Why America needs a hate speech law

Do we need a hate speech law? Who decides where the boundary of acceptable and unacceptable discourse is? Do you remember when those on the Left were free speech absolutists?

 

Thread carefully as forums like this could be shut down in a heartbeat...

 

We have one the First Amendment!!!Leave well enough alone!!

 

No we do not need hate speech laws because that is in my opinion unconstitutional. Now to address your question when the "Left" was the champion of free speech yes I remember but sadly the "Right" was the establishment and was the ideological faction that was the establishment and repressed free speech. Like many things with politics the pendulum swings back and goth over time.

I am sure that you will try to accuse the left of being the only faction that represses free speech. Well you will be wrong. But you that already don't you.

 

I am not remotely interested in which side is or is not 'pro free speech' My position is consistent. I am not in favor of any constitutional interpretation that allows for 'hate speech statute'. I am in favor of the continued use of speech and action to identify the specific motive and intent behind criminal behavior for the purposes of sentencing and I am fine with deciding the certain motives behind criminal behavior are worthy of being deemed an aggravating factor in sentencing. Why someone commits murder, or why someone commits an assault matters, and it should should. What they say or do either before, during ,or after they commit a crime, is admissible evidence of their frame of mind, and their motive. As such what they say and do should be a part of a sentencing hearing.

If there is no criminal conduct, who you hate and why you hate and what you say about your hate should normally not be the state's concern.

 

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me. .... Leave free speech alone.

 

We may have a wee problem....because my opinions are the right ones. My truth must be respected and admired by all. I just haven't yet gotten around to writing them all down yet so people like you will know what you are allowed to believe.

Its coming.

 

But it could be a reason for the state to keep a closer eye on a person spouting what could be violent if acted upon.

I have to reluctantly agree here, but we are on some very tricky ground. I don't know how old you are, but the name J Edger Hoover is worthy of a google search... These kinds of 'terror suspect' files that we are talking about, can have some ominous implications in the wrong hands. And Hoover's hands were the wrong ones for decades!

 

If The Best argument you have against speech you don't like is to shut it down you are not only a would totalitatarian you are a pretty damn stupid and loutish one.

 

100%

 

I almost forgot about J. Edgar and now you try to ruin my evening. Dick Nixon was right on a number of things but never so right as when he uttered his famous Hoover eulogy, "Well, the old sonofabitch finally died."

 

That covers so broad a range as to be ridiculous. The number of things to which people under certain circumstance could react violently is astounding. I've seen people get all pissy and mad over you telling them good morning.

 

Hell no. The purpose of free speech is to protect offensive speech. Let the mob define what 'hate' is and all unpopular speech will become 'hate.'

 

There is nothing anyone can say that I need protected from. What kind of an over-sensitive sissy needs protected from words? Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.

 

I am all for a hate speech law as long as I alone get to decide what hate speech is.......

 

Hatespeak is free speech. Laws which prohibit hatespeak are antithetical to free speech and freedom generally.

No country has anything approximating freedom of speech but the United States. When you ask yourselves "what makes us unique?", this is your answer. Be proud of your freedom in this regard and jealously guard it.

"He who knows only his side of a case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion..."

-John Stuart Mill

 

I have stood true and straight through this process. I opposed Trump when he suggested stronger defamation laws.

Prohibition of free expression is unfortunately a bipartisan issue over time.

That nursery rhyme was memory holed long ago, to the point where it is almost satire to sing to children.

 

Those on the left have always seen themselves as smarter and more pure than the masses. They use this delusion to justify their fascist tendencies. They want people to think they are civil libertarians, but they are no more civil libertarians than Mussolini or Hitler. Fascism was born in the US under Woodrow Wilson, the father of Progressivism. Chew on that for a while.

Project that forward to today. Progressives don't think the unwashed masses should be allowed free speech, free thought or free elections. They, after all, are so much smarter.

 

A slippery slope. For example, for many easily triggered liberals slogan make America great is hate speech, which is laughable,Also wearing a red KAG hat is considered a terrorist act. At the same time a poisonous hate speech is broadcasted on hourly basis from almost all liberal media outlets.

 

The only reasons I've heard from leftists for hate speech laws generally involves intellectual laziness on their part.

 

All speech should be legal, no exceptions. I don’t care if it is ISIS, nazis, or child molesters talking, all speech should be legal. Action is a completely different story however. As long as it is just talk and an expression of ideas, everything is ok.

 

Why America needs a hate speech law

We have one. It is called the first amendment to the constitution. Hopefully you don't think it applies only to nice speech. Nice speech doesn't require any protection. Hate speech does. Are you afraid to hear people say things with which you do not agree? If so then perhaps you will outgrow that.

 

So called hate speech law is another BS attempt by the left to silence anyone that doesnt agree with them. They need to read the first Amendment.