===Hate Speech vs Free Speech
I find this entire subject to be so dumb.
In essence there is no such thing as “HATE Speech”.
(Imagine the arrogance of a person to be able to claim what a person has in their heart and mind. Seriously, Who the hell actually believes they can read minds)
But lets us not confuse the issue with some other commonly misconstrued activities.
Free speech encompasses many forms of communication. Verbal and non-verbal, visual and symbolic.
You are free to say whatever you want.
But like every “right” you MUST exercise it responsibly.
(I will cover Liable in another section)
Where the line is drawn is when your words crossover into action.
For instance, the common saying, “Shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” is not protected speech. Unless of course, there is a fire.
The reason for this is, you are inducing panic in a crowd. That crosses over into action.
Similarly, inciting a crowd into violence is not free speech because that crosses over into action. Even if you do not participate in that violence you are responsible for initiating the violence.
Now on the opposite side, Nazi’s simply marching can’t be construed as incitement because their opposition tends to get violent. Now if the Nazis suddenly started chanting and encouraging their followers to violence then they have crossed the line.
Now of course I believe there are a whole lot of people that are full of “Hot Air” ;and in these cases I tend to follow the idea of “No harm no foul”. Simply standing around a crowd and saying “Hey everyone! Let’s go beat the crap out of Joe over there” ;and no one does anything.
Then who cares?
But if you are saying “Hey everyone! Let’s go beat the crap out of Joe over there”, and the crowd does beat the crap out of Joe. You are responsible for what happens. Why? Because, you are complicit in a crime.
So that tells us the difference between free protected speech and what isn’t free speech.
But “Hate Speech” is another thing altogether.
“Hate speech”, like “Hate crime”, is a purely subjective, arbitrary and ever-changing thing.
What one person thinks is perfectly normal; another person will take great offense at.
It is not reasonable to expect a person to understand what another individual will take offense to.
Additionally, it is not reasonable to expect someone to modify their behavior because someone, somewhere, sometime “might” be offended.
“Hate Speech” is just a phrase that a person uses to try and silence free speech