Free Speech And Hate Speech

Laws banishing hate speech will evolve into laws banishing non-hate speech. According to debate.org, “Banning hate speech will be abused and lead to bans against non-hate speech.” Some people that are sympathetic with interdicting hate speech use the argument that countries like Canada and France have laws against hate speech, yet they are still relatively free and give their citizens rights similar to the rights that the United States grants its citizens. Nonetheless the people that use the argument should keep in mind that some other countries that ban hate speech also ban books advocating alternative medicine. They also ban citizens from slandering the king or president (debate.org). The article goes into further details of how banning hate speech could eventually lead to banning non-hate speech. “There is no “hate” clause exception in the Constitution, so however you rule that it’s okay to ban hate speech, it will open the door to banning other speech as well.” The United States Constitution has no section dedicated to excluding hate speech from the First Amendment. If the United States government decides to take away citizens’ right to free speech including hate speech, then that could initiate the commencement of the government neglecting other human rights. Some people may think that it is unfair for them to have to tolerate hate-mongering and insensitive speech, but it is illogical to try to tell people what they can and cannot say. While it would be great to have laws preventing ignorant, homophobic, racist protestors that routinely and happily shout phrases like, “Kill all fags,” or “Hang in there, Obama,” citizens cannot trust the government to ban hate speech without eventually categorizing non-hate speech as hate speech and banning that too. Ultimately, banning hate speech could potentially lead to censorship and a totalitarian government system.

Throughout history, the United States Constitution has been put to the test over the issue of free speech. The First Amendment states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Even though free speech is one of the core American values proudly embedded in each citizen, some poopAmericans find themselves torn between whether or not to limit the freedom of speech on behalf of hate speech. Most law-abiding citizens disagree with hate speech, but must realize even speech that promotes hate, racism, and even crime

Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right. Whether or not on a college campus, people (especially college students) should have the right to speak freely. Everyone does have the right to speak freely, because it is one of the twenty-seven amendments. Colleges all around the United States are now home to many restrictions on free speech. For example, the idea and use of “free speech zones” has made its way to colleges everywhere. A “free speech zone” is a sidewalk sized place where students are allowed to speak their minds freely on college campuses. I know what you’re thinking. This sounds ridiculous. Why are there specific places for people to speak their minds? Aren’t colleges suppose to be a place where students speak their minds and learn new things? Universities should not be able to put any restrictions on free speech.

Hate speech is a term of art in legal and political theory that is used to refer to verbal conduct – and other symbolic, communicative action –which willfully attacks a person or group based on attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, or gender. Hate speech thus includes things like identity-prejudicial abuse and harassment, certain uses of slurs and epithets, some extremist political and religious speech. For example, statements to the effect that all Muslims are terrorists, or that gay people are second -class human beings, and certain displays of hate symbols like swastikas or burning crosses are part of it. Those such activities are classified as hate speech if, and insofar as, they convey the idea that belonging to a particular social group warrants someone’s being held in or treated with contempt. However, Freedom of speech is the most important and basic right that a human in every country deserves. Freedom of speech and hate speech are two opposite things. Therefore, the government needs to draw a line between hate speech and freedom of speech to protect a citizen. Hate speech should be banned and extreme speech regulated because it is one of the reasons for many negative consequences in human lives

Freedom of speech, the most quoted right of the United States Constitution but, what does this freedom really mean? People have struggled over this issue time and time again, arguing a whole array of things from total censorship to none at all. According to the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech" (First Amendment). Many argue that this gives U.S. citizens the right to say whatever they want, without exception. However, many disagree with this statement (maybe elaborate on this sentence). According to the Supreme Court there are a few exceptions to this freedom. Slander, defamation, fighting words and obscenity are all not protected under the First Amendment. The main issue derived from this is whether or not the government should be able to censor hate speech or if that is a violation of the Constitution. One one hand, it is argued that it should be allowed in order to protect minorities and individuals from being slandered and targeted. On the other hand, it is said that the government should not have that authority, as such laws will undoubtedly lead to censorship in a way that truly does limit free speech. These issues have been discussed and argued over for years, with the focus always returning to the text of the First Amendment. The First Amendment provides valuable guidance to the country and is viable on determining laws and court cases concerning the issue of hate speech in present day America. Although, it has proven

As the years went by, different cases led to different tests and resolutions that decided where speech is not protected by the First Amendment. In 1919 the case Schenck v. United States led to the creation of the Clear and Present Danger Test, in this case Schenck, an anti-war socialist, was convicted for distributing pamphlets against the draft, claiming that it was unconstitutional because it was involuntary servitude and that that was banned under the Thirteenth Amendment. This is a particular difficult case to see because one can object that for him is not about supporting Germany, but giving the people the right to decide what to do, and that he is only exercising his right to freedom of speech. But Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated that this freedom is not absolute, especially in war time, Holmes argued that his action will create a chaos that will put people in danger, he makes the example of screaming "fire" in a movie theater he said "the words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent". The reasons the Court has to pass this test are more than reasonable, one of the duties of the government is to ensure the safety and wellbeing of its citizens and if we weight the

Many cases early on that consisted of free speech issues tended to incorporate censorship by the government. When we entered the nineteen hundreds the Supreme Court was involved with looking at cases where citizens published or spoke speech and found that they were being punished for their actions. The tests or standard of that timeframe was the bad tendency test, the bad tendency test was established to give reasoning for the government to limit the freedom of speech if the speech has a tendency to stir up or cause illegal activity like a riot. It seemed that the bad tendency test would be over shadowed by the clear and present danger test, this test gives the government

Just a couple of months ago white supremacists rallied in Charlottesville to protest the tearing down of the statue of Robert E Lee. The racism and hate they spread through their march is unquestionably disgusting and serves no purpose in our society today. This event has led to social media sites such as Twitter to crack down even harder in a plight they started over a year ago to silence hateful speech. While there are some occasional dissenters, the general population agrees with the opinion that this speech is awful in every sense. With that being said, censoring their right to free speech is a bit too rash. We can all agree that free speech is one of the most important rights we have, and with President Trump throwing around the term “fake news” at major news organizations, it is more important than ever to protect that freedom. The article “The case for restricting hate speech” by Laura Beth Nielsen of the Los Angeles Times gives an argument for why hate speech should be censored. While she provides valid points, with the absence of factual statistics, none of them are strong enough to support her thesis that hate speech should be banned. I believe that in almost every instance, hate speech should remain protected just as much as our right to free speech.

In order to reduce the astonishing number of hate crimes in the United States, the Federal Government should restrict hate speech, and the expressions of hateful ideas, in all its forms, in all places, both public and private. However, it is imperative that hate speech be defined first. Contrary to some opinions, it is possible to accurately define hate speech, because hate speech does not actually have many elusive forms. Hate speech includes fighting words as defined in Chaplinsky vs. New Hampshire, and words that incite violence or aggression towards a specific group based on sex, sexual orientation, race, creed, or political orientation by the provision of information that is not valid against all members of the group. The wording

Having read both articles, each of which represents a side of the argument about free speech, I must argue that one is complete lunacy while the other makes complete sense. The lunatic article has to be the one from CNN. It effectively blames the speakers for the violence caused on university campuses. Why should a single speaker be blamed for the acts of snowflakes hiding behind black masks? Yes, the speakers are provocative as the article says, but that does not give anyone the right to destroy property and hinder the liberty of people who want to hear what the speaker wants to say. Antifa is violating the God-given rights of people who choose to hear someone's point of view on an issue in our society today.

Social media can connect millions of people together, in any instant location. However, many of these platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, have blasphemous users who fire up heated debates, following up with explicit language. Such opinions often times involve incitement and defamation targeted against the opposing party. However, because the First Amendment protects the freedom of speech, the U.S. Government has not strictly reprimanded the misuse of the amendment. Some citizens view hate speech as a form of speech that attacks and offends an individual or group based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or ethnic origin while others see it as a part of the First Amendment, and having it appealed, will precede with negative criticisms. There are others who are not concerned of the topic at hand completely which identifies how impactful this problem is. It has been apparent more so on social media, where people demonstrate their right to freedom of speech because they are more likely to voice their opinions individually when others are not present. The debate still continues to decide if the First Amendment should be revised due to hate speech on social media since it has promoted indirect violence, incivility amongst the online communities and has lowered ethical codes in the American society.

The Founding Fathers struggled to create a free and equal society, because the colonies had been under the British rule, which oppressed them and gave them no religious freedoms and civil liberties. The colonies were kind of scared that this would happen all over again within this new government. After the Constitution was written in 1787, the new country was directly divided into two political parties, the federalists and the anti-federalists, over the ratification. At that time most of the States believed that the Constitution by itself was enough but others felt that they needed more guarantees. After much debates, the two sides found a middle ground when the Bill of Rights was included into the Constitution in 1791 but it only guaranteed

In a Natural Rights system of government, the government would not be able to stop hate speech because the they would be breaching the citizens right to free speech. A newspaper called the Telegraph (UK) said, “The most fundamental concept of democracy is the idea that a government exists to secure the rights of the people…”(1). This supports the idea of a Natural Rights system of government were the natural god given rights are put first because the government is supposed to ensure those rights to its people. The only way that the government would be able to stop hate speech is if the citizens were to use popular sovereignty to vote on a law that outlawed all hate speech. But if an opposing party were to use this quote next quote from the

As a constitutional right, people often exercise their right to freedom of speech believing that they also have the right to voice their opinions which can be provocative to opposing parties no matter where they stand. There is a defining line between what can be constituted as hate speech and free speech. Depending on the way that it is expressed, voicing an opinion can easily be misinterpreted causing certain people to feel threatened or attacked, then leading to dangerous physical outbursts. The right to exercise one’s own opinion that can challenge or provoke others should be deterred or at least limited if safety of all parties, even those not directly involved, cannot be guaranteed.

The tests used by the federal government used to determine if certain types of speech can be censored or banned are as follows. The clear and present danger test which is a test where the government can restrict speech if there is evidence that the speech will cause a clear and present dangerous condition to the public(Bardes&Shelley, 2014, p.122). Direct incitement test protects the advocacy of illegal action under the First Amendment unless imminent action is likely to happen. For Instance, it can apply to the Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio when a KKK leader’s conviction was overturned (Bardes&Shelley, 2014, p.123). Bad Tendency test is when speech has a tendency to induce to induce illegal behavior (Notes). As defined in the Gitlow case when a left wing group was convicted of publishing a pamphlet that urged a violent overthrow of U.S. government (Bardes&Shelley, 2014, p.123). The Test Defamation of character, or Libel is ruining an individual’s good name in which the law bans individuals from making false, defamatory statements about others this includes slander (Bardes&Shelley, 2014, p.124).