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THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill, 2022, attracted limited comment when it passed through the Dáil last year and was carried at the final stage by 110 votes to 14.
Yet, it has been highlighted in recent days following the heavy defeats of the two referendums on family and care. Some of those who opposed the referendums cite the Hate Speech legislation as the latest element of the ‘woke agenda’ that they wish to oppose. Others, including those in government parties, feel that the legislation should not be a priority as we move into the final year of this administration.
The closer we move toward elections, politicians will always be nervous about engaging in areas that may appear controversial. But just because we face political contests does not mean we should shy away from debate – the underlying issues that pointed to the need for this legislation will not go away.
The desire to legislate in this area does not come from nowhere. It comes from very genuine concerns where we have seen individuals targeted because of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion and other grounds related to their perceived or actual identity.
We already have the 1989 Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act, but that legislation has been found not to be sufficiently effective and it is from a different era, long before an increasingly polarised online public space has emerged that facilitates anger directed against individuals and groups because of whom they happen to be.
There are legitimate concerns that freedom of expression could be hugely damaged if the State seeks to intervene too far. So what principles should we use as legislators if we choose to regulate speech and expression? What might guide us?
What about these:
“You may not threaten, incite, glorify, or express desire for violence or harm.”
“You can’t affiliate with or promote the activities of violent or hateful entities.”
“You may not share abusive content, engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so.”
“You may not attack other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or serious disease.”
These are not Sections of the government’s Hate Speech legislation. They are, in fact, the “Rules of X”, the community standards of the platform formerly known as Twitter. Drawn up by people who work for one of the world’s wealthiest men, they set the limits on free speech on his platform with no recourse to legislators and determine how these rules are enforced.
Although he never actually said or wrote it, the phrase attributed to Voltaire is often trotted out when debates arise around Free Speech,
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”,
Whether in Revolutionary France or contemporary democracies, it remains a point of contention as to where the line should be drawn, if one is to be drawn at all, between ensuring that vital right of freedom of expression (no matter how horrible or horrific the views expressed) and protecting other rights, such as privacy, freedom from harassment and incitement to violence and to avoid being targeted because of one’s identity.
The debate around ‘freedom of expression’ is forming a central element of the so-called culture wars. When and where is it appropriate to regulate what people can say? What constitutes ‘Hate Speech’? How do we allow for awful but lawful content online, but still try to ensure safe spaces and battle polarisation?
As a member of the Oireachtas Media Committee, these were among the questions I and colleagues considered as we examined in detail what became the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act. The issues are now resurfacing in the context of the deliberations on Hate Speech legislation.
Arguably some of the best legal views on these questions were considered by US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Holmes was a civil libertarian and was a strong defender of the American First Amendment. He tried to draw the line between what should be classified as ‘protected’ and ‘unprotected’ speech.
In a case in 1919, he set out the ‘clear and present danger’ test that needed to be considered by lawmakers.
The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.
He used the example of someone running into a crowded theatre and falsely shouting ‘Fire!’. There are clear and dangerous consequences of such an action.
The objective of any democratic society should be to protect the principle of the ‘freedom of speech’ not speech itself. To ensure freedom of speech requires that there must be guardrails. As Jamie Susskind points out in his book, ‘The Digital Republic’ (2022), the approach across Europe has been to place on positive duty on governments to ensure that free expression can be enjoyed safely.
Article 10 (1) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) reads:
“1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.”
This is a very important assertion that must be strongly defended but is balanced by Article 10 (2) that rightly points out that where there are rights, there must also be responsibilities and respect for the rights of others.
“2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.”
The ECHR clearly envisions, therefore, that some limits must be in place.
The development of social media and online platforms has had many incredible positives. It has helped democratise the sharing of news and ideas and to set out your views, it is not essential to get past the gatekeepers of opinion page editors such as the one who kindly decided that this piece was interesting enough to run here.
The increase in the quantity of opinions offered is generally not matched in quality. True news values such as factchecking are often sacrificed and good journalism is often restricted behind a paywall while you can get any and all opinions, informed or not, usually for free. While the online world can provide a forum for informed debate from those with an expertise or interest that we may not often hear, equally it can allow amplification of the views of those who are ill-informed or to spread misinformation.
Most social media platforms (Facebook / X (Twitter) / TikTok etc) simply allow users to upload content and then rely on other members of the ‘community’ to report the content if it goes against the ‘community standards’ that have been designed by the company.
The ‘Community Standards/Hate Speech’ set of rules operates on all such platforms. The rules are not determined by elected legislators (save where there is a requirement by a State on illegal content) but by the billionaire owners of such platforms and those who work for them.
This is the self-regulated approach to hate speech currently undertaken by the tech giants.
Mark Zuckerberg of Meta has said that about 95% of reported content or hate speech on Facebook is taken down by Artificial Intelligence. About 6.5 million reports are generated every week. The company still has about 15,000 content moderators globally. This figure was confirmed at the Oireachtas Media Committee recently where Meta representatives indicated that AI is used 90 to 95% of the time to remove content that goes against the platform’s rules on speech (the ‘community standards’).
Representatives of X also stated that over 90% of content was removed by AI though alarmingly the number of human content moderators overseeing this process has been slashed globally from 5,500 up until November 2022 when Elon Musk took over to 2,500 today.
Elon Musk presents himself as a defender of Free Speech and is often cited by those who argue against restrictions as the great liberator on this issue. But Musk himself has placed limits on freedom of expression and only this week we saw this play out in the courts where his own limits were laid bare.
When Musk was threatened by major advertisers that they would pull advertising on X, he demanded greater levels of content moderation; employees at his companies must sign non-disparagement and non-disclosure agreements, and there have been cases where X has suspended the accounts of anyone who criticises Musk.
In 2007, Facebook entered into a settlement with the State of New York around the company’s alleged failure to protect children online, particularly with regard to access to pornography. Part of the agreement involved Facebook responding to and addressing complaints about nudity or pornography, harassment or unwelcome contact within 24 hours. The company’s actions would be independently verified by the State.
More generally, in the United States Courts, it has often been held that pornography is protected by First Amendment Free Speech rights whereas ‘obscenity’ is not. The question again is: where do we draw the line? (And who draws it?) Cultural attitudes here obviously influence one’s approach. The attitude to nudity or limited clothing, for example, would differ enormously from the beaches of Brazil or the Mediterranean to societies with strong religious disapproval of such choices.
There are 19 countries around the world that ban Holocaust denial. Engaging in speech that promotes this lie is a punishable offence. In Germany, understandably, this issue is taken particularly seriously and inciting hatred against any “national, racial, religious group or a group defined by their ethnic origins, against segments of the population or individuals because of their belonging to one of the aforementioned groups or segments of the population or calls for violent or arbitrary measures against them” could lead to imprisonment on conviction.
In 2017, Mark Zuckerberg, who is himself Jewish, defended the rights of Holocaust deniers but by 2020 had stated that his “thinking had evolved” because of evidence that social media postings were leading to an increase in anti-Semitic violence. Meta’s “Hate Speech Policy” now prohibits any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust.
As private sector platforms debate the limits of free speech internally, we as legislators face similar challenges but our responsibilities are much greater. While Musk and Zuckerberg and others are beholden to their shareholders, legislators and regulators need to think about citizens and society.
How do we get the balance right with competing rights?
In an increasingly polarised political environment (exacerbated by the social media companies), attempts to have a civilised debate can be difficult.
Pim Fortuyn was a socially liberal but anti-immigration Dutch politician who founded a political party in 2002 that came second in the General Election in the Netherlands that year. Fortuyn was gay. He was strongly critical of Islam viewing it as a threat to the Dutch way of life. But he defended the right to free speech of homophobic Islamic leaders, albeit with an important caveat… “An imam should be able to say that homosexuals are worse than pigs. My only demand is that you mustn’t incite violence”. Fortuyn was shot dead nine days before the election. The Dutch politician drew the line where there was a threat of violence.
Meta indicated when it came before the Oireachtas Media Committee that it would hold a similar position. It used the example that where somebody posted “I hate Emmanuel Macron and he is a useless politician” that such would not constitute a breach of community standards, whereas if somebody stated that the French President “deserves to be shot and I encourage people to do it”, such a statement would be deemed in breach.
While blasphemy was removed from the Constitution in 2018 (who remembers that referendum?), there is always a tension where freedom of expression is seen as insulting to deeply held beliefs. This has been evident with some in the Islamic tradition in instances such as the response to Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’ or to the cartoons of Mohammed published in Denmark or by French magazine, Charlie Hebdo. Equally though, Christians are often offended by pieces of art that are perceived to be insulting to Christ.
Racist speech is still sadly too common in Irish society. In April last year, the outstanding Wexford sportsman, Lee Chin, was racially abused from the sidelines at a charity hurling match in Tipperary. The GAA handed down a 48 week ban to the spectator who shouted the abuse. Was this a justifiable restriction on that spectator’s ‘right’ to freedom of speech? Should individuals have a right to scream racist (or sexist or homophobic) abuse at a game or indeed anywhere else? This is not just a challenge for the GAA and other sporting codes have also acknowledged the problem.
Interestingly, at the Oireachtas Sports Committee, the GAA supported the introduction of Hate Speech legislation precisely to deal with this sort of behaviour.
In this article, I hope that I have outlined some of the issues that legislators and regulators face in trying to balance freedom of speech with other rights such as personal safety, human dignity and social cohesion. Self-regulation already takes place by the online platforms and in other spheres.
There are valid concerns around some of the definitions in the Hate Speech legislation. It is important that any laws are clear and enforceable and that they achieve their intended purpose as well as avoiding any unintended consequences. These concerns must be addressed in the context of the next stage of the debate on this law. However, we have to maintain a focus on the purpose of these laws: to tackle the growing level of incitement to violence as a result of hateful intolerance.
I would hope that in considering these issues we can have a reasoned and evidence based debate (as I am sure there will be in the Comments section below) and that we can determine where we need to draw the line.
Malcolm Byrne is a Fianna Fáil Senator and member of the Oireachtas Media Committee.
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What about protecting freedom of speech?
@Marc Power: What about reading the article?
@Marc Power: Please define what you mean by “freedom of speech”.
@Marc Power: what about the Senator giving a concrete definition of ‘hate speech’ for the purposes of the proposed legislation (to prevent wasting court time if a case doesn’t meet a certain threshold)
The Senator studied law at UCD after all
@Brendan O’Brien: That article makes mention of the state restricting speech to protect morals.
Or itself.
These are two very good examples where the state should *never* have authority.
@Marc Power: There is no article in Bunreacht na hÉireann that allows for ‘freedom of speech’, the only country in the world that allows unfettered freedom of speech is the US Constitution, and look at the state of their society.
@Marc Power: what about whataboutery… Ctfo.
@Jacintha Dumbrell: The US constitution does not give a right to free speech.
That is simply an oft repeated claim.
So often made that not only US citizens but most others seem to believe it too.
What’s in the US constitution is a *prohibition*, not the grant of a right.
The US constitution merely prohibits Congress (their legislature) from making any law that infringes free speech.
And other person or group can “infringe” freedom of speech.
That allows a parent to tell a kid to shut up, a teacher to tell a student to be quiet, a club to have rules of behaviour, including speech, and social media organisations to have rules of what they will permit.
But that does not mean that *our* rights to expression couldn’t be improved.
@Brendan O’Brien: He don’t read good
@Marc Power: What about anything we actually need in society.
@Jacintha Dumbrell: What do you propose, CCP Communist style oppression where you can lose your job, fined and be locked up for years for questioning or complaining online?
Today I learn that our govt will spend money to house people with no connections to this country whilst at the same time ignoring an identical number of our homeless
Is this not a form of discrimination and if I object to housing overwhelmingly single males from countries with little or no respect for women’s rights will that be classed as hate speech
Cause that’s my honest opinion as a citizen and taxpayer
@Gerry Kelly: We are living in a dictatorship of the left.
@Gerry Kelly: it’s obviously not and I’m guessing you know that and are being deliberately obtuse. Now, if you were to say that all immigrants are murderers etc… And should all be shot then that’s a different story…. And plenty of Irish people are saying these types of things.
@M To The B: Not really
@Mick Joe: not really what?
@Gerry Kelly: how dare you make such sense you’re obviously a racist. Over 4000 children homeless they are not a priority either are those entering the country we have tents for those and a well thought out long term plan to use fields and convert industrial estates it’s foolproof.
It’s pretty depressing to think that some people actually support the introduction of this legislation.Literally you are supporting the government’s right to decide what constitutes offence.Giving them the potential powers to label any and every voice of dissent or anything that goes against the mantra of those in power the ability to silence any disagreeing voice as hate/abuse.Freedom of speech has its flaws but the censoring of it is far more deadly.Slippery slope doesn’t even come close to what this could become.
@Johnny King:
Well said. The Wokie sheep haven’t got the brains to realise this.
@Regular John: Stop using the word Woke. You don’t know what it means.
I fear hate speech legislation will simply be used to protect those in power and prevent criticism and as a result allow the spin to continue. How about if the hate speech legislation goes ahead (though as said above insulting somebody from their point of view when criticising their performance or actions is purely subjective), we also introduce legislation that if somebody lies while in public office or gets elected making promises they don’t deliver on then they are fined, forgo their pension or can face a custodial sentence for misleading the public whom they are supposed to prevent might seem a bit extreme but so does legislation that prevents poorly performing or scheming politicians being rightly criticised for their performance. Imagine not being legally able to vent your frustration about a self serving or incompetent politician because they are protected by law while at the same time they can lie and spin to their heart’s content. We all know at least one politician that wrecked the economy and many people’s lives, but hey, don’t hurt their feelings.
what about listening to the citizen assemblies recommendations on obligations of the state to children and adults with special needs and their carers? or the oireachtas committee recommendations on drugs? and the other citizens assembly on drugs? all much more important as they has the potential to save lives.. that this hate speech malarkey.. FFG out!
@Stiles: citizens assembly is a big cod, a way to say they are listening to the citizens. they throw them a bone every now and again to say it works but will ignore the difficult items they come back with. That’s a good citizens assembly have a cookie.
It’s a shame that the laws already in place don’t protect people and we need to curtail the right to free speech in case anyone’s feelings are hurt.
@John Smith:
Yes, we’re becoming a nation of pansies.
Byrne also wants to silence Gript and The Ditch so you can draw your own conclusions on that one. He has put his name forward in the next general election as FF TD for Wexford. I really hope the people of Wexford reject this authoritarian figure.
I fear this hate speech legislation will be used selectively to target individuals or groups who oppose the government’s narrative and they interpete hate speech to curtail opposition I could envisage it as government overreach. It would be like living under a third world dictatorship.
Defining hate by reference to a person’s identifying characteristics, thereby creating a class of elite victims, is contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of article 40 of the Constitution which provides that “all citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law”. The exceptions under this article allow the State to “have due regard to differences of capacity, physical and moral, and of social function”. It does not permit exceptions to be made due to identifying characteristics.
@Frank McGlynn:
Very good point. Varadkar said something yesterday about stiffer penalties for “murder motivated by misogyny, homophobia or racism”.
Murder is murder regardless of the motivation behind it. He seems to think some people’s lives are more worthy than others.
@Regular John: As he mentions murder motivated by misogyny but not murder motivated by misandry he obviously regards men’s lives as less valuable than women’s lives.
@Frank McGlynn:
Yes and homosexuals more valuable than straight. Racism I guess works numerous ways.
Murder is murder, the motivation behind it is irrelevant.
who do these over paid Politicians who mostly are in their jobs is because of who they know and not what they no,it amazes me how the leaders of these parties can give Minister’s Jobs to who they like,that would be like been boss of a private hospital,and giving someone u know a job of a surgeon,even though u haven’t 1 clue what your doing.I think it’s more important to over haul our Political institution,We the people are well aware what’s going on,most of us haven’t had 3rd level education,but we know whsts right,It’s time they showed their credentials,and if u don’t know about the job,then u don’t get it,maybe then our Health,Housing,&
everything else might improve, referendum in June about Patents,I hope like the last referendum,vote no again.
I can tell you exactly where to draw the line, it is right now and before this ill advised hate speech law is enacted.
You would be forgiven for believing that currently people have free reign to make death threats and to incite violence against whomever they chose online without fear of legal consequences, this couldn’t be further from the truth, if you don’t believe it, just try it.
The new offences that the proposed hate speech law would create would be entirely based on offending others, on the basis of a set of broad, nonspecific, and subjective criteria. Some people are not only easily offended, they are actively seeking to be offended, to weaponise it for their own ends.
Even censorship that is supposedly well intentioned, still silences, free speech and the public discourse.
In Ireland we don’t really need to look far to see why this level of censorship and control over what people can or can’t say, simply on the basis that it might offend someone, is a really bad idea.
Up until the 1980′s the Catholic Church totally controlled censorship in Ireland, but while they were supposedly protecting the morality and souls of the Irish people, protecting children and the vulnerable, they were also protecting the church itself along with pedophile priests, christian brothers and other abusers, instead of their victims.
If you wouldn’t chose to once again hand the power to impose subjective censorship to the Catholic Church, why on earth would you chose to hand it to anyone else currently claiming to only be motivated by protecting children and the vunerable?
As legislators, how about doing something about our defamation laws, those that have been described as ‘chilling’ speech?
Considering our hateful history of priests demonising individuals from the pulpit and how ffg used church state collision for censorship and a shame based society, do we really trust the entitled chancers that govern us with this
There might be less hate in Ireland if the politicans treated its citizens as equal and fairly. Millions of Irish people do not have vote in senate elections. At the same time the taoiseach gets to appoint 11 people to the senate. When president Michael D Higgins first term came to an end Leo Micheal Brendan Howlin and Eamonn wanted the president to serve a second term unopposed. It probably would have happened but for one party who believed rightly that there should be presidential elections. SInn Fein. And so thankfully there was one. That is DEMOCRACY IN ACTION.IN LATVIA 13 people pick their president..4 people tried to pick our president the last time. All Irish citizens over the age of 18 should have a vote in future senate elections. Our future elected taoiseaigh should not get to appoint 11 people to the Seanad. It is not democratic. Treat the people fairly and there will be less hate in the country.
Lol. Go ahead and write down your little rules. I’ll say whatever I want.
@Gearóid Quirke: You’re so cool, I wish I was just like you
@Art Vandelay: Are you going to do something about that, Fart?
@Gearóid Quirke: This is a popular and widespread misconception.
The proposed hate speech legislation if enacted, would not work in a reactive way, with you for example expressing your views, someone else objecting to them and then a decision being taken as to if what you posted online or said publicly was in breach of the subjective and non specific legislation and should be removed and you prosecuted under the law.
Technology has reached the point that any online posts deemed hate speech wouldn’t even be published by platforms, but your attempt to publish it would itself be an offence.
Saying what you want in the real world wouldn’t fair any better, expressing views captured on a mobile phone would be an offence. Repeat offenders would probably be actively targeted to silence them.
concentrate on the basics, mate. Housing, health, education.
one step at a time, hot shot.
Hate speech bill is fine, as long as those in charge or their mates at the top of the food chain dont use it when they are caught out. Remember a former minister for uselessness and social protection who didnt like to pay her debts had someone who said meanie meanie stuff about her stopped at the airport by gardai. Abusing peoples race, religion etc is wrong but let nobody think that the FFG mob wont use it to protect themselves, remember they literally changed covid rules when they got caught partying while telling the rest of us to behave…
So apparently criticism and opposing something is veiled as “hate speech” now.
@Kieran Menon:
Expect a knock on the door now for that comment ! Can’t say stuff like that now.
This is a piece of legislation that is not needed and the majority of irish people don’t want it open your ears senator you need to listen
More “woke” nonsense from the snowflakes.
@Regular John: You don’t know what Woke means
@Brendan O’Brien: If people thought that this bill was a genuine attempt to silence the bigoted minority in this country they probably would go along with it. But the origins of this bill stems from a rant from Heather Humphreys in the Dail a couple of years back over criticism she received online and that she wasn’t in that job to be criticised. How do you define hate speech, it differs wildly and is based on someone’s opinion, temper, mood, perception at the time you cannot ever
legislate for opinion. This bill is just a cynical effort to stop any genuine opposition or criticism of unpopular govt policy online as it could be construed as hate speech if certain words are used to criticise just like I d I o t and r u b b ISH or s t u p I d can be deemed offensive on this platform no matter what context they are used in
In his opening paragraphs the Senator is being,at best, disingenuous in the extreme. How can he say it was carried with ‘ limited ‘ comment. Unless by ‘limited’ he means, making national and international headlines,whilst being commented on by the likes of Elon Musk on the worlds biggest commenting platform. But the senator would have us believe everyone was fine and dandy with it then and the forces of evil have now gathered and are conspiring against the government as they did with the referendum. To preface your opinion with such blatant misrepresentations reduces that opinion to nothing more than propaganda for a proposed piece of spurious legislation,which may have some very serious repercussions for everyone in our society.
There are no such thing as ‘races’ nor racism, racial and racist. Victorian natural selection is a hate or prejudice conviction.
@Gerald Kelleher: Whatever about that, there is most certainly a *perception* of ‘race’, and hatred and discrimination based on it (i.e. racism).
@Brendan O’Brien: I am from the Human Race. What ‘race’ are you from?.
The Irish people played a starring role as a less favoured ‘race’ in the emergence of hate speech known as natural selection. It was reheated by the Nazi who followed the invasion and extermination imperatives as a favoured ‘race’.
@Gerald Kelleher: There are no races, you’re dead right. But denying racism is either daft or pernicious. Racism exists, the British invented to justify colonialism and all imperialist swine have used it ever since. People are discriminated against, beaten and murdered because of their skin colour everywhere, every day. Cop yourself on
@Art Vandelay:
‘races’ = racism
Human Race = No races, racism racist.
Figure it out yourself.
The loudest voices against the Hate Speech Bill are also the loudest voices abusing minorities on social media.
Everyone’s concerns should be listened to and reflected on, but racists and homophones with Twitter Blue Ticks seem to be influencing spineless politicians.
@Jacintha Dumbrell: why don’t you use your right to free speech to go on Twitter and tell them what you think of them?
@Finn Barr: I do, but I have to be mindful not to use keywords that Elon Musk restricts.
Incredible what this guy is actually pushing forward. This is simply about giving control to the Govt, allowing them control the narrative & free speech & silencing criticism on social media. This is the actions of Putin, we are fast becoming an Authoritarian State. It’s also about enriching our Legal Profession who are intertwined with our Govt. When this man runs for Election, people need to remember him & let him know in no uncertain terms what the Irish people think of him & his Fianna Fail party. Obviously none of them got the message from the Referendum vote, people are not going to take much more !
Lads lasses and everyone else if we allow ffg to stay in power for thier lawful 5 years from my limited edition I believe, we can change
Dear Ministers… Implement something we need
I think we’ve seen the potential danger of such a bill in recent times from those aligned with Israel who claim that “Free Palestine” is a call to erase Israel and a whole host of other forms of solidarity with the Palestinian people as “anti-semetic”.
Even a basic message of support and care for some of the most oppressed people in the world could be considered as incitement to violence and prejudice against a group of people by those with a twisted enough perspective.
Hate speech is celebrated as a conviction without the slightest objection. Deal with this prejudice first as natural selection/eugenics.
“Thus, the reckless, degraded, and often vicious members of society, tend to increase at a quicker rate than the provident and generally virtuous members.. Given a land originally peopled by a thousand Saxons and a thousand Celts—and in a dozen generations five-sixths of the population would be Celts, but five-sixths of the property, of the power, of the intellect, would belong to the one-sixth of Saxons that remained. In the eternal ‘struggle for existence,’ it would be the inferior and less favoured race that had prevailed—and prevailed by virtue not of its good qualities but of its faults.” Darwin
@Gerald Kelleher: Many millions died because hate speech through a misadventure with the Earth science of biology survived after WWII.
That it is was achieved on the back of Irish culture expressed as a Celt ‘race’ is testimony to the grip the scientific method subculture has on society.
It is amazing that so many of us now want to retain the right to be abusive, racist and intimidating. Sure enough sf jump on the populist bandwagon chasing a few more votes to help them to save the country!!!! It’s disgusting……
@chris gaffney: What ‘races’ exist?.
Only the dumbest people believe that cultures and complexions represent ‘races’.
The politicians are no better or worse than anyone else when it comes to prejudice.
@Gerald Kelleher: Wow!!
@chris gaffney: I think that proves your point. Gammon like that fella can’t be reasoned with
@Art Vandelay: So many defenders of genuine hate speech taught through schools as natural selection and not one but ashamed or embarrassed.
@chris gaffney: Can people like you ever stick to the subject without bringing SF into it .. ironically enough you and the rest of the FFGrs are always so quick to show yer contempt and hatred towards them.. go figure.
If my any of my aunt’s didn’t have balls I doubt if I wouldn’t have the courage to say this , We have all got issues in our lives, that’s funking live joe rogan, ,but when a person pulls the ladder up behind them , I call that thing a coward
have your say