Western culture has valued free speech as a necessary check on overreaching centralized power for centuries. Yet we’re watching the ability to speak freely disappear before our eyes.
Imagine going to federal prison for a meme.
Douglass Mackey, also known by his Twitter name Ricky Vaughn, is going to jail for memes mocking Hillary Clinton back in 2016. He made fake memes telling people to vote from home via text messages. Mackey insisted in court that he was just sh*tposting. He didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to actually fall for it.
But never underestimate the power of stupid! At least 4900 people did call the prank number to vote for Hillary. The federal government did not find it funny and sentenced Mackey to seven months in prison.
What’s happening in Ireland is even worse.
This is bad, but it’s mild compared to what Ireland has planned. In November 2022, the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence and Hatred or Hate Offences) Bill 2022 was initiated in Ireland’s legislature.
Section 10 (1) (a) states that a person will be found guilty of an offense if he “prepares or possesses material that is likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or a group of persons on account of their protected characteristics or any of those characteristics with a view to the material being communicated to the public or a section of the public, whether by himself or herself or another person.”
These incredibly vague and potentially broad offenses can land individuals jail time and hefty fines. The police will have the authority to search homes and confiscate devices under the new law. They could search citizens’ devices for offensive memes. Possessing movies with offensive jokes will be punishable. Will everyone in Ireland have to destroy their copies of Hot Shots Part Deux and Tropic Thunder?
As ridiculous as it sounds, this law is most of the way through the Irish legislature already. It had been facing some resistance from the public. Irish senators have been hearing a lot about it from their constituents. There had been some hope that the law would be heavily amended or retracted, but that was before the Dublin riots.
On November 23, a man in his 50s stabbed five people, including three schoolchildren, wounding one of the children seriously. He was an Algerian who had been in Ireland for over 20 years and had previous brushes with the law. He only stopped when a Brazilian Deliveroo driver jumped off his moped and whacked the attacker over the head with his bike helmet, enabling surrounding citizens to help restrain the attacker until the police came.
Public anger over this incident led to an outburst of rage in Dublin. Approximately 500 people participated in riots that involved looting, vandalism, and torching police vehicles. Thirty-four people have been arrested.
Rather than express dismay over the brutal stabbing, within a day of the riots, Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar announced that the riots were proof that Ireland’s hate speech laws needed updating. He claimed that Ireland is only weeks away from passing the proposed hate speech legislation.
Varadkar’s not letting this crisis go to waste!
As if to prove his point, after Irish MMA fighter Conor McGregor criticized the Prime Minister’s response, the Garda investigated him for online hate speech.
And Conor McGregor is hardly the only patriot getting in trouble.
Meanwhile in New Zealand…
Down in New Zealand, a government data administrator calling himself Winston Smith granted an interview to lawyer-turned-journalist Liz Gunn. In this interview, he explains how, upon analyzing data regarding medication administered in 2021 and 2022, certain patterns of mortality emerged based on which batch of medication people received. Some batches were associated with a 20% mortality rate in the weeks after vaccination.
Smith’s actual name is Barry Young, and he’s not an anti-vaxxer. He believed so strongly in the medication that he helped develop the software for tracking provider payments. Because New Zealand is such a small country and because they generally track data so well, Young was uniquely poised to have access to what batches of medications were administered at various sites. What Young found, after analyzing this data, made him so alarmed for his fellow countrymen that he felt duty-bound to go public.
Was he treated as the true public servant that he was? No. On Sunday, Barry Young was arrested for “accessing a computer system with dishonest purposes.” He was later released on bail.
Naturally, Young is being called a conspiracy theorist and a troublemaker. Initial reports from New Zealand claimed that he was just making things up. Young has since handed over all his data to American tech billionaire Steve Kirsch, who has made the data available for anyone to view. Numerous experts have looked at the data, which Young made sure to anonymize to protect the privacy of New Zealanders, and so far, they all agree that the data is legitimate. And terrifying.
The West is at war with free speech.
Western governments are trying harder than ever to attack any kind of political dissident as a far-right, racist conspiracy theorist.
On the one hand, this extreme crackdown on inconvenient speech is disturbing and upsetting. Barry Young should be treated like a hero, not put in jail. Average citizens should be able to discuss their frustrations with immigration policies without being automatically labeled racist. Anyone dumb enough to fall for a “Ricky Vaughn” voting meme probably shouldn’t be voting anyway.
But the fact that truth-tellers are getting personally attacked rather than engaged with professionally shows the weakness of the governments trying to implement these speech laws. A government afraid of its citizens telling stupid jokes online is not strong. If someone comes forth with a batch of data saying, “Hey, check this out,” and then gets thrown in jail, you better believe there’s something really interesting in there.
There’s hope, though.
Prepper sites tend to focus on negative trends. We want to be prepared, and being aware of negative developments is part of that. But we can’t focus so much on the negative that we get depressed, and watching how other people continue to resist can help us stay encouraged.
Conor McGregor recently outlined a plan to become president of Ireland. (Ireland has both a president and a prime minister, in case you were wondering). People are seeing the waves of support around populist figures like Javier Milei, and McGregor hopes he can similarly rally the Irish to clean political house.
McGregor’s not alone. Irish Senator Sharon Keogan likewise has been putting forth plans to fix Ireland’s immigration system, such as steeply increasing the fines for airlines that do not carefully scrutinize the papers of people coming through. Right now, the fines are low enough that bribing airline workers is relatively easy, but that could change. Irish people are willing to band together and are coming up with solutions.
We’ll see what happens in New Zealand. Figures like Liz Gunn had hoped that New Zealand’s post-Ardern government would have departed more from her draconian Covid measures, but those hopes may have been in vain. If Barry Young gets sentenced, he will be facing up to seven years of jail time.
Alex Jones recently hosted an interview between Barry Young and Steve Kirsch. Alex Jones may be controversial, but Steve Kirsch is a legitimate tech genius. There’s a Kirsch Auditorium at MIT. During this interview, Barry Young made some points that are worth emphasizing.
He called on other people with access to this kind of data worldwide to come forward. He points out that the data he safeguarded belonged to the people of New Zealand, not the government, because the people paid for it with their taxes. The numbers don’t lie. Young insisted that the truth will out, and the more people that come forward, the more quickly the process of redressing the harms done during the past few years can begin.
Barry Young also said that he never, ever planned to do anything like this. He hasn’t had a speeding ticket in decades and was about the most boring person imaginable up until this point. This is a man who never imagined himself as a hero. Yet when push came to shove, he tried to help the public by exposing an inconvenient truth.
And in the United States, people are fighting back too. The State of Texas, The Federalist, Consortium News, and The Daily Wire are all suing the US Department of State for conspiring with outlets like Twitter, Newsguard, and GDI to silence conservative and libertarian opinions in America. If you recall, GDI took away thousands of dollars per month in advertising revenue from this website back in 2020, and Newsguard has red-flagged us as a disinformation site because I refused to lie at their behest.
If we are silenced, we aren’t free.
I would like to think that most of us will never need to take such obvious risks for the sake of our principles, but who knows?
I do know that the more people speak out now, the more that we refuse to overlook the school closures, the ruined family businesses, the spike in excess deaths, and the general chaos of the past three and a half years, the harder it will be to implement anything like this again.
But what are your thoughts? Is free speech dead in the Western world? Why do you believe governments are so interested in shutting up the folks with dissenting opinions? What steps can we take to protect our rights?
Let’s discuss it in the comments section.
About Marie Hawthorne
A lover of novels and cultivator of superb apple pie recipes, Marie spends her free time writing about the world around her.
Free speech undermines total control. It’ll be freedom of thought after that. Mark my words.
As stated in the article, this has become a worldwide problem. The elites that want to be the rulers of the world, with only enough other humans to provide the services they want, and for them to pay enough taxes to provide the infrastructure the elites want to have available for themselves only. No dissent allowed, overt or covert.
The punishments are going to become worse and worse, since, after all, there are still plenty of humans still alive that they can control that will not resist.
Totalitarianism is real. Americans and the rest of the Western affiliated nations have been reading about it and seeing it for years. In the general population’s arrogance that ‘it cannot happen here, to me’, which led them to ignore the signs that, yes, it was going to happen here, to them. Now that it is beginning to affect some of the people that thought they were part of the elite that would be exempt from everything, at least a few people are beginning to admit to the realities of totalitarianism, and that they, and others like them that have facilitated its encroachment into western societies, are beginning to fight back.
Unfortunately, I believe it is too little, too late, and the world will go through a time where only those who can fend for themselves, their families, and their communities will survive and last long enough to begin the rebuilding process after the elites that are guiding things now go back into their holes when their plan ultimately fails.
Just my opinion.
Jerry D Young
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and always remember TANSTAAFL
(“There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch” Manny, from The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert A Heinlein
I am going to guess that one side’s problem with posting misinformation and disinformation are the primary reason that governments are cracking down on things. Short of suing people who post misinformation or disinformation, the government has to regulate how it’s posted. Public safety should not take a step back from free speech. Like Anthony Scalia said, Amendments aren’t absolute. Freedom of speech primarily protects you from criticizing the government. Thats why it was created. But using free speech to harm others to amuse yourself should not be covered. It’s like the person who burns a flag. They have the right to burn the flag. But there are consequences. They may get their ass beaten for doing so. People who abuse freedom of speech should get their collective asses beaten as well. And yes Americans have gotten stupider. Sometimes too stupid for their own good. But the people who prey on them should be held accountable. They know what they are doing is wrong but they claim freedom of speech to get out of any penalty. And thats just wrong. Especially for a nation that seems to claim that they are Christian.
The biggest purveyors of misinformation and disinformation is the government. We have seen this from the Twitter Files, as the government worked hand in hand with Big Tech to censor anything that went against their narrative. Fauci and his friend Collins tried to discredit The Great Barrington Declaration when it turns out the scientists who wrote it, turned out to be right. Using your logic, those government experts should get their asses beaten as well. But recall The Atlantic article where a professor says to Declare a Pandemic Amnesty for those people who forced the lockdowns, closed schools, churches, masks, the COVID shot? Should they be beaten as well? As the pandemic continued, the numbers clearly showed it was not the Second Black Plague or the Spanish Flu 2.0, when the Great Barrington Declaration was written, rather than stop, take the facts into consideration and alter their course of action, they doubled and even in some cases tripled down on their already bad policy. Shouldn’t they not be given amnesty but held accountable? They knew what they were doing was wrong.
What does Christian faith have to do with any of that?
James Gregg your belief that governments should be “cracking down on” “posting misinformation and disinformation” for “Public safety” is what gives Nazis like Adolf Hitler and Dictators like Stalin and Mao Tse-tung the power to “crack down” on any speech they do not like in the name of “Public safety”. Government power over free speech is what really endangers “Public safety”. The types of speech not protected by the First Amendment in the US are very specific and very few. Like all rights, ones right to anything ends where another persons right is threatened. For example calling for the murder of some one or saying that you will pay someone to physically harm another person is not a type of speech protected by the First Amendment. That is a very specific example of unprotected speech. A danger to “Public safety” is too vague a reason for a government to punish anyone. That kind of logic only appeals to people who want to live in a police state where nonsense crimes like misgendering or not using gender-neutral language are punished by the government in the name of “Public safety”.
Just think what a wonderful world it would be when everything you say or post gets translated by a government mandated AI speech translator into government approved speech – SATIRE. You say what you want to say. But what people actually hear is what the AI has decided is what you really meant to say. For example you say “Joe Biden is the worse president in the history of this country”. The government AI app in real time translates this and the words people hear are “There has never been a better president than Joe Biden.” Misinformation is prevented and public safety is served. Too totalitarian for me though.
Great comment.
Thank You 1stMarineJarHead. Just trying to help the James Greggs of the world to see things more clearly..
“People who abuse freedom of speech should get their collective asses beaten as well. ”
Care to share any examples?
” It feels like we’re all trapped in the midst of the biggest coverup in history.”
Actually, the covers are being pulled off, and the criminals are frantic. Their efforts to hide things are more open now because they have no other choice. They are losing. It is The Great Awakening and many of those here are doing all we can to help it along.
There are martyrs and costs–there always have been.
The world is like a boil full of pus–it is ugly as it is lanced. But it will end up clean. We have a very interesting future.
This is perhaps the most dramatic time there has ever been. To me, this is the very best time to be alive.
You deleted my comment and absolutely NOTHING was wrong with it. It was just free speech well within anyone’s policy. So how does it feel when others do it to you?
Thats’ when I quit reading your stuff.
No, I didn’t. I was simply away from my desk and it was waiting to be approved.
I don’t think so. If I recall it was up at your site then the next day it was GONE!
Dont get your panties in a bunch.
My comment went into moderation and I WRITE for Daisy. Sometimes the woman has to step away from her desk. You know, like to take a bathroom break.
Free speech is not about panties. You bunched in the wrong category.
Seems free speech is something that most people do not want anymore. Sometimes I think they prefer lie after lie. Many HATE the “truth” b/c it makes them feel uncomfortable. Taking about politics or religion specially makes some people nervous. Hummm, Free Speech has always been what most preferred but NOT anymore… That is the way it’s turning out though…Today you can be thrown in jail for speaking your thoughts!!!
He who has the gold makes the rules. This is Daisy’s playground. There have been times when my comments weren’t posted. If I gave a big enough $hit, I’d probably stop posting altogether, but since she is fair at least 85% of the time and that is good enough for me. You are wasting your time complaining. Especially since you don’t own this website. There are plenty of other pablum blogs to read if you get tired enough of not getting your way. Insulting the owner will get you nowhere. Nor should it. Man up.
My concern is that “the pot will continue to get warmer and the frog will be to lazy to jump out”. The amount of people that believe whatever their favorite news outlets tell them no matter how ridiculous it might be astounds me.
HUMMMM, well I do remember hearing that you can’t fix stupid. Maybe this is one of those times…
No matter the intent, unauthorized access to computer information is illegal. No sympathy for “Mr. Smith”.
The “Appeal to Authority” is a logical fallacy that serves totalitarian regemes well. Official malfeasance should never be covered up ,”National Security”.
Illegal is illegal – no get out of jail free card. Criminal activity is just that – criminal.
He literally uncovered a crime , isn’t not reporting a crime ,also a crime ?
According to the report, “Mr. Smith” had access to that data because that was his job.
Generally, I’m hearing 2 different approaches to Free Speech.
1. True patriots since the time of the Founding Fathers valued it highly enough that it was in the very first amendment to the Constitution. Telling the truth out loud. Standing up for your principles. It was Patrick Henry proclaiming “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!”. It was the brave writers and printers who published pro-revolutionary pamphlets. It was Paul Revere riding through the countryside yelling “The British are coming!”.
2. The gray man approach, not just in a shtf situation, but in daily life, too. Don’t give out your opinion. Don’t take a stand on issues. Leave no trail – anywhere – that an intrusive federal government can pick up and nail you.
I choose #1. A very alarming aspect of modern life is when conservatives keep quiet while the marxists are spouting off more of their filth. The end scenario of that is, that only evil is being heard. An example of this is how the tide of public opinion is turning against Israel. The citizens of that Democracy were attacked with such barbarism that it took our breath away. And then just a few weeks later, leftist supporters have taken to the streets all over the world favoring the slaughterers. It didn’t take them long.
Please, don’t let the supporters of evil be the only voices being heard.
Censorship is fascist. It’s unfortunate that fascism has become the dominant political system on our planet with all governments and all the international organizations a part of it. A few decades ago it never would’ve been believed that a system nearly identical in every way to German Nazism would become the worldwide system.
The Barry Young New Zealand Covid-19 vaccination “20% mortality rate in the weeks after vaccination.” story is terrifying. The bigger question is was this “20% mortality rate” deliberate.
What I am suggesting here was that this massive push by the globalist puppets meaning the msm jackals and the democrat party for the COVID-19 vaccine government mandates and vaccine passports is not about public safety. But rather it is about establishing a medical dictatorship.
The ultimate purpose is to allow them to murder undesirables on an industrial scale undetected. New Zealand is an example of this. In China they used so called contact data to track down and quarantine people who may have contracted COVID. Many of these people were simply disappeared and their deaths blamed on COVID. But was the COVID contact data real or was it simply made up and used as an excuse to get rid of dissenters and conveniently blame it on COVID.
Government vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, contact data, government mandated quarantines is insane. When the government has complete control of where and whether you can just live based on this kind of medical dictatorship, the potential for the government murdering dissenters and undesirables on an industrial scale undetected is just too great. And of course free speech contradicting the medical dictatorship’s mandates is banned. Will they try this again to upset the 2024 US presidential election like they did last time?
But ironically, while crackdowns on free speech such as described in this article are occurring, outright calls for genocide directed against Jews, are happening on the streets and on college campuses and we are told that’s just an acceptable exercise of free speech.
“When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.” -Tyrion Lannister, ‘Game of Thrones’