This has been been on my mind for a while now ever since I found out about it a few months back. The reason is because I simply can't understand the reasoning.

Apparently, the American population (among others, I would imagine) are allowed to say precisely whatever they want, whenever they want. Some workplaces may not tolerate certain words being expressed under certain or any circumstances, but there really are no laws that forbid people to do so. In fact, people proudly express that they are willing to die for everyone to be able to say whatever they want, whenever they want.

My question is: WHY? Why would people be willing to die for racists to be able to regularly talk shit to their black or white neighbours? Why would people be willing to die for homophobes to be able to actively mock their targets and harass them through their hateful speech? Why is it so damn important to allow people to mentally hurt others, even after they say "Stop"?

Touching is an action, talking is an action. We would never allow anyone to attack another human being physically due to potential physical injuries which may or may not result in death, yet some people are willing to die for others to be able to push another person towards commiting suicide, as long as he does it verbally.

Could someone please explain the reasoning behind all this?

You can do that? Won't the freedom of speech allow you to say whatever you want in any situation?

And how come you can't ban any part of speech yet you have this massive book full of actions you can't commit?

Less restrictions are put on speech because they don't have directly physically harmful effects like the actions you can't take.  The idea that your right to swing your arms around stops at the other person's nose draws a very clear line of what you can and can't do, on the other hand saying that your right to speech stops at another person's feelings doesn't really draw as definitive a line.  Policing what people can and can't say starts to get too close to policing what they can and can't think, which is not something I want decided by majority decision like it would be in a democracy.  Because while I agree with the majority on a lot of things, like most I don't agree with the majority on every single thing.  

Free speech is important because when a government begins to censor anything in the name of protecting certain groups, it eventually begins to supress more and more forms of speech, which eventually goes into the political sphere, among other places.

Furthermore, a person's free speech can be limited if they go far, even in the US - such as threatening another person with physical violence and the like. As an 18 year old, you may not understand why its important, but look at the countries that heavily censor speech. They always do so to shape the argument in an opportunistic fashion, and usually to promote governmental ideals, such as the Chinese or North Koreans.

If someone spouts nonsense - say a racist - they do have to pay heavy social penalties for them. If a major business, sports, or political figure said something inherently racists, they would suffer for it. Todd Akin is suffering quite a bit from his abortion debacle. That is how free speech should work - you're allowed to say almost anything, but it can come at a cost if you're stupid.

The problem is not people being or not being offended by what other people say. The problem is people saying things for the sake of offending, which is perfectly legal from what I understand.

You say that you wouldn't want the majority of the population to decide what you can and can't say, but at the same you pretty much assume that the majority will have a non racist/sexist/homophobic opinion to counter things like hate speech. If a great majority of the US population turned racist, wouldn't you want to have laws that tell them not to actively yell "Fuck niggers!" on the streets? Wouldn't the minority deserve the right to not have to listen to that stuff every day?

It's not about protecting certain groups, it's about protecting every single group you may think of. And I don't think assuming that social penalties will occur is fair enough towards the people that the offender did offend. They deserve concrete protection by law, in my opinion.

North Korea is not comparable to what we have here. They want to censor speech and political opinions, while we want to, and actually do, make it illegal to offend someone using speech. You can still say "fuck niggers", as long as it wasn't meant to offend someone. There are obviously certain cases where it's hard to tell if the purpose was to offend someone, but that's why we have the court.

Life isn't always fair, but allowing unfair things just because it sometimes is hard to see where the line goes makes no sense to me.

Is a sort of authoritarianism, but maybe Freud was right when he said there can't be civilization without repression. I don't know, I'm going to abstain judgement on this one.

He's spot on.

On a side note, popular intelligent discourse has certainly taken a dive since Hitchens died. A shame, really.

How do you define what speech is said solely to offend and what is just offensive as a side effect?  And yes it's perfectly legal to say something just to offend people, as it should be.  

How would laws ever stop the majority from saying what they want in a democratic society?  It would only ever stop the minority opinion that couldn't muster up enough support to win a vote on the matter.  You think we should make laws against hateful speech now since all our opinions are reasonable, but if you make a law about it now what's going to stop a later majority from making the laws reflect their own personal views?  I just can't agree with that idea.  People should always be able to say their piece even if I disagree with it, because I wouldn't want my own rights to express myself taken away as well.  Let's say we ban hate speech now because we're all nice and reasonable people, what stops the majority from outlawing anything they don't agree with or find offensive?  What about anti-religous speech since the majority of the US is religious?  Anti-patriotic speech?  Once you start making that decision for others you open the door to the majority deciding the same thing for you, I really can't see how the potential benefits outweigh the obvious harms.