In a move certain to receive widespread support from Canadian Liberals…
The legislation, aimed at providing judges with clear direction on the 1937 Constitution’s blasphemy prohibition, imposes a fine of up to 25,000 euros — about $39,000 — for anyone who “publishes or utters matter that is [intentionally meant to be] grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion.”
Police with a search warrant will be able to enter private premises and use “reasonable force” to obtain incriminating evidence.
As a Christian I don`t believe that my or any other religion should be above criticism. But, this law is almost worth it just to piss off Richard Dawkins.
Does it mean that in Ireland I can’t mock the new religion of Environmentalism ?
Too bad.
This is probably a topic for a scheduled meeting Monday morning 9:00am sharp in the Kangaroo Court HQ at CHRC in Ottawa. They are drooling over the possibilities.
Maybe Iggy has a potential campaign platform plank !
EXCEPT FOR CHRISTIANITY
I mean what would the secular progressives do if they didn’t have a ‘piss Christ’ to laugh at or a radical religious right to vilify at election time.
The global kissing of Muslim ass will be the death of us.
“Return to Middle Ages”?
Well, in Canada and America, we’re already there. We’re not allowed to say anything to offend the very special Muslims and GLBTs.
Why should anyone be allowed to offend JudeoChristians, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Falun Gong, Scientologists, etc., if they’re already not allowed to offend Muslims and gay folks? Why have a two-or-multiple-tier human rights/law scheme?
That said, I believe it’s a sneaky way to silence legitimate criticism of radical, supremacist, imperialist Islamism…
Far as I’m concerned, we should either be allowed to dis everyone, or forbidden to dis anyone at all. There should be no special rights for any group whatsoever.
Looks like there’s a situation in America in which it’s becoming increasingly dangerous to simply dis the Obama-Democrat Regime. They’re already sending their thugs to whoop folks’ butts for simply opposing Obamacare and stuff. Sheesh!
Momar;
Well said. I remember how the left defended the *piss Christ* as a freedom of speech issue. Now they are the ones who go after Ezra Levant or anyone else who would show a cartoon, then line up on side with a culture that puts women in burqas.
Let me see if I understand this…
We wish to perfect society. We currently have some imperfections, including, some attitudinal problems. Some people have the wrong attitudes about things such as religion, or race. To correct these problems, we will employ, among other tools, financial punishment, and censorship.
Let us consider the cost/benefits here. There is a cost of freedom, of course, this cannot be denied. So let’s examine the benefit, and the logic of the benefit.
Will this bring about attitudinal change? Can it, for example, intercede at the family dinner table, where parents have the blank slate of their children on which to perpetuate these attitudinal problems?
If the goal is to bring about attitudinal change, then shouldn’t those promoting these approaches really search for a method of censoring at the family dinner table?
They would not dare.
These are inadequate fixes, based on fundamentally flawed strategies and reasoning, for a problem which exists in thoughts.
Mind you, there is always public education, starting with pubic day-care to counter mommy and daddy’s wrong thoughts. Destroy the family, and you can cut wrong thought promulgation processes off at the knees.
I claim the prize of best typo of the year.
OK? so be quiet.
Hee hee. Shaken said a dirty word.
Shaken they wouldn’t dare?
The UK is setting up a system to monitor families and how they raise their children.
One of the causes of our current problems is all the people constantly clucking “They wouldn’t dare.”
They would so, and they always do. Smart people always assume “they” would dare, and act accordingly.
“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition”
Does this mean it’ll be illegal to sell or own The Da Vinci Code in Ireland? ‘Cause I found that pretty grossly abusive and insulting. Not to mention crap like The Third Secret, The Templar Legacy, Jack Whyte’s latest trilogy, anything by Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins….
What? No?! But… but… isn’t the law supposed to apply to everyone equally??
Ah, well, at least it’s Ireland. You can get drunk enough not to care.
Yep Ireland one step behind England, now get the comfy chair!
So the Thought Police are at it again. You’ve seen their great track record at influencing people in Canada- yep they’ve done a great job and they celebrate their political correctness every year at events such as Israeli Appartheid week at Universities across the country or removing nativity scenes from public places every Christmas…Yes- they’ve really succeeded in making this a perfect society so I can’t see why giving them a little more police power can do any harm.
wish I could go back to edit this stuff- I realize it’s in Ireland but if they can push the legislation thru there- it”ll be here next.
And not just Canadian Liberals. The Conservatives continue to refuse to act. Let’s not forget that the increase in persecution of thoughtcrime continues apace under PMSH…
“grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion”
Really? Does that mean they’ll now go after Islamofascists who routinely slander Jews among others? About time, if you ask me.
So, what’s the “fine” now for murder, in comparison?
These words* from the piece are laughable in the extreme; it’s pure bghhfart.
Quote:
*”the statute is now trumped by free speech provisions in the Charter of Rights.”
Who is “Peter O’Neil, Europe Correspondent, Canwest News Service”?
Which editors at MSM allowed this bghhfart to be writted/published?
Has MSM abolished the HRC Lynch Mobs and didn’t tell us?
They’d certainly have their hands full in this country for blasphemy- maybe that’s the answer- flood the agencies over there with complaints of blasphemy from construction sites, computer users…
Is it merely coincidence the Canadian Bar Ass. and Jennifer Lynch were just there? At first I wondered why the CBA would meet in Ireland other than to let Jenny spend more taxpayer money but now I see the evilness. She of t-shirt fame wants to take over the world ala Pinky and the Brain!!!
I wonder whether this will end the publishing of the Koran, with it’s attacks on and instructions on killing Jews & other infidels?
Oh yeah, forgot, they’re a protected species and nothing may be said about them.
In the comments at the NP article, irony-starved commenter “paulcerar” demonstrates why the progressive class should never, ever be in a position to decide what others think or say:
“As I understand it, this is meant to punish people who deliberately try to provoke fights. This is a good idea. This is a completely different motive from those hypocrites who use religion as an excuse for fascism.”
Ah well. The Church of Scientology, for one, must be delighted by the Irish government’s backwards-thinking, utterly unwarranted idiocy.
And sadly, the legislation comes just when Ireland is starting to get over it’s backwards image:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QRlR0ctjNE
“Dairs mower to Oirland den dis.”
shaken @1:00, “They would not dare” and “public day-care to counter mommy and daddy’s wrong thoughts”. They did dare in the former Soviet Union and used the public day-care to counter mommy and daddy’s wrong thoughts. We also know that the socialist and left-liberal types under the guise of “social redeeming values” would like to implement the same here and are well into the process.
Criminal Code of Canada ~ §296 ~ Blasphemous Libel
There goes ridiculing the Satanic Bohemian Grove attendees. Darn, Darn, Darn.
Vitruvius, that’s interesting. What’s your take on section 296? Is it, in your opinion, appropriate to have criminal code sanctions against religious blasphemy?
Who decides what a religion is? How many believers does it take to make a religion? Who decides what the beliefs are? How many believers do you have to have to decide if their beliefs have been “blasphemed”?
Hey Skip,
Apparently from the article, “thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion.” So the next time we feel blasphemed-against we just trot out a nice sized mob to protest and voila – the conditions to prosecute have been met.
Vitruvius @4:04 –
#1 is outrageous, #2 is flatly untrue and #3 is so vague and subjective as to be meaningless.
The criminal code of Canada is a legal document, Black
Mamba, so Question of Fact has a particular meaning.
“publishes or utters matter that is [intentionally meant to be] grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion.”
The religion of the ‘perpetually outraged’ will be using this to shut down any criticism of their ‘religion of peace’.This is what the UN proposal on religious discrimination sets out to do,and this is what the lawsuits against Steyn,Levant,and the rest set out to do. The Irish banned smoking in pubs and now have taken another giant step backwards. I wonder if this will inflame the ‘troubles’ that have been going on there for years? If Guiness comes out with a light stout , the country is doomed.
Will someone please tell me what alternative universe we have dropped into? Seriously what is going on in this world? It is like we are all participating in a real life “1984” like movie. I hope at the least we get paid for being “extras”.
To answer your questions, EBD, I think that §296
should be struck from the Criminal Code of Canada.
Most cultures, nations, and states have had blasphemy statutes on the books, since the dawn of man, and have never deleted them, Populist, so I can assure you that this is no alternative universe. What has happened is that for the last fifty years or so the world got quite liberal, and so the statutes were ignored, however the world is swinging back toward being more conservative again, and people are noticing things like §296.
Vitruvius @5:12 – Sometimes I regret not having gone to law school; North America could certainly use more lawyers.
Okay then (and thanks for the link), #2 is redundant, since obviously the question of “whether or not any matter that is published is a blasphemous libel” would need to be “answered by reference to facts and evidence”; “relevant legal principles”, however misguided, wouldn’t ennerinuit at that stage (see #1).
Yeah, but facts and evidence according to how, Black Mamba? The books say facts are determined according to things like “beyond a reasonable doubt” or “on balance of probability”. So who makes these judgements? People. So if one goes to a jury trial under §296 in Canada, a (cough) representative (cough) sample of your society will decide not whether or not one is an aszhole, but whether or not one is a criminal aszhole. That’s how social animals do criminal justice. Statutes don’t convict people, people convict people.
Anyone who justifies censorship of expression in the name of progress toward a better society is either insane or a fool,definitely a progressive liberal and probably all three.
This is the passing of responsibility of conduct in a civil society from the individual and parents on to the Nanny State, or the seizure of that responsibility through legislation. This leads to societal changes not based on choice and action but based on someone else’s choices and actions and ultimately works to alienate a portion of the population.
Morals are the collective choices of a society, and they change perpetually and any attempts to directly interfere in that evolution has never lead to anything good. Communism for example and the millions of dissentors imprisoned and tortured over the years.
Stifling speech and expression is what leads to insurrection and civil unrest. Justifying these actions is to deny history, human nature and basic human rights. As an Example I think shaken not stirred is serious waste of skin because of his comments and I have a right to say so, yet I would defend his right to be able to make those comments and to make judgments on me with the same force as though I was defending myself.
That is the respect that a civil society has for each other, it actually leads to civil discourse and tolerence. This constant threatening of legal penalties for freedom of speech should not be tolerated. It is by far more dangerous in a society to allow people to pursue and prosecute those that speak out against them, it creates a society where dissent and freedom of thought is not tolerated and leads to amplification and fractioning as currents of fear and mistrust sink below the surface to fester in a divided populace.
IT is the lack of tolerance that is embodied in the left spectrum of political views that is a cancer eating away at our freedoms. While the left accuses the right of limiting freedoms with the ability to monitor communications for example, they at the same time want to restrict what you can communicate. That is a big difference.
Oh for the love of Mike, the police in Ireland informed the Pope that if he send his yearly edicts or what ever via the mail the people receiving said papers could be charged with hate crimes because of the Church’s stand on homosexuality. Thus let’s be honest, there is only one religion the government is hell bent on protecting from blasphemy and it isn’t Catholocism. When the police told the Catholic Church it’s dogma was a hate crime do you honestly think the self same flakes would then turn around and protect their legal right not to be blasphemied?
Vitruvius @6:12 – Yes, I was just beginning to wonder whether, for the first time in my life, I might have been wrong about something.
Wikipedia’s example of a Question of Law is: “Does leaving a baby with a 10-year old child for 4 days fit the legal definition of child neglect?”
(A “Question of Fact” just involves “did this actually take place” – the abandonment, the unkind words, what have you.)
So the blasphemy Q of L equivalent would need to be: “does saying ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses are sheep-shaggers’ fit the legal definition of blasphemy?”…
Which would surely be the ENTIRE question in a blasphemy defence, unless the lawyer were attacking the constitutionality of the blasphemy law itself, and I don’t think you can do that in Canada.
So I now say that #2 isn’t “flatly untrue” OR “redundant”; it’s incoherent and totalitarian.
BTW – there are some amazing laws about sexual practices – often dating from the 19th c. – still on the books in the U.S. in various counties and even states. I couldn’t swear to it, but I think it may be technically illegal to sleep with your spouse in West Virginia.
Such laws are rarely enforced.
When you say, Illiquid Assets, that “Anyone who justifies censorship of expression in the name of progress toward a better society is either insane or a fool, definitely a progressive liberal and probably all three,” should I conclude that that means that you do not think that perjury should be illegal?
Rose @6:33 – WTF, do you have a link for that?
So let’s say, Black Mamba, for argument’s sake, that one says “God does not exist”. Is that blasphemy, as a “question of fact”? Ok, so we punt it to the people. But they can’t prove whether or not god exists, because if they could it wouldn’t be called faith, so they judge you based on their faith: in god, in the law, …, what? Don’t look at me, I tried to resign from the species but they wouldn’t let me. So now I just try to get along.
Leprechaun’s couldn’t have dreamed up such mischief. It seems that nobody can learn the obvious but tough lesson from others that a free society means freedom to offend.
When free men and women are pushed up against the wall, others will be offended as a result. Without open and honest debate the truth can be hidden and replaced. Ireland may well wake up one day soon with a dark islamic marxist Britian as its master.
Vitruvius @6:47 – As I understand what I just read at your link, now that it’s shaken down in my head a little, the only question of fact would be: Did Vitruvius just say “God does not exist”?
Legally, question of fact is boring.
The question of law is: Does this statement constitute blasphemy!?!
Which is so subjective it’s silly, very, very silly (see #3).
For the record, I am in favour of any freedom of speech whatsoever short of direct and unambiguous incitement to violence.
So waht’s so special about religions???
How about non-religions? Is it OK or against this law to villify atheists, agnostics or polytheists? How about “dont-give-a-damn-ists”?
Clearly Vitruvius did not just say “God does not exist”,
Black Mamba, he always uses more words than that.
Look, folks, the point remains, we’re all against this sort of stuff. Me too. Now define it. Freedom of speech includes lying. When are you free to lie? Define it. Define it or you can’t formalize it, and if you can’t formalize it we’ll simply go on and on and on having abstract discussions like this ’till long after the cows have come home (not that I’d mind that, but Kate says that this is not a debating society).
(I didn’t say you DID.)
Fah.
Those liberal morons can legislate anything they want. Screw them, they aren’t telling me how to live.
Cops using ‘reasonable force’ as they are ‘just following orders’ will get the same treatment as the last set of fascist bungholes that tried that crap.
Anyone trying to force their way into my house like that is getting shot. Or axed. Or whatever it takes.
Jim is a troll.