I haven't the faintest doubt in my mind that the 1st Amendment is the correct way to handle free speech.
The problem has always been that the more things you declare off limits, the more the line is blurred and the more you open the flood gates for more things to be added to that list. If its illegal to make a rude comment about a Muslim then you would follow that rude comments about School Teachers aren't allowed as well..after all they are nothing more than groups of people with a single commonality but otherwise full of variation. Soon you can't talk about other sports teams negatively, then you can't talk about the country and the government in a bad light. And I think it becomes clear where it goes from there...
Perhaps the scariest aspect of this is that it really is the first stage of thought control. By defining in law what can and cannot be said you decide what is and is not heard. Ideas that are not heard for an entire generation are ideas no longer.
You can sell that in a pretty package of justification by telling people that it was hate speech and we are better for it, but at the end of the day you've still mandated the thoughts of individuals. Something I consider to be a far greater atrocity than even the most vitriolic hate speech.
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| To Each Man, Responsibility |
