Free speech hypocrites
Is there a bigger hypocrite out there than Tánaiste Simon Harris?
At Gript I pointed out some hypocrisy over free speech. In Meet Simon, Free Speech Warrior I said,
“Goodness is there a bigger hypocrite out there than Tánaiste Simon Harris? He has been crying a river over the fact that Annabelle and Horatio from Donnybrook might not be able to wait tables in Newport, Rhode Island, US of A for the summer if their social media feeds are not to the taste of President Trump.
You see, the same man who tried to ram through some ridiculous hate speech law on the Irish people, has now found his membership to the Free Speech Union and thinks it would be a dreadful thing if undergraduates in Ireland didn’t get to the land of the free on the usual J1 visa this summer.
I continue on,
“And here is the kicker. The Americans are only policing the speech of a group of foreign students. Whereas the Irish government wants to police the speech of its own citizens, be that through the anti-free speech industrial NGO complex or the less subtle use of legislation.
Harris said, “I was making the point that we live in a country where young people have very, very strong views – as do I, by the way – on a lot of what’s going on in the world and they have every right to express those views.
Freedom of speech matters and being able to freely express yourself – online, offline, through protest – is an important part of our democracy, and I know President Trump is somebody who, I’d imagine in his own country, would champion free speech.”
You want to write that second part down. My sense is that we will need it when they try, Lazarus like, to resurrect their stinking anti-free speech Hate speech laws.
Here is the problem. If you agree with Harris, then it’s all free speech this and free speech that. If you disagree with him or his government, then suddenly you are guilty of hate speech.
For example, some might think it is a matter of free speech to say that men should not be able to deem themselves to be women and access female spaces (as is the law in Ireland right now) and others – our government and the entire MSM – will say that’s hate speech.”
Worth reading in full.
Annabelle and Matthew on a walk on a very soggy day in Feb, 2021. Salisbury. You can see how happy they are!
Free speech is the right to say what the government says this week and nothing more.
Freedom of protest is the right to protest in the proscribed way, during the hours set by the police and in the areas designated by the police. Unless they decide masked counter protestors escorted to and from the protest by the police cause too much trouble, then it is banned.
Freedom of movement and association are absolute, unless the government says otherwise.
This is where we are in the West today.
I may have quoted the late, lamented Kathy Shaidle here before, but the most concise critique of liberals ever conceived bears repeating: "Liberals. It's different when they do it."