Flagpole wrote:No. That's not the right way to think about it. We have free speech in this country. Sometimes people say horrible crap, and then they might suffer some consequences (job, friends), but this is not something the government should regulate. The Supreme Court has already determined (correctly) that legally there isn't anything called "hate speech". Of course we all know what it is, but do you want the government to define what it is? No you don't. You really don't. Ultimately that would give the government the right to make an extremely broad definition, and suddenly there is no more free speech unless it is complimentary. Free speech should go on unfettered.
Steve, there are (at least) two key amendments to your constitution that baffle most of the rest of the world, at least in the way you treat them as holy commandments, with little or no room for interpretation: the right to bear arms, and the right to free speech.
I won't go on about your gun culture, except to say I don't understand it, but recognize that for people growing up with it, it carries deep (almost religious) significance.
Your position on free speech, though, is what I'd like to focus on today. Most other first world societies have some form of right to free speech, but generally treat it as an ideal, rather than a back and white absolute. In Canada, hate speech is illegal. Your Supreme court declared "hate speech" has no legal meaning; smart legal minds in Canada determined that it can be defined, on a case by case basis with careful analysis. The bar to meet the definition is very high (as so it should), but not infinitely high (as in your position). We've already mentioned Germany's laws against Nazi or anti-Holocaust speech.
I imagine you worry about having any reasonable limits on free speech because surely if they can limit some speech, eventually all speech can be arbitrarily limited. That's an imaginary, hypothetical problem that doesn't exist in places where reasonable limits on hate speech are in place. I'm not sure why you Yanks couldn't also find a way to make it work.