Constant Conservative

In my experience, no one has been able to give me a unequivocal definition of “hate speech.” I doubt that anyone will. Why, you ask? Well, because at its heart any definition of hate speech is highly subjective.

For example, let us look at the following article which addresses what happened when someone publicly expressed his disagreement President Obama’s views on abortion:

An Oklahoma City police officer wrongly pulled over a man last week and confiscated an anti-President Barack Obama sign the man had on his vehicle.

The officer misinterpreted the sign as threatening, said Capt. Steve McCool, of the Oklahoma City Police Department, and took the sign, which read “Abort Obama, not the unborn.”

[...]

”The Secret Service called and said they were at my house,” Harrison [the driver of the vehicle] said.

After talking to his attorney, Harrison went home where he met the Secret Service.

”When I was on my way there, the Secret Service called me and said they weren’t going to ransack my house or anything … they just wanted to (walk through the house) and make sure I wasn’t a part of any hate groups.”

Now, in the particular case, local law enforcement has apologized, stating that the officer overstepped his bounds. Nonetheless, the Secret Service showed up to talk to the chap who expressed his views.

Hate speech, or its cousin, hate crimes are notoriously hard to work with because they are predicated on knowing people’s motivation for particular speech or crimes. I do not recall (which does not mean it did not happen) articles about anyone being visited by the Secret Service for holding signs which advocated for the violent removal of Bush from the presidency. No, that was covered under free speech rights and the First Amendment.

Hatred (strong negativity toward something) like love (strong positivity toward something) is not absolutely negative or positive. For example, I hate lying. Many people would consider that a good use of hatred. Some might not.

The bottom line is that laws which purport to address hatred must by definition be interpreted by whomever is currently in power. That can only lead to abuses of that same power.