Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 - Read OP

What exactly are we not allowed to say? We should be free to say pretty much what we want in a free society, obviously we're not living in free societies anymore though. Even in this case, it seems to not be a case of "homophobia", yet even if it were it should be legally tolerable. The mental state of the accused isn't that relevant to me in a legal sense, even if they were perfectly sane and competent this should not have happened.

obviously we're not living in free societies anymore though

I don’t know where people get the impression that we were ever living in a free society where people could say what they like. The right to freedom of expression has always been limited by way of acknowledgement that an absolute right to freedom of expression means it infringes upon the States obligation to protect all persons from unlawful discrimination, prejudice and so on.

Rather than suggesting it shouldn’t have happened, you can’t form a conclusion like that without an investigation into why it happened, and that investigation won’t be based solely upon a single source or sources which publish articles based solely upon the evidence presented by that single source.

Justin Barret tisn't populist, he's a fascist - and people don't vote for fascists if they want freedom of speech.

It's mostly just scummy far right people scared that the guards will do them over their social media posts if the bill gets passed from what I'm seeing online.

Did you talk to these imaginary people?

People with “far right” opinions are entitled to their views the same as anyone else, be that right, left, far left or centre.

Maybe if they weren't doing things like knowingly making up fake stories about specific races and groups of people which they've been caught out doing time and time again there wouldn't be a need for the hate speech legislation. The good thing about their conduct is they are paving the way for them and others like them to have their devices seized and prosecutions going ahead which is great to see. I enjoy reading cases in the UK where you see those types getting done under their hate speech legislation.

If a person is found to be in possession of material likely to incite hatred, that person may be presumed under the new legislation to be about to use it to incite hatred. Does this mean that bookshops in this country will have to destroy their copies of "Mein Kampf"?

That's an ironic statement to end with considering this entire piece of legislation is designed to "protect" those with persecution complexes/hurt feelings.

Who are the people you’re referring to with hurt feelings who should grow thicker skins? It’s probably not the idiots who take their frustrations out on others because of whatever issues they have themselves that they want everyone to know about. They’re the people who are wasting Garda resources with Gardaí having to investigate incident reports caused by their behaviour, not the behaviour of the people who are the targets of their behaviour.

That’s how legislation functions, what makes something an offence is that it’s written in legislation. There’s no such distinction as you’re attempting to make between crime and ‘real, actual’ crime. Gardaí as it happens in any case are perfectly capable of doing both - patrolling the streets, AND preventing crime, but for what it’s worth, here’s just a sample of the kind of shìt they have to deal with, caused by idiots with hurt feels who choose to commit crimes by taking their frustrations out on other people:

A total of 617 (483 in 2021) discriminatory motives were recorded (some incidents have more than one discriminatory motive). The most prevalent discriminatory motive was race (32%), followed by Sexual Orientation (22%) and Nationality (21%). Incidents were recorded across all 9 Discriminatory motives.

https://www.garda.ie/en/about-us/our-departments/office-of-corporate-communications/press-releases/2023/march/an-garda-siochana-2022-hate-crime-data-and-related-discriminatory-motives.html

The legislation wouldn’t be necessary in the first place if it weren’t for thin-skinned idiots who think it’s their right to take their frustrations out on others. They’re the people who should be told keep their feelings to themselves, exercise self-control, grow up and stop expecting to be cosseted by the law when everyone really, not just Gardaí, have better things to be doing than having to endure their bullshìt.

No one has the right to tell defamatory lies and you know that. Religion is a terrible anaology and you know this too, so how about we stop wasting each other's time with blatantly false analogies* we both know don't hold water, eh?

And this is nothing to do with taking offense - this just being bloody honest and respectful.

*in case it needs stating: religion puts forward theories based on faith that they believe ARE true, this is not lying. Nor dis it do this to disparage anyone else.

No they're not as well you know - and coming from a poster who tried to claim that transgender topics for teenage school students included "scat" and "fisting", you're a prime example of one of the people I'm talking about.

Claiming "oh don't be so offended" is just a sidescreen to hide the fact that you got caught telling lies and are too arrogant to accept it.