this pandemic vaccine mandates. And in many ways, it seems to me that Ireland seems to be almost a test ground, some of the most draconian measures around vaccine mandates and limiting whether you could work or things you could do and how you moved in society, Ireland really sort of jumped on the bandwagon of really oppressing freedom of movement around the pandemic. And now this law is really going, you know, I think a step further than where we've seen anywhere else in the world so far on the idea of speech, the freedom of speech, what is hate speech, and the fact that they can now come

in my house and look at literature I have are things in my texts. That's a whole other. level is there something about Ireland that's putting it you know that's being used as a test ground or is it just a one of me do you think about that since this is something obviously you've been focused on yes i think that it's very remarkable that this particular piece of legislation is really not representative of public opinion in ireland and for example the submissions to the committee for this legislation were overwhelmingly against it the public submissions there was a consultation process and and they just decided to just go ahead and ram the legislation through anyway and so that really raises the question why why would

the irish government be so eager to push through a piece of legislation for which there is very little popular demand and as senator ronan mullin suggested i think NGOs have a lot to do with it I think there's, even though I don't have, you know, direct documentary evidence for this, looking at the facts, looking at the fact that this does not represent public opinion, it's not politically advantageous domestically for them to push this through. So you have to ask the question, what are they gaining from pushing this through politically? Were they influenced by lobbies, by NGOs? I suspect that they were.

And I think the other factor is that in the Irish psyche, especially in our political, political elite, there is this basically hunger for affirmation by the international community. So they really want to be ahead of the curve and pushing through all the most progressive, so-called progressive policies, which is what they did with the pandemic. So there's a kind of a psychological explanation about how our political elite thinks. They want to be ahead of the posse, ahead of the, you know, the rest of the community, the international community in pushing through whatever they consider to be the latest trend in the international community that's interesting it gives it gives ireland a bit of a celebrity or

a power it doesn't have it can be a leader in the world if it in any what you're saying is essentially it sees the writing on the wall and where is it's going so we might as well jump on this burst so that in some ways we're asserting ourselves and showing the world that we led here that's really an interesting issue. So it's passed through the lower house. What is your sense? I mean, now it's going to, I'm going to the Senate. Is that correct?

And is it expected to pass there, or is it going to get some resistance? There are a few senators who are vocally opposed to this bill, but I believe that I believe it will pass through the Senate. And then the President, President Higgins, has the option of referring to the Supreme Court for judicial review. So it could potentially go for judicial review, and in that case, the court would have to review the legislation and strike down any parts of it that it considered to be unconstitutional. But my sense is that this will go through, and because many problematic parts of this bill were already on our books, statute books since 1989, I think it's very doubtful that it will be struck down. I think this bill is likely to be legalized, unfortunately. Do you have a sense? I mean, I don't know how much you

track like World Economic Forum, this sort of, as you call it, globalists that are looking at more of a sort of a global monitoring systems and dictating to leaders all around the world how we should all be handled as a society. A lot of these hate. speech bills, the AI, things that are coming, the analysis and tracking of information on our phones, you know, tracking systems when it comes to vaccines, they're talking about carbon credit scores, all of this. Do you think that this is, do you see this from your perspective? You're on the, you know, the other side of the pond, if you will. Do you have a sense that there's, there's a sort of a global agenda that's affecting Ireland in all of this?

Yes, I think that it would be foolish and naive to think that any country can escape the effect of tendencies within global elites, political elites. You don't need to be a wild conspiracy theorist to recognize that the World Economic Forum, the European Union, the European Commission and also key actors in the United States government would have, among others, would have, an influence upon the general atmosphere in the world, especially in the Western world, but also in the non-Western world. And an example of this trend is the European Commission, which is coming down hard on what they consider to be disinformation. And they already have a framework that will allow them to find Twitter and private social media companies to find them very heftily if they're found guilty of, if they don't sufficiently

police disinformation, what the European Commission considers disinformation, which is extremely worrying. And again, it just shows that the leadership, if you want to call it that,

on suppressing free speech, is coming from the very top, from the top of Europe. Right. Well, we are aligned there. I'm really happy to meet you and have this conversation. When, you know,

we're an international show, but obviously we're based the United States of America. Here in America, you know, I think there's some level of complacency that's wearing off, but is still there with this idea. We have a very strong constitution. I think a lot of people were shocked, though, how quickly that seemed to be overridden by the pandemic and the lockdowns. And, you know, really didn't matter what side of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats seemed to be locking down most of the nation taking away our businesses. And so when we look at this bill, we can, I think there's a tendency to say, well, that's Ireland, you know, that's going to be their problem.

What would you want to say to other nations like America, like Canada, you know, Australia, countries around the world that once considered themselves to be free? Is this something that you think we should all be worrying about it? And what should we do about it? Yeah, I would say that people should not be complacent because cultural trends, trends in public opinion at the international level will eventually seep down to the ordinary citizen and they will affect the civic culture of the United States. The Constitution is as good as the civic culture that supports it. And so relying on the paper of the Constitution without taking

into consideration the strength of the civic culture would be naive. So I think that basically people should remember that these kinds of trends do affect speech in the United States, specifically they affect speech on private platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and potentially Twitter. For now, Twitter is freer than it was before. So that's very important. It does affect private platforms. And so I think people do need to be aware that this is an issue affecting public opinion. and it could turn against them eventually, especially on private platforms,

which in many ways are often just as important as public platforms for free speech. Should this bill pass when you look at the type of language you use, when you write and the work that you do, will it change how you're approaching and others like you? Do you think this will change how you approach it or will you stand your ground and take the risk to, you know, what do you feel like your position is here? My position is that I will speak the truth and I will defend the truth. And if the police want to come knocking on my door because of that, then so be it. Well, it's nice to know someone that thinks I feel the same way. If we kowtow to this, if we hide in the corners, then there'll be no one left to stand up for anybody.

And so I think really ultimately we got to stand together. And so we stand with you. I truly believe that this is just the beginning of something that is starting to sweep across this nation. It must be nipped in the butt and must be stopped immediately. What's the best way to follow your work and the writing and the things that you're doing on subjects like this? Yeah, they could follow me on Twitter, which is at David J. Thunder. I'm on Twitter at David J. Thunder. They could also follow me on Substack on my blog, which is David thunder.substack.com.

Well, I want to thank you for your courage. I want to thank you for being outspoken and bring, you know, you were vocal enough that this sort of popped up in our feed in our space to make us aware of it. So you're making a difference in the world. And now millions of people, you know, through our show, are going to be aware of this issue. And I know you're doing other, you know, media out there. It's people like you that make a difference in the world. I really want to thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us today. Thank you. I appreciate that.

All right. Take care of day. We'll talk to you soon and keep me posted on all the newer developments. I will.