People before profit TD: The words “pro-life” are “insulting to me”

It’s no secret that our Communist friends at People Before Profit have an insatiable hunger for government control. And it seems that this drive doesn’t just stop at economics, but extends to all speech and the language you use as well.

This is, of course, the same party that wants to “override private property rights” (their words, not mine) so that the State can seize your family home on a whim.

Self-described Marxist TDs Richard-Boyd Barrett and Paul Murphy have called for the state to “override private property rights” to fix the housing crisis. At least they’re consistent, says @Ben_Scallan.#gripthttps://t.co/As3Qmzhh9c
— gript (@griptmedia) June 4, 2021

So it’s hardly surprising that this week they crossed a new frontier in their holy crusade to give the government unlimited power.

Their latest battle? Eliminating the word “pro-life” altogether from official Garda communications, because the phrase itself is apparently “insulting.”

The call was spearheaded by Brid Smith TD during an Oireachtas committee meeting this week, as she talked down to Deputy Garda Commissioner Anne Marie McMahon in the most remarkably condescending and needlessly pedantic way possible.

“I don’t know if you can change it on your PULSE system or not,” said Smith, “but I think calling anti-abortion protesters ‘pro-life protesters’ is insulting to me.”

The Deputy went on to make an even bigger fool of herself, if that’s even possible, by making the hilarious assertion that she is “pro-life” in her own special way.

“I am pro-life – I’m for the right of women to live in the manner that they choose. And calling them pro-life protests in an official way I think should be changed.”

This is, of course, as insipid and stupid as sailing the seven seas robbing people with a flintlock pistol, and when someone says “Stop, you’re breaking the law!” you say “No, I’m obeying the law – the pirate’s law.”

In this hypothetical scenario, you’ve just entirely re-defined the word “law” to mean something that it has never meant, and which nobody else means when they refer to it. Which is precisely what Smith has done by referring to herself as “pro-life.” She has come up with her own personal dictionary, with her own meanings for words, and then gotten angry with other people for not adhering to those personal meanings.

It is, in fact, the argument-style of a circus clown, and the Garda had the patience of a saint for not telling her as much to her face. I can’t say I would have been as composed.

Regardless, Smith continues to say that the phrase hurts her feelings, because it implies that she is “anti-life”:

“They need to be called something else, but not something that intimates that the rest of us are anti-life. Call them anti-choice protests or whatever, but please don’t call them pro-life in an official way.”

This hardly requires a response or commentary as it’s so obviously ridiculous. But for what it’s worth, it’s downright comedic that in the same breath, while saying that the phrase “pro-life” implies bad things about the other side, she calls for pro-lifers to be outright smeared by the Gardaí as “anti-choice” – not in an implied way, but in a direct, openly-partisan way.

In other words, she’s frustrated that the police aren’t taking sides in her pet political issue, and she’s pissed off that they won’t give abusive labels to her political opponents. She’s angry that those pesky cops are instead trying to do their jobs and stay independent of divisive political matters. The nerve of some people, eh?

This poor Garda, clearly flustered, tried to defend herself from this absolutely unnecessary dressing down, saying that she “didn’t mean to offend anybody”:

“Deputy, I used that phrase, and I honestly can’t definitively say that that’s what they’re recorded as. But it’s a “for instance”…on the other end of the spectrum altogether, if it was a water protest, it would be the title of the protest as opposed to the detail of it. So I didn’t mean to offend anybody by using that phraseology.”

Smith responds with the obviously false claim that she was “not taking offence” – a claim which she herself refuted at the start by saying the word was insulting to her:

“I’m not taking offence in that manner, I’d just like the PULSE system to be changed to call it something other than pro-life protests. Because that, I don’t think is fair to us.”

Ultimately, in this episode, you get a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a politician, and a party more broadly, that must control every single aspect of society in a Borg-like fashion.

They’re not just content with banning peaceful pro-life protests. They’re not just content with banning prayer vigils, and banning so-called “hate speech” (whatever that means).

They want to ban the phrase “pro-life” itself. To Brid Smith’s mind, you should only be allowed to call pro-lifers what she wants you to call them, so she can completely control the conversation around abortion (and every other issue) from start to finish.

I’m sure if Brid had her way, all pro-lifers would have to refer to themselves as “rotten scumbags” by law before and after every sentence in debates. She’d make them wear a dunce cap and whip themselves with a cat o’ nine tails between syllables. I’m only mostly joking, too.

It’s abundantly evident by now that these lads are control freaks of the highest order, with power serving as a drug to them. And they have definitely gotten high on their own supply.

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This piece was first published on Gript.