Originally Posted by
BetCheckBet
I’ve always agreed free speech laws are important and admit usa has some of the best ones. Having horrible views should not be a crime. That being said I haven’t researched either of these cases. I’ve never been really comfortable with “hate crimes” because they are applied very unfairly and often for minor things like graffiti.
All that being said most Americans are hypocrites around this. Just look at how many support criminalizing burning the flag? They love free speech until in infringes on their own beliefs.
Graffiti isn't the issue, when it comes to hate speech.
It's that "hate speech" cannot be well defined for legal standards, and can mean anything the government in power wants it to mean. Some felt saying that COVID came from a Chinese lab was hate speech. Some felt -- and still feel -- that opposition to modern gender ideology is hate speech. Some feel that pointing out the high violent crime statistics regarding black males is hate speech.
Hate speech is one of those things which sounds noble to fight, but once you think about it, the whole concept is actually a tool to thwart the expression of opposing viewpoints.
The flag burning thing is a much older debate, which goes back to before I was born. That one is a bit tougher, because it's not a form of ideological speech, but rather a symbolic action in direct opposition to the country. You can still preserve everyone's right to protest the government and speak out against it, while outlawing flag burning or defacing. I have mixed feelings about the right to flag burning. However, I have always been extremely against any kind of ideological censorship.
Today's left feels that they are smarter than the generations which came before us. They believe that "free speech except for hate speech and misinformation" is the way to go. They fail to understand that so-called "hate speech" and "misinformation" are side effects and in fact features of free speech, specifically to allow for the public challenging of the status quo. Some of that type of speech truly will be of no value, dishonest, and/or hateful, but some of it will also be useful and necessary to challenge the dominant (and often incorrect) viewpoints of the day. The last thing one should ever support should be the government deciding what you're allowed to say and not say. That's exactly how fascist societies rise.
Free speech is the antidote to fascism. In a free speech society, fascism cannot rise. The first step toward fascist rule involves the removal of free speech to "protect" the citizens.
We've seen such efforts over the last decade, and it only seems to be getting worse. When I oppose it, leftists scream, "Oh, so you want a society where people can just spout misinformation and hateful commentary, with no consequence?"
And my answer to that is...