Reporters without Borders seem to be of a similar mindset — they don’t know how anyone could object to these laws either and can’t see how anyone could consider them limiting. Is their assessment of our level of press freedom wrong? As of today, it’s probably not. That’s not to say that a wide variety of different opinions are available in the mainstream media or that dissent is encouraged; more that things restraining dissent and argument are philosophical and held in place by an unspoken consensus amongst the powerful. Hate Speech laws will, ironically, change that. Suppressing speech through arrest that you were mostly successful in suppressing through consensus might prove a tactical error. Who knows what next year’s rankings will hold?
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Samizdata quote of the day – Irish repression editionSamizdata Illuminatus (Arkham, Massachusetts) · Civil liberty, Law & Regulation · Irish affairs · Slogans & Quotations May 10th, 2023 |
 11 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – Irish repression edition |
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I don’t know how many times in the last ten years I’ve thought “oh, good, they’ve finally overreached!”
Nope. The frogs just got a little warmer in the pan, and carried on.
The Republic of Ireland government and establishment makes a big thing about how “Progressive” it is – but what does “Progressive” mean? It means – anti liberty, the desire to destroy liberty.
The Irish people must decide if they are Progressive – if they hate and despise liberty as the establishment do. I hope the Irish people decide that they are NOT haters of liberty – and reject the government and general leftist establishment.
In a way this is less difficult for Irish people than for British people – as in Ireland the “mainstream” political parties are in open coalition, there is no claim that the “mainstream” political parties have different philosophies.
So stop voting for the “mainstream” parties in Ireland – people who do not even pretend that they have different philosophies, and get rid of the establishment – the education system, the Civil Service, and the Corporations (the Corporations that are filled with hatred, yes HATRED, for both individual liberty and for Irish independence).
Become an independent country. A free country.
No more “international community”, including no more domination by international corporations who, as I point out above, are filled with hatred (hatred) of both individual liberty and national independence. Sadly the Milton Friedman view of these vast corporations, that they are apolitical bodies just out to maximise long term profits for shareholders, is wrong.
These days even payment services, dominated by Mastercard and Visa, are political – with the payment processors supporting “agendas” that are designed to destroy both political and cultural dissent from the leftist movement.
The vast international corporations are bureaucracies (essentially the same as government bureaucracies) supported by the funny money of the Central Banks – in the case of the Republic of Ireland that includes the ECB (European Central Bank in Frankfurt – Frankfurt is not in Ireland, if your monetary policy is decided outside your nation you are NOT independent) and they are controlled by leftist Corporate managers taught, in “elite” schools and universities, the same “Progressive” doctrines as government officials.
Nor are the vast international corporations mostly owned by “Aunt Agatha” type individuals – due to both tax law (which benefits corporate bodies AGAINST individual ownership) and monetary policy (the “Cantillon Effect” monetary policy – which concentrates the economy into a few entities) “ownership” of the vast international corporations is mostly controlled by bodies such as “BlackRock” which managers the shares notionally owned by pension funds and the like.
None of this is anything to do with a Free Market – it is all political, and it is a form of politics that is hostile, pathologically hostile, to liberty.
bobby b – they will carry on with their war against liberty till their economic system (which is NOT capitalism – capitalism is based on Real Savings “Capital” not Credit Money created from nothing) collapses.
However, they know their economic system is going to collapse, and they are actively preparing something worse – full on “public private partnership” “stakeholder capitalism” (in the tradition of Mussolini and Dr Schwab).
What is happening in Ireland is happening just about everywhere in what used to be the West – it is just more obvious in Ireland as the “mainstream” political parties are in open alliance, and they (and the establishment) use more blunt language than in some other countries.
It is time to stop voting on the basis of who one’s great grandfather supported during the Irish Civil War a century ago.
bobby b writes, “I don’t know how many times in the last ten years I’ve thought “oh, good, they’ve finally overreached!”
Nope. The frogs just got a little warmer in the pan, and carried on.”
I dunno. My observation is that the overreach does have consequences, but usually they are what I would call tainted victories, in which the left wing encroachment on freedom is replaced by a right wing encroachment on freedom. The latter might be slightly better than the former, because the right is less proud to elevate “feels over reals”. But only slightly.
A society can only be created, or defended, or restored (recreated) if people know what they want and are prepared to do what it takes to create (or defend, or recreate) the society they want.
The Hume-Hayek view that a form of society just appears (or “evolves”) without anyone consciously wanting that form of society (“by human action, but not by human design” – Adam Ferguson or some-such), is wrong, and it was wrong in the 1700s
Liberty has to be consciously understood, and it has to be established (or re established). People have to choose what they want to happen, what sort of basic societal principles they want (for example should land be under real private ownership – or under the “policy” of governments and the vast corporations that are joined as the hip with governments) – and they have to do what it takes to make the sort of society they want happen.
Does that include the Sword of State? Of course it does.
The question is not “is there force or not?” – there is always force. The question is who wins – and who loses.
When the left come to loot and burn (in the name of “Equity” or “Social Justice”) they have to be countered by force – it is not a violation of liberty to use the Sword of State against looters, it is vital in the defence of liberty.
And if taxpayer funded things exist someone will decide what they do. If it is not “the right” then it will be the left – the left hand path that leads to Hell.
If a “right” government will not use the power of the state to push “right” principles, that power does not go away – it is take by the left (including the vast Corporations – which are nothing to do with free enterprise, and are created and sustained by government regulations and government funny money) to push what they want.
The “right” government is “in office but not in power”.
Such “righists” as the Governor of Florida are correct – if you do not use power against the enemy, they will destroy you, and destroy society.
“Paul that sounds like the government of Hungary” – I condemn such things as the Covid lockdown policy of the government of Hungary, but they are correct that on basic societal principles there are no such things as “neutral institutions”.
Institutions, including the courts, are one side on these basic societal principles – or they are on the other side.
And a “right” government that does not do what it takes to get the institutions on the “right” side is a waste of space.
In office but not in power – the power does not go away, it is taken by the enemy.
Keith Woods today said the philosophy of Karl Popper is a big factor in the creation of these anarchy tyranny laws. Would you debate him?
Joe, uncertain what that means. The philosophy of Karl Popper is all about falsifiability, i.e. the scientific method. Pancritical rationalism is a development of that, but these are not political philosophies as such.
An Irish example of how “social evolution” is nothing-of-the-sort is baby killing.
A few years ago the people of the Republic of Ireland voted overwhelming against baby killing – recently the people of the Republic of Ireland voted overwhelming in support of baby killing.
This was not a matter of “social evolution” that is “the product of human action but not of human design” – it was the product of human DESIGN.
Powerful people set out to change the culture – and they did.
It is the same with just about every other major cultural change – everywhere. The Reformation – whatever.
“What sort of society do I want? And what can I do to help achieve that?” – these are natural questions for people to ask themselves.
If people do not ask themselves these questions – if they, instead, just mutter to themselves about “social evolution” or “the results of human action, but not of human design”, social change will still be designed – it will just be designed by their enemies.
As for the vast international Corporations – ESG (environmental and social governance – or whatever name it goes by now, as the name keeps changing) lets the cat out of the bag. Cultural and political agenda – out in the open.
So much for just wanting to earn money. And why should vast international corporations who get funny money from the Credit Bubble monetary and financial system (the “money” being just lights on computer screens – that can be manipulated, or turned OFF, on the whims of the powerful) care about customers – or care about “Aunt Agatha” shareholders (when such individual shareholders own only a tiny fraction of the stock – thanks to tax law and other regulations).
As Dr Johnson put it – “a man is seldom so innocently engaged as when he is after money” – people did and do far worse things for their political and cultural agenda than they would dream of doing for money.
It was never “I will make money by burning these people alive” – it was always “they are heretics” or “they are reactionaries” – “they DESERVE to be killed”.
Exclude people from having a bank account, or having payment services, or having a job – leave them to starve on the streets, why not if the people are “Reactionaries” who stand in the way of “progress” to a “better society”.
The really important thing is to be known as “Progressive” at elite social gatherings.
It was the same in France in the years leading up to the Revolution of 1789. The Duke of Orleans, who financed the Revolution, was the richest man in France.
@Perry: Popper also indulged in political philosophy. It is largely good, and often misunderstood.
He certainly had political opinions, but not sure it rises to the level of distinctively ‘Popperian’ political notions beyond the obvious fact it was “stuff Karl though the state should do” 😀