FTR, I used to support "hate speech" laws because I thoguht they had a positive impact on discourse. Then I read the ACLU Nazi cases in Skokei Illinois and realized that it's far, far better to have people free to spew their obnoxious opinions and allow others to make a judgement than to try to hide this behind a cloak of law. I was about 16 or so, and I was workign out that societial pressure can sometimes be a good thing.
Glenn Greenwald has an excellent column up today on how the Canadians are getting this wrong, and how we might as well.
Yes, some people have some pretty obnoxious ideas, but they only fester in the dark, bursting open like a deep bedsore once they have done their damage. Expose these ideas to the light and have some faith in the marketplace of ideas. It's one of the things that makes America worth defending.
All sorts of valid criticisms are frequently voiced, including by me, about the erosion of basic protections and individual liberties in the U.S. But that doesn't mitigate or detract in any way from how oppressive these sorts of Canadian and European laws are. One of the core political values is and should always remain that which Justice Robert Jackson defined in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (1943):
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
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