# WaPo editorial "Why America needs a hate speech law" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 30, 2019, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699 "2019-10-30T14:13:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/301 "2019-11-03T22:03:19Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > In 2006, the publisher of the Western Standard in Canada was forced to defend himself against an Alberta Human Rights Tribunal for publishing those cartoons. He eventually won, but he had to spend thousands on lawyers to win. So, the opposite of what you said happened originally. Great. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/302 "2019-11-03T22:11:45Z")
I mean seriously. They published those cartoons specifically to test the hate speech laws and you’re saying because they had to pay their lawyers to win that ruling, freedom of speech was squelched? Wtf? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/303 "2019-11-03T22:15:58Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > I mean seriously. They published those cartoons specifically to test the hate speech laws and you’re saying because they had to pay their lawyers to win that ruling, freedom of speech was squelched? Wtf? Well, yes - he had to pay a penalty for what should have been completely un-penalized to begin with. Imagine if Republicans passed a law making it illegal to advocate for abortion. And then someone is accused of advocating for abortion - they get acquitted, but still have to pay thousands of dollars in fees - can someone seriously say, with a straight face, that the passage of the law did not adversely inhibit pro-abortion viewpoints? ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/304 "2019-11-03T22:22:49Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > That’s a factual question. When someone advocates a change in the law, especially laws related to speech which are held under strict scrutiny, I expect them to demonstrate concrete reasons why a change is needed. > [@](#): > > My post asks a constitutional/legal question: why can one citizen invoke the power of the state to punish another person for speech that harms the first person’s reputation, but it would be contrary to the First Amendment to allow a group to invoke the power of the state to stop another person from calling for the members of the group to be killed? It’s already illegal to incite others to violence. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/305 "2019-11-03T22:25:33Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Well, yes - he had to pay a penalty for what should have been completely un-penalized to begin with. > > Imagine if Republicans passed a law making it illegal to advocate for abortion. And then someone is accused of advocating for abortion - they get acquitted, but still have to pay thousands of dollars in fees - can someone seriously say, with a straight face, that the passage of the law did not adversely inhibit pro-abortion viewpoints? Yes, with a totally straightface. That ruling makes any future charges almost impossible. One initial test case always takes the hit in any new law or a challenge to an existing law. But you are missing important nuance. Canadian laws did not explicitly outlaw the depiction of Mohammed. The test case was to see if it encompassed that. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/306 "2019-11-03T22:33:58Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > How come none of this has come to pass in Canada yet? Are you guys just very lucky? Depends who you ask. A number of people have been charged and convicted in Canada for intolerance and hate speech. Even more have been hauled up in front our our kangaroo-court ‘human rights tribunals’ and fined or told they may no longer speak on certain issues without being charged. In 2002, David Ahenakew, a first-nations leader (former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations) and military veteran, was charged and convicted of making anti-semitic comments during a heated exchange with a reporter. He was dragged through the courts, had his reputation destroyed, and ultimately was fined $1,000. Pastor Bull Whatcott was recently fined $55,000 by a BC human rights tribunal for handing out anti-trans pamphlets in BC in opposition to a Trans candidate in the election. A few years before he was fined $75,000 by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal for similar flyers. In 2007, white supremacist Jean-Sebastien Presseault was convicted of hate speech for anti-semitic content on his website and did 6 months in jail. In 2002, The Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald published an editorial on an Islamic conference on terrorism. The editorial mused that the conference would be a farce, and for that the editorialist was hauled up before the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal. The case was finally dismissed - in 2009. I mentioned the Western Standard publishing the Muhammed cartoons. That triggered a lengthy 2 year ‘trial’ in front of the Human Rights Tribunal which cost the magazine $100,000 in legal fees before it won the case. You can find many more cases like this. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/307 "2019-11-03T22:44:19Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Depends who you ask. A number of people have been charged and convicted in Canada for intolerance and hate speech. Even more have been hauled up in front our our kangaroo-court ‘human rights tribunals’ and fined or told they may no longer speak on certain issues without being charged. > > In 2002, David Ahenakew, a first-nations leader (former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations) and military veteran, was charged and convicted of making anti-semitic comments during a heated exchange with a reporter. He was dragged through the courts, had his reputation destroyed, and ultimately was fined $1,000. > > Pastor Bull Whatcott was recently fined $55,000 by a BC human rights tribunal for handing out anti-trans pamphlets in BC in opposition to a Trans candidate in the election. A few years before he was fined $75,000 by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal for similar flyers. > > In 2007, white supremacist Jean-Sebastien Presseault was convicted of hate speech for anti-semitic content on his website and did 6 months in jail. > > In 2002, The Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald published an editorial on an Islamic conference on terrorism. The editorial mused that the conference would be a farce, and for that the editorialist was hauled up before the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal. The case was finally dismissed - in 2009. > > I mentioned the Western Standard publishing the Muhammed cartoons. That triggered a lengthy 2 year ‘trial’ in front of the Human Rights Tribunal which cost the magazine $100,000 in legal fees before it won the case. > > You can find many more cases like this. Are you sympathetic with any of these cases that were actually punished? You can’t seriously be arguing that people being found innocent invalidates a law because they had to pay for a lawyer. Every single prosecuted law has had that occur. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/308 "2019-11-03T22:44:32Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > I mean seriously. They published those cartoons specifically to test the hate speech laws and you’re saying because they had to pay their lawyers to win that ruling, freedom of speech was squelched? Wtf? The process IS the punishment. You tell me how it would feel to spend two years and $100,000 publicly defending yourself on charges that you are a human rights abuser. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/309 "2019-11-03T22:48:38Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I think you’re missing the difference between hate speech and incitement to violence. > > Incitement is generally illegal. That’s a call for people to commit a crime with the reasonable expectation that some people who hear the call will commit that crime. > > But hate speech may not be calling for any illegal action. It may just be generally abusive such as saying black people are inferior to white people. Or it could be advocating for an act which while racist, is not illegal; like calling for the return of segregation or the banning of interracial marriages. These are hate speech but they’re not incitement. It’s been a while since my 1st Amendment class, but I’m pretty sure my example wouldn’t fall within the 1st Amendment’s “incitement” example. To qualify as incitement, there has to be a real possibility of imminent illegal harm. If someone is blogging about how people should be killed, if need be by changing the laws to permit it, that won’t qualify as incitement for 1st Amendment purposes. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/310 "2019-11-03T22:54:06Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The process IS the punishment. You tell me how it would feel to spend two years and $100,000 publicly defending yourself on charges that you are a human rights abuser. If I owned a magazine chain? I’d feel like a righteous hero, as I’m sure he did. If the process was going to stay the same, it might be the punishment. But here in Canada, precedent matters, and a few years of shaking out is to be expected in such matters. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/311 "2019-11-03T23:01:50Z")
What hate speech did Lenny Bruce spread? Obscenity isn’t hate speech, so was he like advocating that Christians be exterminated or something in a bit he had? I keep hearing “BUTBUT would you trust TRUMP with hate speech laws?” We seem to trust his administration with laws against libel, conspiracy, fraud, and so on. In fact some of those laws may be his undoing. Is the Trump Administration locking up critics on the basis of defamatory speech and I just haven’t noticed? ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/312 "2019-11-03T23:04:14Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > In 2002, David Ahenakew, a first-nations leader (former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations) and military veteran, was charged and convicted of making anti-semitic comments during a heated exchange with a reporter. He was dragged through the courts, **had his reputation destroyed** , and ultimately was fined $1,000. > [@David Ahenakew](#): > > The Jews damn near owned all of Germany prior to the war. That’s why Hitler came in. He was going to make damn sure that the Jews didn’t take over Germany, or even Europe. That’s why he fried six million of those guys, you know. Jews would have owned the goddamned world. And look what they’re doing now, they’re killing people in Arab countries. > > The reporter asked how Ahenakew could justify the Holocaust. The StarPhoenix quoted Ahenakew as replying: > > How else do you get rid of a disease like that, that’s going to take over, that’s going to dominate? …sounds like someone who deserved to get his reputation destroyed. And the reporter was just asking questions. If the exchange became “heated” that would probably be the fault of the guy who described Jewish people as a disease. > [@](#): > > Pastor Bull Whatcott was recently fined $55,000 by a BC human rights tribunal for handing out anti-trans pamphlets in BC in opposition to a Trans candidate in the election. A few years before he was fined $75,000 by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal for similar flyers. > [@City News](#): > > On Wednesday, the BC Human Rights Tribunal found Whatcott discriminated against Oger when he made and published pamphlets, calling her an “impossibility” and linked transgender identity to diseases and domestic violence. So not just "handing out anti-trans pamphlets. But handing out pamphlets that attacked a specific person. > [@](#): > > In 2007, white supremacist Jean-Sebastien Presseault was convicted of hate speech for anti-semitic content on his website and did 6 months in jail. More specifically hate **propaganda**. That distinction, to many, is important. > [@](#): > > In 2002, The Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald published an editorial on an Islamic conference on terrorism. The editorial mused that the conference would be a farce, and for that the editorialist was hauled up before the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal. The case was finally dismissed - in 2009. Case dismissed? I don’t see a problem. > [@](#): > > I mentioned the Western Standard publishing the Muhammed cartoons. That triggered a lengthy 2 year ‘trial’ in front of the Human Rights Tribunal which cost the magazine $100,000 in legal fees before it won the case. They won their case? I don’t see the problem. > [@](#): > > You can find many more cases like this. Are these the worst cases you could find? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/313 "2019-11-03T23:04:55Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Depends who you ask. A number of people have been charged and convicted in Canada for intolerance and hate speech. Even more have been hauled up in front our our kangaroo-court ‘human rights tribunals’ and fined or told they may no longer speak on certain issues without being charged. > > In 2002, David Ahenakew, a first-nations leader (former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations) and military veteran, was charged and convicted of making anti-semitic comments during a heated exchange with a reporter. He was dragged through the courts, had his reputation destroyed, and ultimately was fined $1,000. > > Pastor Bull Whatcott was recently fined $55,000 by a BC human rights tribunal for handing out anti-trans pamphlets in BC in opposition to a Trans candidate in the election. A few years before he was fined $75,000 by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal for similar flyers. > > In 2007, white supremacist Jean-Sebastien Presseault was convicted of hate speech for anti-semitic content on his website and did 6 months in jail. > > In 2002, The Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald published an editorial on an Islamic conference on terrorism. The editorial mused that the conference would be a farce, and for that the editorialist was hauled up before the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal. The case was finally dismissed - in 2009. > > I mentioned the Western Standard publishing the Muhammed cartoons. That triggered a lengthy 2 year ‘trial’ in front of the Human Rights Tribunal which cost the magazine $100,000 in legal fees before it won the case. > > You can find many more cases like this. That doesn’t sound even remotely close to the doom-and-gloom scenario you suggested. The barest fraction at most. And that policy has been around for decades. I don’t support hate speech laws, but this is a pretty feeble argument against them. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/314 "2019-11-03T23:05:07Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Is that because you think it’s harmless or you think that’s the price we must pay for a free society? That’s the price of a free society. If you want freedom of speech for yourself, people who are assholes have to have freedom of speech too. You have to trust that the general public is smart enough to tell truth from propaganda. I know that’s a scary thing, but lotsa worthwhile things are scary. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/315 "2019-11-03T23:06:50Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Are you sympathetic with any of these cases that were actually punished? You can’t seriously be arguing that people being found innocent invalidates a law because they had to pay for a lawyer. Every single prosecuted law has had that occur. I am sympathetic with anyone who is charged with a crime for saying the wrong thing. The people I listed would not ever be friends of mine, and they generally look like intolerant scumbags. But intolerant scumbags also have a right to speak. As the old saying goes, I disagree with everything they have to say, but will defend their right to say it. As a practical matter, can you show me a place where hate speech laws have actually made people less hateful and more peaceful and tolerant? It seems to me that hate speech laws are either ineffective because they apply to so few people that they were not a threat to public order in the first place, or they apply to a wide swath of people who are likely going to respond by hating even more. And if you restrict their right to vent their feelings in public they are going to resort to other means. The idea that you can calm down an intolerant minority by passing laws stopping them fro speaking strikes me as…fanciful. Also, taking away their ability to air their hatred in public just makes it harder for the rest of us to identify who they are or see the hatred in their hearts. I prefer the Klan out in the open where we can see what they are doing and saying, and use them as an example for our kids on how not to be a shithead. And as a rule of thumb, before you advocate for giving government more power or taking away its checks-and-balances, you should imagine the worst government you possibly think could be elected in the future, and ask yourself what they might do with that power. Imagine a religious resurgence in the U.S., or a backlash against gay people or some other currently protected group. Imagine a President Pence campaigning on the grounds that religious people are the new persecuted minority, and hate speech laws will now include blasphemy or derogatory comments against church officials. Making a joke about a Pedophile priest is now hate speech on the grounds that it smears all priests and offends the religious. How would you feel about that? Look at how fast our culture has changed in the past decade. Do you really think it can’t possibly change in the other direction, and progressive ideas are once again in the minority? If not, you haven’t been paying attention to what’s happening in the world. Or in America, for that matter. Hate speech laws are how you’ll not only get more Trump, but perhaps another Trump - this time smarter, with o stupid Twitter habit, and a 70% approval rating. At that point, you will be very happy you didn’t water down the 1st amendment with hate speech laws. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/316 "2019-11-03T23:15:34Z")
It’s not a matter of expecting society to suddenly be less racist because we passed a law. It’s a matter of how you allow people to advertise it. Do you expect laws about violence to eliminate violence from our society? I think a law that stops people from spreading dangerous lies is reasonable. You think the law punishes people for “saying the wrong thing”. I guess we’re not going to find a middle here. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/317 "2019-11-03T23:19:34Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > That’s the price of a free society. If you want freedom of speech for yourself, people who are assholes have to have freedom of speech too. > > You have to trust that the general public is smart enough to tell truth from propaganda. > > I know that’s a scary thing, but lotsa worthwhile things are scary. Why have any laws? Can’t we just trust the general public on everything? ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/318 "2019-11-03T23:24:58Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > It’s been a while since my 1st Amendment class, but I’m pretty sure my example wouldn’t fall within the 1st Amendment’s “incitement” example. To qualify as incitement, there has to be a real possibility of imminent illegal harm. If someone is blogging about how people should be killed, if need be by changing the laws to permit it, that won’t qualify as incitement for 1st Amendment purposes. Hate speech is usually one step removed from direct incitement. Hate speech, all too often, involves de-humanizing a group of people, accusing them of a gamut of immoral or criminal acts and societal ills, vouching they are a dire threat to the country/society possibly based on some sort of plot or deliberate plan, warning that nobody is doing anything to prevent it… and stopping right there. The only possible conclusion a sincere listener can derive from such speech is “so \*we \*should hurt/kill/deport those vermin” but that line hasn’t ostensibly or openly been crossed. That way the speaker can plead innocence when one of those listeners burns a black church, shoots up a mosque or lynches an openly gay man. Ask Ben Shapiro - he’ll swear up and down that [the Quebec mosque shooter](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/04/18/quebec-city-mosque-shooter-scoured-twitter-for-trump-right-wing-figures-before-attack/) was bad and wrong and he’s not responsible for those deaths, despite said shooter having listened to a whole lot of Ben Shapiro talking about Islam in choice terms over and over again. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2019, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/319 "2019-11-03T23:35:04Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > You have to trust that the general public is smart enough to tell truth from propaganda. > > I know that’s a scary thing, but lotsa worthwhile things are scary. Do you support fraud laws? Don’t we “have to trust” that consumers will know the difference between, say, a real charity and one that exists only to line the pockets of the rich? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2019, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699/320 "2019-11-04T00:15:57Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > That’s the price of a free society. If you want freedom of speech for yourself, people who are assholes have to have freedom of speech too. … And if I accept that MY freedom of speech is not COMPLETELY unrestricted, that _I_ do _not_ have the right to say absolutely anything I want whenever I want no matter what harms I cause by so doing, taking no responsibility for the harms of my actions? Does that mean that I want a society that is not free? That I support totalitarianism? Let’s leave the red herring of ill-conceived hate crime laws for a bit. Do we all as individuals have at least an _ethical obligation_ to be responsible with our speech? Are we within our rights to use our speech to advocate that social norms condemn hateful speech by others? Do we have the free speech right to advocate that those with hateful speech (or let’s broaden it to speech that from our individual perspective is offensive, which could be a fundamentalist who finds gay marriage offensive to them, or someone who says “Jews will replace us and the Holocaust never happened.”) not be just given microphones, amplifiers, and large stages? To protest those who provide those venues willingly? Okay, those ones are hopefully just rhetorical as I think most here will agree on yes answers to them all (maybe not, one never knows) … but again here is the one I am not sure about - protesting the speech of others is itself free speech, but when _that_ free speech exercise infringes on the ability of others’ speech, whose right to speech wins? Each is speech that is causing harms. To those few who actually support hate speech _laws_ … I’m not seeing that their presence has done a very good job at preventing the rise of increasing xenophobia and othering in many of the countries with such laws on the books. Have you? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wapo-editorial-why-america-needs-a-hate-speech-law/842699.md?page=17)