In Defense of Hate Speech
I'm not really writing in defense of hate speech. Rather, I want to give some reasons why one should be skeptical of laws prohibiting laws deemed to be "hate speech."
One reason is that reasonable people will not always be the ones in power (nor should we trust anyone not to abuse their power). Once governments or universities are seen as having the legitimate authority to decide what kinds of things individuals are allowed to say and what they are not allowed to say, the door is opened to all kinds of abuse. Pretty soon criticisms of those in power is deemed "harassment," subject to disciplinary action. We should know from history that the very same people who drafted the First Amendment were also the ones who passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, where criticizing the government became an offense punishable by incarceration. If the Framers of the First Amendment are susceptible to abusing their power, who isn't?
A second reason is that groups who are privileged in one time period might not be in the next, and vice versa. Some people think that minorities, such as those of the LGBT community, should be afforded protection from hate speech. But imagine if the government had this power to regulate speech only a few decades ago: the results would have likely been horrendous for those speaking in defense of LGBT; they would probably have been accused of undermining public morals, promoting subversion, or publicly uttering obscenity. If anything, the government would have made life for LGBT even more difficult. Indeed, even the most dictatorial governments depend at least partially on the consent of the governed. Giving government the power to override free speech will shift with the winds of whatever is politically popular, which will not always be on the side of minorities.
Lastly, bad ideas that are not uttered cannot be challenged. People holding bigoted ideas cannot be corrected. Indeed, they are more likely to hold more strongly to their ideas; though it may not cross their mind, the fact that those who disagree with them saw fit to use the coercive power of government to restrict their free expression instead of engage them in the free debate of ideas is prima facie evidence that their ideas are not good enough to stand on their own merits but must be backed by force. Employing the government to regulate non-violent speech is an admission that we as individuals are not capable of self-government and we must have a supervisor who makes sure all the children play nice. Curtailing free speech infantilizes all of us.
We shouldn't think of free speech as a license to offend others. This diminishes the potential of free speech to its most crude and least valuable use. Those who advocate free speech ought not to do the very things that lead people to be skeptical of it. Instead, they should use it for the most wonderful things, such as critiquing and improving the state of science, speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo...all of the things that advance civilization. This is the true value and power of free speech, and anti-hate speech laws pose a direct threat to it.
