DamianaRaven wrote:I usually get blasted for saying this, but I don't think hate speech should be protected as a right, any more than I support the freedom to own slaves. Every genocidal atrocity in human history has started with someone saying a bunch of shitty things with nobody standing up to say "cram that shit before I slap some decency into and/or out of you." It doesn't take much for someone's "personal opinion" to become a rallying cry.
There are two kinds of freedom in this world - freedom to and freedom from. I think this country puts too much emphasis on the former and not enough on the latter.
That's all well and good, until the shoe ends up on the other foot and it's the guy telling the bigoted asshole off that is the one getting censored. Freedom of speech is necessary to kill bad ideas like that (as you pointed out in your post right there, even), because it lets them out into the open where most people can point and laugh, potential recruits decide not to be laughed at, and they don't even have the option to say "They're censoring us so we must be right/they have something to hide/they're afraid of us!"
It means we all have to be more on the ball about calmly and rationally explaining why the bigots are wrong, and we can never truly be done with the task, but sweeping it under the rug just leaves the problem to fester and doesn't actually fix it. It turns what should be a laughingstock into an actual serious counterculture movement that actually
has a god damn point, at least on the censorship issue. And that will be enough to win support by people who aren't bigots, because that's exactly how
every single inch of progress on these issues started off as in the first place: A vocal minority that had a point about how they were being oppressed and slowly won over popular opinion because of it.
Well, just my two cents on the issue, anyway.