Rebel News Podcast - Ezra Levant ｜ Free speech is on fire in Ireland： in-depth with Gript Media's Ben Scallan

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Today, a great conversation with Ben Scallon, an independent journalist in

00:00:04.500 Ireland who's covering the riots in that country and the stabbings and the, I don't know, the

00:00:10.920 social unrest. And of course, Conor McGregor. It's a very interesting place these days.

00:00:16.120 And Ben Scallon's the guy to talk to us about it. But first, let me invite you to go to

00:00:21.340 rebelnewsplus.com. That's a website where you can sign up for the video version of this podcast.

00:00:26.900 I want to show you some of the craziness on the streets of Ireland. Better to show it to you

00:00:33.400 than just to tell you about it. You can get that at rebelnewsplus.com. Eight bucks a month.

00:00:39.200 Not a lot of dough for the ordinary Joe, but it sure does add up for us, I'll tell you,

00:00:44.640 because that's how we pay half our payroll here. So do it for the great content, but do it to keep

00:00:49.960 Rebel News healthy. That's rebelnewsplus.com. All right, here's today's podcast.

00:00:56.900 Tonight, what's going on in Ireland? We talked to a leading citizen journalist.

00:01:14.820 It's December 15th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:17.360 You're fighting for freedom. Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:26.900 Ireland is a country of just over 5 million people, but in so many ways it's going through

00:01:37.840 the same battles as countries around the West. Here in Canada, in Western Europe, in the United

00:01:43.500 States, issues like mass immigration that is not assimilated, issues like globalist control as

00:01:50.680 opposed to national sovereignty and, of course, political correctness and wokeness, demonizing

00:01:56.780 anyone who dares to think contrary to the official narrative. I love Ireland for so many reasons, even

00:02:03.560 though I've never had the pleasure of spending any time there. And my window into the world of Ireland

00:02:08.960 comes from a new independent journalism outfit. We've interviewed several of their reporters before,

00:02:14.640 including our guest today. What a delight to be joined again by Ben Scallon, a reporter for

00:02:20.440 gripped.ie. And gripped is spelt in an archaic way, G-R-I-P-T, as in he gripped it. That's an old-fashioned

00:02:28.440 way of saying I love it. And they have been on fire. I shouldn't say on fire because there were some

00:02:33.880 riotous fires recently. Joining us now is Ben Scallon, one of their correspondents. It's been great to see you

00:02:39.380 again. Ireland has been in a storm of controversy for so many reasons. And I am so grateful that we

00:02:46.080 have you to tell us the other side of the story, as opposed to what I call the regime media, which,

00:02:53.240 in fact, one of the things we'll talk about is how the regime media refuses to cover things that,

00:02:57.900 quote, aren't helpful to the narrative. Great to see you, Ben.

00:03:02.040 Yeah, great to see you, too. It's great to be back.

00:03:04.300 Well, let's just talk a little bit about some of the most shocking news that ignited the place,

00:03:11.540 both metaphorically and actually physically. There were fires set. There was a stabbing

00:03:16.780 in Ireland that was so horrific, it pricked the conscience of the entire country and actually led

00:03:24.860 to riots in response. Tell me a little bit about the stabbing. Who did the stabbing? How was that

00:03:31.660 treated by the media? Who was stabbed? And I don't mean to be grotesque or macabre, but it is very

00:03:38.160 relevant to the reaction and then the media's counterreaction. Tell us what happened about a

00:03:43.260 month ago now. Yeah, so we can't say definitively, as a matter of fact, who committed this terrible crime

00:03:50.980 because nobody has been convicted yet. You know, of course, there's a legal process there and I wouldn't

00:03:55.700 want to prejudice any kind of ongoing case. But for those who aren't in the know, about, I'd say,

00:04:02.080 a month ago now or so, there was a stabbing in broad daylight at a school in the centre of Dublin

00:04:10.680 City, which is the capital city of Ireland, where three young children, all aged six years or younger,

00:04:17.660 were stabbed, including one woman, an adult kind of childcare worker who was with them at the time.

00:04:23.740 She was also stabbed. I believe she's just out of hospital as of a few days ago. And two of the

00:04:29.240 children were, I mean, they were all badly injured. There's no such thing as a non-serious stabbing,

00:04:33.860 but two of them, I suppose, fared a bit better than the third one who, to our knowledge, is still

00:04:40.380 in hospital. And the updates on that child's status have not really been forthcoming from

00:04:47.380 authorities. We don't really know what's going on there. The alleged perpetrator, the person who is

00:04:52.840 the person of interest for the police, is a man of Algerian origin. He is also in hospital himself,

00:05:01.120 having sustained injuries at the site. People, you know, bystanders and people who are walking by

00:05:06.160 jumped in there. And it is claimed that whoever was perpetrating the attack, who, again, some

00:05:14.100 alleged that it was this individual, that they were basically hospitalised. And so he's been there

00:05:20.060 since. But yeah, as you can imagine, this is a really shocking crime. And it's not the kind of

00:05:26.140 thing that we've had in Ireland, really, ever. I mean, of course, it's never going to be normal in

00:05:31.540 any country for children to be stabbed. That's not something that people would consider to be just a

00:05:37.680 day at the office. But I do think that there are some countries like America, where tragically,

00:05:42.920 you know, there have been school shootings, there have been these sorts of tragedies, it's not

00:05:46.980 unheard of. Whereas here, we've never had anything like that. So this was a kind of a new sort of

00:05:52.480 atrocity that really shocked the nation to its core. And it's something that we sort of feel that the

00:05:58.640 atmosphere on the ground is like we've crossed a threshold here when things like this start to

00:06:01.960 happen. Yeah. And I think people were so appalled by it. And I don't mean to make a comparison,

00:06:06.720 because it's, I don't think there's a link, but it, but if it was an Algerian migrant who stabbed

00:06:13.280 children, which is so contrary to every civilizational norm, my mind is drawn to the

00:06:19.060 possibility that it may be in some way linked to what's going on in Israel, because we did see

00:06:25.220 children attacked on October 7. Is there any indication whatsoever, have authorities or police

00:06:30.580 or anyone tried to understand the motive of an Algerian migrant? And I say again, as you point

00:06:36.660 out, he's a suspect, he is not yet being convicted beyond a reasonable doubt in court. He's still in

00:06:41.840 hospital, in fact. Is there any indication whatsoever of a motive? I mean, I suppose the reaction would

00:06:48.460 be to say madness. But, but there was a deliberation here. There was a plan, it sounds like. Do we know

00:06:55.820 what, do we know why he did it? Was he heard shouting something like Allah Akbar? And

00:07:00.540 again, I'm not suggesting it. I'm just asking.

00:07:04.660 No, I mean, the police say that having looked into this after, in the wake of it, as they were doing

00:07:10.460 their investigations, that they don't believe there's any particular religious or political

00:07:14.640 motive. They think that the, the suspect suffers with psychiatric issues and that that was probably

00:07:21.440 the primary contributing factor here, that it's not necessarily ideological. But I mean, that in and of

00:07:29.500 itself, uh, uh, you know, assuming that there is truth to this and that it is, as it appears,

00:07:34.920 that in and of itself would raise issues. And I think part of what is frustrating people is that

00:07:40.860 this is the latest in a long string of very shocking crimes. So just last year, we saw the murder of a

00:07:47.940 young girl. She was 23 years old, Aisling Murphy, who was just out for a run in her local area in a nice

00:07:54.440 rural area. And she was stabbed repeatedly to death by a man who has now been convicted, uh, who was a

00:08:01.940 Slovakian national. And of course, I want to make it absolutely clear as well. Of course, people of all

00:08:07.860 nationalities and all groups commit crimes. Irish people commit crimes every day of the week. Uh, you know, 1.00

00:08:13.220 there's, there's no one ideology or religion or ethnicity that has a monopoly on these sorts of

00:08:20.280 things. But I do think there's a conversation that is worth, uh, at least considering when you

00:08:27.260 think about the fact that people are coming to our country who we know very little about, you know,

00:08:31.580 there's always going to be a baseline level of, uh, criminality of violence. That's a terrible thing,

00:08:37.940 but it is unfortunately a part of life and living in the reality that there's going to be evil people

00:08:43.800 who do evil things. But I think there's a difference when you bring a guy from a country 1.00

00:08:48.140 like Slovakia, like in the case I just mentioned, and he is born there and now he's here stabbing 0.99

00:08:54.340 someone to death. That was a preventable crime. You know, maybe it's conceivable that if we knew more

00:08:59.860 about this individual, we would have realized that he's bad news and he wouldn't have come here in the

00:09:04.720 first place. So people don't want to have that conversation. They want to immediately deflect

00:09:08.980 and say, Oh no, you're tiring everybody with a broad brush. Of course, it's not about time. You

00:09:13.060 know, most people who come from abroad, including my own mother, who's an immigrant from Jamaica

00:09:17.460 are perfectly normal, reasonable people who just want to live their life like anybody else.

00:09:22.540 But it is naive and incorrect to act like everybody who comes to our country is going to be benevolent

00:09:30.660 and well-meaning. And we should be able to point that out and have a conversation about that

00:09:33.960 without being accused of being this kind of ist or fobe or whatever else.

00:09:38.920 And especially as we move into the era of mass migration in Canada, for example, there are no

00:09:44.900 longer desk interviews. You no longer go and meet in person to apply to immigrate. It's all done

00:09:50.040 over the computer. Like there's physically not, no one lays eyes on you. No one has a personal

00:09:56.020 conversation. No one tests your reaction to things. There's no human element. It's just,

00:10:01.840 you know, in Canada, we're now at 4,000 migrants a day, every day of the week, 365 days a year. There's

00:10:09.180 no way to vet that many people. And I agree with you that a lot of them are, you know, maybe just

00:10:14.180 seeking a better economic opportunity. But, but especially if you're bringing people from either

00:10:18.980 a war-torn place where they might have PTSD for all we know, or a place where there are ideologies that

00:10:25.180 are extreme. We, we don't know. But what we do know is how the government authorities and how the

00:10:31.960 regime media try to stifle conversations about these things. You mentioned the case of the 23-year-old

00:10:37.800 woman, Aisling Murphy. And in Ireland, it sounds like you have something we have here in Canada also,

00:10:44.680 which is at sentencing a victim impact statement where someone is allowed to say to the court,

00:10:50.600 here's how this hurt me. I would like you, judge, to take this into consideration in the sentencing.

00:10:56.240 At least that's how it works here in Canada. I understand that the murdered woman's boyfriend

00:11:01.500 made some remarks, but because he referenced the issue that you and I are talking about,

00:11:06.400 the immigration and who this person was, his victim impact statement was silenced and covered up.

00:11:13.540 I think we have a clip of, uh, some of Ireland's, uh, most official journalists saying,

00:11:19.940 well, it weren't, it's not helpful what this victim said. So we would rather silence the voice

00:11:30.340 of the grieving boyfriend whose girlfriend was murdered because what he said wasn't helpful to

00:11:37.280 whom? Are you in the news business or are you, are you running some errands here? Here, we'll play a clip

00:11:42.660 of, uh, what I know you've tongue-in-cheek called Ireland's top journalists because they're,

00:11:48.720 they're sort of anti-journalists here. They're un-reporting the case. Let's take a look.

00:11:52.580 Kitty, um, I wonder, do you think the politicians and media, um, ignore what others around the country

00:11:59.460 said was the most significant part of Ryan Casey's victim impact statement? Um, Ryan Casey,

00:12:05.100 of course, was the, the boyfriend of the murdered teacher, Aisling, uh, Murphy. He prefaced his victim

00:12:11.600 impact statement by saying his girlfriend's murderer had lived off the state without contributing

00:12:15.680 to it for 10 years. And then he said, I feel like this country is no longer the country that Aisling 0.96

00:12:20.280 and I grew up in and has officially lost its innocence when a crime of this magnitude could

00:12:25.220 be perpetrated in broad daylight. We have to once and for all, he said, start putting the safety of

00:12:30.640 not only Irish people, but everybody in this country who works hard, pays taxes, raises families,

00:12:36.400 and overall contributes to society first. Um, those were very interesting comments, weren't they?

00:12:44.720 Well, yeah, I mean, I think elements of them were not good, frankly. I think they were incitement

00:12:50.880 to hatred. And I think that's why aspects of the media left out aspects of them. Um, I, this

00:12:57.080 was an extremely heartbroken and devastated young man who has lost the partner of his life,

00:13:03.080 but the race and nationality of the man who perpetrated that awful violence on Aisling and

00:13:08.840 murdered her is irrelevant. Um, and I, I, he, I can understand, you know, in the emotion and him

00:13:16.360 feeling that, and he's entitled to his views, but I think the media has a responsibility to not report,

00:13:22.600 um, views that are incitement to hatred. And he has been held up as a hero of the far right now. Um,

00:13:29.480 um, so interesting you may call them. Um, but I, I, I, I, I, I mean, I'm sure he would say they

00:13:39.720 weren't meant to be incitement to, to hatred. Was it the right thing for the media to overlook them

00:13:45.240 in those circumstances? I mean, was it an embarrassed overlooking of those comments, do you think?

00:13:50.520 I don't think so. I think they were right to, um, to not include them. Um, they were said, they were,

00:13:56.680 I, I, I, I don't think that they were helpful. Um, and, uh, it's the kind of thing that,

00:14:03.960 you know, the far right latches onto that they latched onto the, um, nationality of the man who,

00:14:09.800 um, who attacked their children. And, you know, I'd love them to go down to the courts and report

00:14:15.960 on all the white Irish men who are perpetrating violence on, on Irish and immigrant women, um,

00:14:21.720 every day in the court. They're not doing that. So the nationality, what the problem here is 0.69

00:14:25.880 violence against women and children. It's not the nationality of the people who are perpetrating it.

00:14:29.640 The problem is misogyny and hatred and entitlement to inflict women violence on women and children.

00:14:35.080 It's another, it's another related issue and ill in society, but it has nothing to do with race.

00:14:41.240 I tell you, that's the most astonishing series of statements I ever heard. Ben, I was just jotting

00:14:45.320 down notes. So she's telling, uh, the surviving victim, the, I don't know if you would call it a

00:14:51.640 widower if they weren't yet married. She's telling him how to properly grieve. She's telling him what

00:14:57.480 to feel and what to think. He's doing it wrong. She says it's not good what he says and it's incitement

00:15:05.240 to hatred. So that sounds like she's criminalizing his statement of grief. She repeatedly says he refers

00:15:11.640 to race. I didn't hear a word about race in there. I don't think Slovakian or immigrant or races.

00:15:17.560 She called his comments irrelevant. Again, she, he should have consulted with her before having his

00:15:25.160 feelings. Um, she repeatedly said far right. I guess if your girlfriend is murdered and you object to it,

00:15:32.360 that's far right. She said that journalists actually had a responsibility to not report. Like I said,

00:15:40.040 anti-journalism or un-journalism. Um, but she, uh, is against making race an issue, which the grieving

00:15:48.120 widower didn't do, but she'll come up with her hated group misogyny. So basically this is just men

00:15:55.880 and the men are the ones we should probably be hating. I have seldom seen so many woke ideas jammed

00:16:03.240 into a three minute statement as that Ben, but I can see if that's what your regime media is like.

00:16:09.560 Why gripped.ie. And by the way, I'm a subscriber. I love it. I can see if that's what the regime

00:16:15.640 media is talking about. Why gripped is just growing by leaps and bounds. Thank you for letting me react

00:16:21.800 to that. Give me your thoughts on what we just saw. Who was that lady, by the way, that was on, 1.00

00:16:25.480 it looked like it was on BBC Ireland. Um, and who was that lady who was making those comments? 1.00

00:16:31.720 Yes. Those are the, the show was on BBC Northern Ireland, but the, the woman who was on who they

00:16:36.600 were interviewing was, uh, Kitty Holland, who is the social affairs correspondent for the Irish

00:16:41.560 times, which is kind of Ireland's paper of record. It's, it's, uh, you know, very prestigious. It's a

00:16:46.360 couple of hundred years as a publication. So it's kind of viewed as almost the gold standard of media

00:16:52.200 here. And what I found so remarkable about Miss Holland's comments there was that while many

00:16:57.560 people found it shocking, that video went extremely viral. It occurred millions of views when we posted

00:17:02.360 the clip. Uh, the, the fact of the matter is she's only saying out loud what most journalists in

00:17:08.280 Ireland privately think, but they might just have a little bit more sense to not say it in public.

00:17:12.520 You know, the, the fact that she would say, oh no, I think actually journalists have a responsibility to

00:17:17.080 suppress information like this. That is in effect what the entire media ecosystem in Ireland did.

00:17:23.400 Almost nobody actually reported. He gave a long statement to Ryan Casey, uh, the, the boyfriend,

00:17:29.320 and he touched on a lot of issues and he very briefly mentioned the immigration issue. And he,

00:17:34.120 as, as you say, he didn't mention anything about race. He didn't say anything offensive or unreasonable.

00:17:39.400 He basically just asked the question, how is it that somebody can come to Ireland,

00:17:43.720 Ireland, not work, not contribute to society beyond welfare for their entire duration of, 0.65

00:17:50.040 of staying here and end up, uh, allowed to stay being given permission by the states,

00:17:56.760 despite the fact that they contribute nothing of value, and then ultimately go on to murder an

00:18:01.960 innocent young girl who was just trying to live her life. So he asked what is an incredibly reasonable

00:18:07.880 question, which was a question that was on the minds of most people in this country and the

00:18:12.520 aftermath of this appalling crime. And yet, Miss Holland has now admitted on behalf of her media

00:18:19.640 colleagues who evidently agree with her, because you can see from the way they behaved, that, uh,

00:18:24.440 the, the media views it as its job essentially to suppress this, this kind of information because

00:18:31.720 it's hateful and far right and unhelpful essentially, which kind of tells you all you need to know about

00:18:37.960 why certain things are the way they are and why media is in the state that it's in here in this country.

00:18:43.480 Yeah. That unhelpful thing. It's sort of a wink wink that we're all here to help, to help whom?

00:18:49.160 I mean, to help people, uh, seek the truth about the world that, I mean, that's what media is.

00:18:55.160 You're between, you are the conduit from the world to people. That's what, that's what journalism should

00:19:00.120 be. But they, to them, not being helpful is helpful to power, helpful to the regime, to the

00:19:06.520 authorities, to the official narrative, to globalism, to, we all know that mass migration is the right

00:19:12.600 thing and this is unhelpful to that campaign. Just incredible. Now they use the word far right again

00:19:17.240 and again, and I have no idea, um, what that means other than it is a term of hatred. We were talking to

00:19:23.800 Dr. James Lindsay the other day who said Mao, Chairman Mao in China used that same phraseology,

00:19:30.840 just, just basically to label swaths of people who were, were bad. Like it was just, uh, it was

00:19:37.960 really just an insult that didn't have a particular meaning. It was just a label. Um, the Irish justice

00:19:44.120 minister talks about far right, far right all the time as well, but we've got a clip and, and, and you

00:19:51.400 guys again, one of my favorite things about GRIPT is you're not just commenting on the news that

00:19:57.000 other people get, you go and get the news and you have access actually to the Irish cabinet. You go

00:20:03.320 to these press conferences, you ask the questions and they actually answer you. They don't either,

00:20:09.000 I mean, that's one thing that sort of surprises me about Irish politicians is they sometimes actually

00:20:14.440 answer questions. Uh, I, I know they obfuscate a lot, but sometimes they give an answer. And

00:20:19.000 the most impressive thing is, um, they let you in, you know, they haven't yet, uh, reached into their

00:20:28.200 inner bully and kicked you out. So some of these clips, um, are you putting questions directly to

00:20:35.000 the cabinet ministers? I, I know you've done some great work on, on censorship laws, but I just want

00:20:39.560 to show a clip of the justice minister, who's the main driving force behind the upcoming hate speech

00:20:45.080 bill, which is really the most strenuous hate speech bill outside of North Korea. It's shocking.

00:20:51.240 Um, and here's the acknowledgement that just like Chairman Mao, far right just sort of means

00:20:57.880 people we don't like. Let's take a look at this clip. Could you give me a definition of what you

00:21:02.920 consider is the far right? In terms of a definition of the far right, I mean, it's, it's,

00:21:08.680 it's obviously a political ideology or it's a particular view that a person has. Um, I, I'm not

00:21:15.880 sure there is a definition. It's not a little bit like hate. Well, yeah, so I think we need to find

00:21:22.680 what it is. You have a limited amount of time. If you interrupt the minister, you're going to run out

00:21:25.880 of time. So just that answer the question. Thank you. I think what we see from a lot of people who would

00:21:31.480 claim to be far right, which is not a crime, uh, for somebody to have a particular ideology, it's where they

00:21:36.360 act on maybe certain, uh, matters. But, uh, we have seen people to be anti-government, anti-state,

00:21:41.960 anti-immigration, uh, anti, uh, women's rights, uh, amongst other things. That would be my own

00:21:48.280 particular view of those who would claim to be far right. So that was, uh, in a committee,

00:21:52.440 that was not a question put to her by your journalist, but I know you've engaged with Helen

00:21:56.680 McEntee before because she is, she really does seek to implement the, the world's most onerous

00:22:03.000 censorship regime. And, and, um, she says being far right is not a crime, but she seeks to

00:22:10.600 essentially criminalize far right, uh, content. Now I'd like you to describe it. I've read the bill

00:22:18.120 and I've, I've done a show on it, but listen, I'm over here in Canada. You're, you're in the heart of

00:22:22.680 Ireland yourself. My understanding is that this would criminalize even what you have, say,

00:22:28.520 on your phone. If someone sends you a meme or an email or an image, uh, even if you just have

00:22:35.080 it in your possession, you haven't deployed it yet. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, uh,

00:22:39.160 cause maybe I'm confusing it with other hate crime bills, like ones we've got coming in Canada. Tell

00:22:44.280 me the worst or tell me the truth really about Ireland's proposed bill. Go ahead.

00:22:49.880 So you're, you're right about that. The fact that you don't even have to disseminate the alleged

00:22:54.920 hate material. If it's just simply found in your possession. So say, as you, as you say,

00:22:59.400 something on your phone, something on your laptop, maybe the police for, for some reason,

00:23:03.560 they're in your house and they find out that you have an objectionable pamphlet or leaflet.

00:23:08.600 There doesn't have to be any evidence or proof that you have distributed this to another person.

00:23:13.240 If it's deemed to be hateful, you can be jailed merely for possessing it. And in fact,

00:23:18.360 it is the, uh, burden of responsibility or the burden of proof, should I say is on you

00:23:24.600 to prove your innocence. It's been reversed where you, you need to try and somehow prove I did not

00:23:30.600 intend to disseminate this so-called hate material. And I, I mean, you, you know, as well as I do that,

00:23:36.680 that's almost a logical impossibility. You can't prove a negative. How do you prove you didn't intend

00:23:41.720 to do something? You know, it's not really something that is going to be easy to, to, uh,

00:23:47.320 explain in court, but even more fundamentally than that, that that's, that's one element of the bill

00:23:52.600 that's problematic. It doesn't even define the word hate. It's a hate speech bill. But when you read

00:23:59.160 the text of the legislation, it says that hatred means hatred on the basis of X, Y, Z characteristics,

00:24:06.600 which is a circular definition. So hatred effectively means whatever somebody wants it

00:24:12.440 to mean when they're trying to prosecute you. And it even has more logical absurdities like one of the

00:24:18.360 protected characteristics is genders other than that of male or female. That's what it says in the text.

00:24:24.520 But when I asked our Taoiseach, which is effectively our prime minister, I asked him how many genders are

00:24:31.240 there according to the government based on this legislation? Because actually our leader of the

00:24:35.400 Shannon last year, she's like our, uh, Senate majority leader, I guess you would call it in,

00:24:40.520 uh, North America. She said that, uh, there were about nine genders. So about nine generations ago,

00:24:48.280 there were two genders, you know, there were two sexes. There still are two sexes, but today I think

00:24:53.240 we probably have about nine genders and that doesn't diminish any other gender within the gender identity

00:24:59.080 set. Facebook discovered 53, I should tell you. So, uh, they're discovering more every day in the lab,

00:25:04.920 you know, scientists are actively searching. We have that, uh, I didn't know that was you who

00:25:10.360 put the question to Leo Varadkar. Am I pronouncing that right? He's, I'm not going to try the Irish 1.00

00:25:15.960 name for, it's basically prime minister. How do you say that word in Irish?

00:25:21.000 Taoiseach. Taoiseach. Okay. That's, there's, there's wonderful, beautiful Irish terms that I just don't,

00:25:26.680 I just never hear them spoken here. I read them, but I don't know how to say them Taoiseach. That's great.

00:25:31.240 So here's Leo Varadkar, uh, who's a, if I'm not mistaken, he's a world economic forum,

00:25:36.120 young leader, just like Justin Trudeau and Jacinda Ardern were and Mark Ruta. And that was you who asked

00:25:43.000 him how many genders there are. I didn't know that. You know, let's take a quick look at that. That's 1.00

00:25:46.520 just great.

00:25:47.160 To be shocked. The hate speech bill makes gender a protected characteristic, but Michael McDowell and

00:25:52.200 others have noted that the gender recognition act only recognizes two genders while the hate speech

00:25:56.840 bill explicitly refers to more genders than just male or female. Your Shannon leader, Senator

00:26:01.560 Regina Doherty previously said that there are about nine genders. Generations ago, there were two 0.99

00:26:06.680 genders. You know, there were two sexes. There still are two sexes, but today I think we probably have 0.98

00:26:11.720 about nine genders and that doesn't diminish any other gender within the gender identity set.

00:26:17.560 So how many genders are there? And you know, can we get the government's official position on that? 0.96

00:26:22.040 Oh, look, there isn't, there isn't official position on that, but you know, I'm sure that

00:26:26.120 will all be debate in the course of the debates of the Jonathan.

00:26:28.280 You know what? I love the fact, Ben, that you're able to get within question asking range

00:26:34.120 of these political leaders. You've, you've scrummed Helen McEntee before. She is trying to,

00:26:40.600 she was trying to say that most Irish people like this censorship bill. And I got to tell you,

00:26:46.680 like I said, I've never been to Ireland, but I want to remedy that quickly. I've just passed through

00:26:49.800 the airport once. When I think of Ireland, I think of scrappy, proud, stubborn people who

00:27:00.360 tell it like it is, who aren't afraid to swear, whose poetry even is rebellious. I think of

00:27:07.560 prickly pears like Sinead O'Connor, even, you know, someone who, who's just such a handful.

00:27:14.600 When I think of Ireland, I do not think of docile, passive, obedient people. I mean, maybe,

00:27:20.520 maybe I'm just stereotyping here, but the idea that most Irish people would put up their hand

00:27:25.160 and say, please, can you censor me? I just don't see it. I mean, there's a ton of Irish people in

00:27:29.880 North America. Obviously there's more Irish expats than there are Irish. And, and there's a phrase,

00:27:34.920 the fighting Irish, and it's a compliment. You know, the idea that the Irish people, 0.96

00:27:40.280 you know, I even think of Morrissey's song, uh, Irish heart, English blood, uh, uh, this I'm made

00:27:47.000 of, and there's no one on earth I'm afraid of, you know, the land of Conor McGregor, that they're

00:27:53.240 signing up to be censored. I don't buy it. And you put it to, uh, you, your team at Gript,

00:28:00.360 you know, I'll let the video do the talking because they claimed the Irish wanted it,

00:28:04.600 but you guys actually counted. And it was a lie. Take a look at this.

00:28:08.040 Yesterday, you indicated that the only people who oppose your government's hate speech laws are,

00:28:12.520 quote, fringe commentators. But of the thousands of replies to your own government's public

00:28:17.000 consultations, 73% were negative. And according to the last poll done on the subject, 65% of people

00:28:23.400 oppose such laws. So is it not in fact your government that's endorsing the fringe position here?

00:28:28.920 What I think is very clear, and this is coming from the significant amount of public consultation that

00:28:33.240 we've had in the last four years, um, consultation that started back in 2018 is that there is a very

00:28:39.720 clear group of minority people in this country who are simply targeted and who are being either

00:28:45.240 victimized or harassed, assaulted, who are victims of hate speech and hate crime simply because of who

00:28:50.680 they are. So that is very clear. That is based on fact. And that is also based on reports that we have.

00:28:55.880 Minister with requests. That's not what I asked. But I'm sorry. That's not what I asked. And also,

00:29:00.440 I've gone through every single one of the consultation responses. There are about 3,600 of them.

00:29:06.280 And that's really not what they said. The vast majority of people said they don't want this. So

00:29:10.600 where are you getting the idea that there's public outcry for this other than government paid NGOs?

00:29:16.840 So that's incorrect to say that the vast majority of people don't want this. I think even if you were to

00:29:21.480 listen to the debate last night in the Shannad, uh, and certainly the debate in the Dole, the vast

00:29:25.960 majority of people do want this. But those are politicians. We're talking about the general

00:29:30.040 public. Where's the, where's the public outcry for them? I can either answer the question or not.

00:29:33.320 But I mean, what I'm basing this on is very clear factual evidence. If you speak to Angarda Shia

00:29:38.440 Conner, there has been 29% increase in hate crimes across this country. So while we don't have hate

00:29:43.640 crime legislation. Recorded, recorded hate crimes. So, so they're trying to claim that the Irish want to be 1.00

00:29:48.840 censored. They do that in Canada too. No human being wants to be censored. The only people who

00:29:56.600 are calling for this are the people who would be the censors or the people who are plotting on how

00:30:01.320 to use this against, you know, against too much free speech. Gripped would be a target under this.

00:30:07.240 Absolutely it would. So I'm glad you were there to hold them to account. One of the things about Ireland,

00:30:13.800 maybe it's because it's a smallish place. I mean, it's smaller in population than the greater

00:30:18.520 Toronto area. But it's a beautiful countryside from what I can see. And I think that it's the

00:30:27.960 kind of place that could be ganged up on, you know. And there's an interesting clip of an Irish 1.00

00:30:35.320 government representative in the European Parliament because Ireland's still part. Ireland did not Brexit

00:30:41.160 along with the UK. And there was an admission that 70% of Irish legislation is essentially

00:30:48.680 transposed from Brussels, from the European Union making rules. And then it's just downloaded into

00:30:56.200 Ireland, essentially replacing the sovereign authority of the Irish people and their elected

00:31:01.480 delegates with Brussels, where most of the politicians are foreigners. Here, let's take a look

00:31:07.000 at that interesting comment by a member of the European Parliament, Sean Kelly. Take a look.

00:31:15.000 I did speak to Pina Gale. They asked me would I consider running for the law. But I told them that my

00:31:22.840 commitment was to Europe, that I hope to run the elections on June 7th next year, that I was the

00:31:29.080 first Kerry person to be elected to the European Parliament to represent Kerry and Ireland South.

00:31:35.880 And that I have a lot of experience now doing a lot of good work. Many people don't realise that 70%

00:31:43.880 of the legislation comes from Europe and that in the Dáil they're often only transposing what's decided.

00:31:50.040 He says the quiet part out loud. 70% of what we do is just, I think he used the word transpose. He used the word

00:32:07.960 transpose. And I don't think that Irish people again signed up for this. But I think between Leo Varadkar and the EU,

00:32:16.200 Ireland is being turned into a laboratory for schemes that I know no Irish person would sign up for. 0.98

00:32:23.080 You know, I've already talked about the mass immigration. And here comes the censorship.

00:32:28.120 And I think that I look at Leo Varadkar and he's even got the same vibe as Trudeau and Ardern and

00:32:35.160 Holland's Mark Rutte. And even Gavin Newsom has that sort of air of superiority. I'm sorry I have to be in this grubby

00:32:43.960 little place, Ireland. I'm actually much bigger than that. Just like Jacinda Ardern is much bigger than

00:32:48.600 New Zealand. Or Mark Rutte was much bigger than Holland. And they're just so lucky to have him.

00:32:53.080 And I'm here to, like Moses, to come down from Mount Sinai. I'm going to tell you how it is.

00:32:58.120 And if you think that a few kids being stabbed on the street is, well, that's a price we're willing to

00:33:05.400 pay to be with it, with the cool kids. I just think that they're doing creepy things to Ireland, 0.77

00:33:10.600 like they did to Holland, like they did to New Zealand, like Trudeau's doing to Canada.

00:33:14.280 And I think that it's a loss of national sovereignty. And they're trying to shut up anyone

00:33:18.920 who's upset about it by calling them far right and censoring them. That's how I feel about Ireland.

00:33:24.120 Maybe I'm just seeing my own reflection back to me. These are the things I'm worried about in Canada.

00:33:28.440 But that's what Ireland looks like to me. Well, the 70% figure that that politician gave was really

00:33:36.360 something that we've all suspected. It's a thing that people, particularly people on the more

00:33:42.200 conservative or right-wing side of the spectrum here in Ireland, would have said for years,

00:33:46.200 oh, we're losing our sovereignty to Brussels. And that's particularly egregious when you consider

00:33:52.120 how long and how hard we fought for independence from a foreign superpower,

00:33:57.880 namely Britain. You know, we literally fought for about 800 years to achieve our independence.

00:34:03.800 Every single generation of Irish people had to rise up in rebellion. And we were always crushed

00:34:08.440 and always lost until one day we stopped losing and we finally won just in the last century.

00:34:14.520 And then within a few short decades, that win has now seemingly been subverted to the point where

00:34:21.560 this new foreign government, namely the European Parliament, is basically dictating 70% of our

00:34:29.000 legislation, according to this government politician. And so, I mean, when you actually listen to that

00:34:35.400 clip, what he's saying is his political party, which is in power, we're asking him, would he run in the

00:34:40.920 domestic elections, our elections for the Dáil, which is like our lower house? And effectively,

00:34:46.120 what he's saying is, well, why would I do that when all the important decisions are happening over

00:34:49.800 there on the continent? Sure, nothing happens here. We're basically just the county councils

00:34:54.200 shuffling papers. And I mean, even Britain, when we were controlled by Britain during our colonial days,

00:35:00.680 they offered us a thing called Home Rule, which was effectively where they said, look,

00:35:04.920 we'll give you a small amount of autonomy. This was something that was discussed for many years and

00:35:10.040 people were campaigning for it and it went back and forth. But the idea was to give us a small bit of

00:35:14.920 local autonomy where you can cover the kind of unimportant things that don't really matter,

00:35:20.040 but that ultimately London would pull the strings and they would have the final say on things that are

00:35:25.560 really important, like taxation and what have you not got, conscription for wars and yada yada.

00:35:31.000 Whereas, you know, that was considered to be an unacceptable situation for the majority of Irish

00:35:37.400 people. They said, no, we want full and true independence in the truest sense of the word.

00:35:42.120 We want to be free. We want to be, as our early founding documents say, we want to take our place

00:35:48.200 among the nations. That was the phraseology used. And now here we are in a situation where we're

00:35:54.200 effectively back to Home Rule. We have a county council government that makes the boring day-to-day

00:36:01.080 logistical bureaucratic decisions while everything remotely important happens on the continent.

00:36:05.960 And one last thought I'll say before I kick it back over to you. We used to have an expression,

00:36:11.240 which was we serve neither King nor Kaiser, but Ireland, which is, you know, self-explanatory.

00:36:17.880 We're not going to go with Britain. We're not going to go with Germany or any other European 0.84

00:36:22.440 power. We're going to stand up for ourselves. I think that could be amended today to be,

00:36:26.920 we serve neither King nor Commissioner, you know, because that's effectively what we have traded our

00:36:33.400 British vassal state position in for. It's just now a load of Germans and Frenchmen are running the show. 1.00

00:36:41.320 Yeah. I just, it's, it seems unnatural. It seems contrary to the Irish spirit. You just talked about 1.00

00:36:48.360 800 years of rebellion and that, that should apply to other things. And, and free speech,

00:36:53.960 most of all, like I think Ireland, because of the sorrow and the pain and the famine and, and, and,

00:36:59.720 and tremendous, uh, you know, that generates ideas, it generates poetry and art, it generates music.

00:37:06.280 I think there's, I mentioned Sinead O'Connor, may she rest in peace. Uh, but you know, whether you

00:37:11.960 too, or, or the cranberries, I mean, there's a lot of pain and emotion and poetry coming from a small

00:37:19.560 place. Um, on, on the poetry side, James Joyce, one of my favorite poems, uh, poets is WB Yeats and

00:37:25.640 his incredible poem, uh, The Second Coming, a phrase I think of all the time. Ben, I don't know if you

00:37:31.160 think about this, but in that poem, The Second Coming, he says the, the best lack all conviction

00:37:38.680 while the worst are full of passionate intensity. I think of that all the time. And I think,

00:37:45.080 where are the best people? Where are the good guys? They lack all conviction. And oh my God,

00:37:50.280 look at the streets full of those who are full of passionate intensity. And so I think of this land

00:37:57.160 that I have not yet visited, but I hope to remedy that. And I think, where are the best?

00:38:03.320 And I think the world's most famous Irishman right now, I mentioned U2, the band, and I guess

00:38:10.040 Joe Biden considers himself Irish, although he's American. Uh, he's definitely American. He's the

00:38:14.680 president of America. I think perhaps the world's best known Irishman is a fighter, a tattooed,

00:38:21.560 uh, swaggering fighter named Conor McGregor, who is famous in America, where there are more Irishmen

00:38:29.640 than in Ireland. But I think he's sort of a national hero. This is how he looks to me from the outside,

00:38:35.160 Ben, you correct me if I'm wrong, because he embodies the Irish spirit, that fighting Irish

00:38:40.120 phrase I mentioned. He's got the stubbornness, uh, he's got the audacity, he's over the top,

00:38:46.680 uh, which is so different from the Leo Varadkar's of the world. And the reason I mentioned Conor

00:38:51.480 McGregor is because in the last month I have seen more politics out of him than I think in his life

00:38:57.480 combined. And I think it started with the stabbing in the streets of the children. And I see that he's

00:39:04.360 retweeting tweets by Gript. Little independent Gript is on the radar screen of Conor McGregor. And Conor

00:39:12.920 McGregor is talking about running for public office. And I, and we've set up a fun little

00:39:21.560 website, draftconor.com, just because, I mean, just for sheer entertainment value, having that,

00:39:27.800 you know, this master entertainer who's, who, who knows how to rivet a crowd. I mean, of course,

00:39:33.400 the whole world would love that, but from an ideological point of view, I think he would cut

00:39:38.200 through that world economic, globalist, open borders, soft on crime, woke, don't report a

00:39:44.120 victim statement if it's unhelpful. He would cut through all of that and he would tower over these

00:39:50.440 midgets that rule the country. What do you think of Conor McGregor? Is he serious? Does he have the

00:39:57.240 character to be, uh, the, uh, the leader of Ireland and, and is it actually going to happen? Is he going

00:40:03.160 to be sort of the Trump of Ireland? Well, I tell you what, it's, it's interesting you compare him

00:40:08.280 to Trump there because one of the impacts that Trump had, whether you love him or hate him,

00:40:13.480 is the fact that he was almost like a wrecking ball. You know, a lot of people, uh, have compared

00:40:19.000 Trump to Marmite where you either absolutely love him or absolutely hate him. And he's extremely

00:40:24.040 polarizing, but that, uh, he, when you live in a very politically correct, stifled society where

00:40:31.320 certain topics are off the table for discussion, somebody like Trump just comes through and it,

00:40:37.320 like a bull in a china shop, just starts blowing open all of these conversations that were left

00:40:43.640 on undiscussed and, and, uh, unmentioned for years. And so that had a positive influence.

00:40:50.600 I could potentially see Conor McGregor with his very uncouth, unpolished style,

00:40:56.520 having a similar impact on certain conversations because he's got the megaphone, he's got the voice,

00:41:01.240 and he, he doesn't give a rat's ass about anything or anyone. So the, the idea that he would, uh,

00:41:08.520 bite his tongue or hold back on an opinion he had about some kind of, uh, contentious issue

00:41:14.680 is not exactly, uh, something that you would believe if you would, you would see how this guy operates.

00:41:19.960 So I think from that perspective, if he did decide to run for a political office seriously,

00:41:25.560 it could, uh, have a very interesting effect, uh, and an entertaining effect certainly on the way

00:41:32.120 certain conversations go. You know, I think maybe sometimes it takes a person like that, uh, to,

00:41:36.920 to get the ball rolling.

00:41:38.120 Yeah. Well, I tell you one thing, I don't think he would be bound by any hate speech law. I just don't

00:41:42.920 think anyone tells Conor McGregor what to say. Um, you know, I'll close. I've been talking about so

00:41:49.160 many artists. I think more Morrissey is half Irish, if I'm not mistaken. And in that song, he says,

00:41:54.680 uh, and I will die with both of my hands untied. To me, that's the Irish spirit. And it sounds like

00:42:01.240 too many Irish say, here are my hands, tie them. I love Gript. I'm a subscriber. I encourage my viewers

00:42:09.000 who care about Ireland, who have a connection to Ireland or who see Ireland as a microcosm of our own

00:42:14.280 challenges to go to gript, G R I P T dot I E. Um, I think you'll love them. I think that they're

00:42:22.120 a high quality news source. They've got that rebellious spirit, but they're also polite

00:42:26.360 company. They're allowed into the scrums with cabinet ministers. I find that amazing. And I'm

00:42:30.360 sort of jealous, frankly. And, um, and you can become, I mean, most of their stuff is free,

00:42:35.320 but you can become a premium subscriber like I am and you can choose your level. And I just think,

00:42:40.440 even though I really don't have any connection to Ireland, I have an affection for their people and

00:42:45.880 what they're going through. And Ben, you're very generous to spend so much time with us.

00:42:50.280 Please pass on our highest regards to your colleagues. And, um, why don't I leave you with,

00:42:55.240 uh, the final thought on being an independent journalist. We've talked a lot about, uh,

00:42:59.320 about a lot of subjects. Uh, what's the future for Gript? How's 2024 looking for you?

00:43:03.720 Yeah. Well, 2023 has been spectacular. Uh, we've got a few interviews in the works that

00:43:11.320 we've lined up and it's really just a matter of getting them nailed down logistically, but some

00:43:15.720 very high profile names, which if we can, uh, get, get that to pan out, it'll be very exciting.

00:43:21.320 And, uh, we anticipate 2024 being exponentially bigger than the bonanza year we've already had. So

00:43:27.880 thank you so much for your kind words and hugely appreciate, uh, uh, the, the opportunity to speak

00:43:34.040 to you. We always have great conversations and, uh, absolutely. It's, it's great to hear how things

00:43:39.240 are going on, uh, on your side of the pod as well. Well, thank you, my friend. And you've been generous

00:43:43.480 with your time and I know the time zones is already late over there. So thanks for fitting us in and

00:43:48.120 hopefully we'll have a chance to meet in person, uh, in the Emerald Isle. And until then, uh, thanks.

00:43:53.720 And, uh, I tell you, you're proving citizen journalism, crowdfunded from viewers. You have

00:43:59.640 a subscription model more than the crowdfunding one, but it's citizen funded. That's why you can

00:44:04.760 trust gripped because they are not part of the regime. They answer to their own conscience

00:44:09.880 and to their viewers. Keep it up, my friend. Take care. Wonderful. Thank you so much.

00:44:14.840 All right. There you have it. Ben Scallon, one of the talented team at gripped.ie. Well, that's our show

00:44:20.920 for today. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters,

00:44:25.400 to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - December 16, 2023

Ezra Levant ｜ Free speech is on fire in Ireland： in-depth with Gript Media's Ben Scallan

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