Should Free Speech include Hate Speech?

[Warren DeMontague]

59. Okay, but for one, that is not just difficult, it's basically impossible to determine.

And two, even if you could draw a bright line between what constitutes "hate speech" and what doesn't, we still shouldn't be in the business of silencing ideas or opinions, no matter how awful.

Like I said, this is not just an academic exercise for me: I come from a Jewish family in the Chicago metro area. We watched the Nazis march in Skokie. One can simultaneously hate noxious, vile speech and still understand why permitting it; permitting the most noxious, vile forms of speech- IS standing up for the things, usually, that that sort of speech is directly in conflict with. Censoring the Nazis would have been giving them a victory; letting them air their shit was, conversely, a defeat for them and all they stood for.

And speech- I don't care how vile- does not have the power to "trump anothers right to exist". Speech, in and of and by itself, is not capable of negating anyone out of existence. Harassment is one thing - for instance, a bigoted homophobe doesn't have the right to continually call a gay person on the phone and yell at them- that's harassment. However, bigoted homophobes do have the right to express their opinion, just as we have the right to call them a fucking bigoted ass.