Hate Speech Should Be Made Illegal

     Since this country was founded, we have had a set of unalienable rights that our constitution guarantees us to as Americans. One of the most important rights that is mentioned in our constitution is the right to free speech. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the

Under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution of December 1791, guaranteed the civil liberty of freedom of speech. It outlined that congress is not allowed to make any laws that may bridge a citizen’s freedom of speech, religion, press, and the right to assemble. This style of liberty gives all Americans the opportunity to express their thoughts openly without being shut down by the government. For example, there have been a great deal of protest the current president. Although, he is the president and should be respected Americans still have the right to display their opinions

Americans and free speech go together like burger king. You can always have it your way, but at what cost? Free speech is something that has been around for a long time, but has involved & seen various dilemmas that make you want to question it & your own freedom. Although free speech was guaranteed in the first amendment there have been many situations that in a complex way make you think about your own rights & the whole purpose of being born in the United States with them. If I was to wake up one day & decide that I wanted to freely create a protest expressing that I support gay rights or the LGBT community then by all means I should be able to do that without any interference.

In the beginning of this article, Rosenbaum relies on the appeal of emotion, pathos, to persuade his audience to agree with his claim. He tries to achieve this by telling a story of a church group picketing the funeral of a gay marine. He states, “The Supreme Court upheld the right of a church group opposed to gays serving in the military to picket the funeral of a dead marine with signs that read ‘God Hates Fags’ ” (Rosenbaum). This event caused an uproar and disrupted the peace of a marines’ funeral. Many people began to question the limits of free speech because of this. How can people use hateful speech such as

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

To begin with, the American Government has created many unconstitutional laws such as the Sedition Act of 1918 ( an act passed in 1918 that if anyone talked negatively about the government or war efforts it was punishable by long periods of jail time or death penalty after December 13,1920 the act was repealed due to citizens expressing displeasure) , which restricts the first right to freedom of speech.Freedom of speech, it’s becoming questionable on how free speech actually is in the United States. Watson states , there has been a “seven-teen percent increase in cases of people speaking out against the government , which can be punishable by jail time” , or as conspiracy theorist believe death.The restriction of freedom of speech comes from lack of active participation in American politics .The most recent case that is similar to the Sedition Act of 1918 occurred in 2012 a male citizen named Tarek

In light of the recent events in Charlottesville, where a white supremacist rally turned violent, the argument on whether or not hate speech should be banned has become increasingly more relevant. Those supporting the ban argue that this kind of speech eventually creates a society that doesn’t accept the affected minorities as equals, and can shame them into silence. On the other side, people argue this would infringe upon free speech rights. In Glenn Greenwald’s article, “In Europe, Hate Speech Laws are Being used to Silence Left Wing Beliefs,” he addresses how this ban might affect left-wing activism, and the fallacies in the arguments supporting the ban. Greenwald mainly relies on logos to back up his thesis; that a hate speech ban would not work in America. The problem he faces with this as his argument is that it makes the assumption that these same issues would arise in America. Other than a brief mention of his time as a lawyer to back up one talking point, there is very little ethos. While his tone throughout the article feels very neutral and informative, he makes poor use of logos and ethos, leading to an ineffective argument.

God hates fags, Thank god for dead soldiers, Thank god for Hurricane Katrina, Pretty harsh right? These are all common phrases publically protested by a church called the Westboro Baptist church. You would think such comments should be illegal to chant out in public considering that gay marriage is now legal in some states and also that soldiers are out fighting for us, however members of the Westboro Baptist church feel differently.

In the articles “Should the First Amendment Protect Hate Speech?” by Brooke Ross, and “Editorial in The New York Times: January 1, 1948”, both contain many important similarities and differences. In the first article “Should the First Amendment Protect Hate Speech?”, it explains mostly about The First Amendment . For example, in the article it states, “ The First Amendment guarantees the right to assemble peacefully and petition the government for change.” This shows that the First Amendment gives you the right to protest peacefully for a change in the government. Another example that the article states is, “The First Amendment protects most hate speech.” This is another example that shows how The First Amendment protects most hate speech,

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.

An important thing to know about freedom of speech is it does not actually protect anything we want to say. However freedom of speech is something that the United States holds high. The first amendment of our constitution is one of the most important amendments we have to protect us. The first amendment gives us the right to free speech with very few limits. Even though this may not be the best policy it is important we protect any speech so long as it is not harming anyone. The constitution says “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. (Madison)” This is saying that the freedom of speech is protected by the constitution and congress cannot make laws to limit anything covered by freedom

From the century-old Ku Klux Klan to the widely publicized Westboro Baptist Church, hate groups have always been prevalent in America. They have been around since humans have had the ability to share and act upon common hatred towards others. Why do they still exist today even after all the progress our society has made fighting against racism and intolerance? The answer lies in the First Amendment right to free speech. Our democratic society allows all citizens the freedom to express any and all opinions, no matter how offensive and hurtful. This leads many to question whether these hate groups should be allowed the right to free speech. I believe that hate groups should be allowed free speech because all Americans have the right of free speech, it is not discriminatory unless it incites violence, and hate can be prevented through education rather than criminalization.

America's greatest gift to our generation is freedom of speech. But do we take it for granted? We do not truly realize how lucky we are to have freedoms of speech. We can say whatever we want when we want. Back then when there was still slavery if you spoke out against the government you would be arrested.

The concept of freedom of speech has existed since at least 500 BC, where it was used in Athens, Greece. Athens was one of the first democracies, and possibly the birthplace of the concept of freedom of speech. ("Freedom of Speech", Wikipedia) Free speech is

Freedom of speech should have some limitations. The American people should have the right to say whatever they want, but to an extent. Whether it is on signs or verbally some things should not be expressed. The United States is well known for being “the home of the free,” but some people take their freedom a bit too far. People can burn flags, protest at military funerals, even use the “n” word and watching pornography in libraries.