Thursday, May 07, 2015

Freedom of Speech

Eugene Volokh spells it out for those who were mistaught Constitutional Law:

"Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) are just as protected under the First Amendment as other ideas. One is as free to condemn Islam — or Muslims, or Jews, or blacks, or whites, or illegal aliens, or native-born citizens — as one is to condemn capitalism or Socialism or Democrats or Republicans."

I was put in mind of a famous quote of Jefferson's. It appears on the dome of his Memorial:

"I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

All that hostility,
sounds like hate speech to me,
but somehow it's still free.

You can't ban speech
just because you regard it as hateful,
it escapes the government's reach,
and for that we should all be grateful.

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