The deadline to bow down to the European Union’s “hate speech” dictate has passed, and Ireland remains defiant. Last week, the country’s minister for justice, Jim O’Callaghan, said the government would not “reintroduce hate speech legislation previously rejected by parliament,” even though the EU continues to pressure them to do so.

“I’m fairly satisfied Ireland has transposed the European Council framework decision on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia in a manner appropriate and tailored to domestic law,” O’Callaghan said, according to reports.

In June, the EU told Ireland it had a two months left to comply with its censorship dictate or risk being dragged into international court. Ireland is accused of violating laws outlined in the EU’s 2008 EU Framework Decision, which requires member states to criminalize “hate speech” based on race, color, religion, descent, or ethnicity, as well as on Holocaust denial. Supposedly, the law is intended to prevent the incitement of violence.

But, as we recently reported, the idea of “hate speech” is a ploy for brainwashing people into believing that thoughts by themselves can be crimes.

Irish officials believe they already have sufficient laws to address the EU’s concerns without intruding on free speech. The “Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989” punishes those who incite hatred based on characteristics such as race, religion, or nationality. According to the Irish Courts Service, five convictions have been recorded under the act since 2017.

But EU officials say that the legislation is not good enough.

The EU’s bullying hasn’t gone unnoticed stateside. Vice President J.D. Vance told the Irish ambassador back when he was a senator that he was concerned the bill may “undermine Ireland’s commitment to universally prized freedoms, including the freedom of speech.” And back in June, the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) issued a statement in support of Irish free speech and in opposition to “speech rules designed by bureaucrats in Brussels” that lack “democratic consensus.”

The United States may have its own hate-speech laws to worry about. As we reported last week, California is on the verge of enacting online censorship legislation. On September 22, the California Legislature sent SB 771 to Governor Gavin Newsom. The bill allows people to sue social-media companies for up to $1 million per violation. If the litigant is a minor, the fine could double. Newsom has until October 13 to sign it. If he doesn’t veto or sign the proposal, it becomes law anyway. As of this writing, he hasn’t done either.

While Ireland’s defiance is worth celebrating, it is just a drop in the bucket of the deluge of action necessary to wash out the EU’s toxic influence. Other nations are complying, but they shouldn’t be. The EU doesn’t believe in the sovereignty of nations — it exists to eliminate it. It lures nations in with the carrot of financial incentives, then beats them with the stick of compliance to their destructive and tyrannical governing approaches.

Just last Thursday, the European Commission announced it would dole out 50 million euros to farmers in Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. Why? Apparently because climate change destroyed their crops. “Farmers in these Member States have recently suffered significant damages from adverse climatic events,” the announcement says. The commission blames human actions for destructive weather patterns that have existed since time immemorial — in this case, heavy rain and hail.

But history is filled with famines caused by these and other abnormal weather patterns. In the early 14th century, a major famine devastated Europe (right before the Black Plague came along to one-up it). Heavy rains led to that famine, and other historical famines resulted from drought, another “adverse climatic event.” These weather patterns are blamed on the luxuries of modern life, yet most famines occurred before there were factories, internal combustion engines, or coal-fired plants.

The EU may be giving farmers money, but at a cost. They bully member states to comply with European Climate Law. “The EU institutions and the Member States are bound to take the necessary measures at [the] EU and national level to meet the target” of “net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050,” the EU admits. They are essentially imposing the green measures Joe Biden’s administration tried to force on Americans not too long ago.

The EU’s disrespect for national sovereignty is what prompted the citizens of the United Kingdom to leave. Ireland should follow, as should every other member nation. The perks are not worth what these nations lose in self-determination. It’s not just censorious speech laws and absurd climate legislation the EU imposes, but open-border policies and, as we saw during Covid mania, uber-tyrannical control decrees disguised as health measures.

The parent company of this magazine, The John Birch Society, realizes how important it is that European nations wake up and abandon the EU — as well as the United Nations. The JBS is working to enlarge inroads with patriots in European nations to help them understand the true intentions of these organizations. If our Western counterparts in Europe join us in the fight to expose and defeat globalism, then freedom will prevail in the West.