The astonishing hypocrisy of Labour leaders ‘free speech for me but not thee’ approach.
The astonishing hypocrisy of Labour leaders ‘free speech for me but not thee’ approach.
Independent Ireland TD Ken O’Flynn has said Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik is guilty of adopting a ‘free speech for me but not for thee’ approach after she held up a meme of US Vice-President JD Vance in the Dáil earlier today, while at the same time accusing the US Government of engaging in a "major incursion on freedom of expression, unthinkable in a Western democracy.”
Deputy O’Flynn said the Labour leader’s sudden concern about safeguarding freedom of expression stands in stark contrast to her party’s chilling and enthusiastic support for the initial iteration and subsequent draft of the now amended Hate Speech Bill (Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022).
The Cork North-Central TD said Labour and Deputy Baciks’ explicit support for both versions of the Bill which originally proposed draconian penalties against memes, private jokes, and social media posts, and which included punitive threats to ordinary citizens and families such as jail time, device seizures, and home raids, was “almost comically hypocritical.”:
“The Labour Party and Deputy Bacik must either have the memory of a goldfish or the parliamentary integrity of the worst kind of double standard promoting anti-free speech crusader convinced of their own superior moral insight.”
"Holding up the JD Vance meme was nothing less than a charade backed, ironically, by half-truths and distortions. The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has already clarified that the Norwegian student who claimed he was denied entry to the US because he was in possession of it, was actually denied entry because of his admitted drug use.”
“If anything, Deputy Bacik and her party, along with other Government party cheerleaders for the hate speech bill, would have introduced the very kind of legislation she is now denouncing the US administration of implementing.”
While Labour has since distanced itself from aspects of the original legislation — with Bacik stating that the final text is a more “balanced compromise” — O’Flynn insists that questions remain over why the party supported the earlier draft in the first place.
“The authoritarian impulse of the left and indeed the so-called centrist right in this state is never far from the surface, as is their willingness to engage in ideological and mental gymnastics when it comes to justifying their desire to shut down free speech or introduce ‘hate speech’ laws utilising opaque categories.”
“Their attitude is one of apparent purity, where they can speak nothing but virtue while it is the plebs who needs their thoughts and mouths muzzled.”
“You don’t protect rights by stripping others of theirs. The price of vague and overreaching laws is liberty itself — and Ivana Bacik, of all people, should know better.”
