Free Speech vs. Hate Crimes

I’m not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar. I am an average American Citizen with an interest in the future of our country. A citizen that tries to apply common sense and historical truth to the issues of the day to determine appropriate paths for national progress. This piece – and anything else I might write – is written from that perspective.

It is time (far past the appropriate time, actually) for a return to Constitutional rights in this country. Equal rights and equal opportunities for all. That’s a concept that pretty much everyone is ready to support – until they start looking at what it really means.

First and foremost, equal rights and equal opportunities for all means no special rights or special opportunities for any. If some group has rights that others don’t have, there is clearly no equality of rights.

Probably the first target of such a movement would be hate crimes legislation. Murder is a crime. It doesn’t matter who was murdered, who committed the murder, or what the motivation for the murder was. The victim is no more dead because of one motivation than because of another. Libel and slander are crimes. Whether committed for financial or political benefit, or to simply cause harm to the victim out of ill will, the crime is the same. The idea that there should be a special punishment because of the state of mind of the person uttering the statements is absurd. While existing – and proposed – hate crimes laws cover a variety of crimes, my focus at this time is the area of speech.

The very first amendment in our “Bill of Rights” 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.”

It is interesting to note that laws have been passed and remain in effect that are clearly in defiance of this simple constitution tenet. And many in our country clamor for even more such laws. In slander and libel laws, truth is a defense. That is, if I am accused of slandering you, an effective defense would be that I told the truth, regardless of my motivation in telling that truth.

In a nation of people largely ignorant of our Constitution and the Federalist Papers, which give great insight into the Founding Fathers’ intent in establishing the Constitution, phrases like “freedom of speech” have taken on entirely new meanings that are significantly divergent from their original meanings. At the time of the establishment of our Constitution, the idea that one might freely speak his mind on almost any subject with impunity was so established as to not require any mention.

There was, however, one area of speech where the British Parliament and colonial governments did not allow speech – even true speech – with impunity. That was the area of seditious libel. To be guilty of seditious libel, the accused need not have said anything untrue. Simply speaking truth that was unfavorable to the government (or individuals in that government) was a crime. That was clearly the area addressed in the first amendment.

So, does that mean that our freedom of speech in other areas is not absolute? Certainly not. It means that our right to freedom of speech in other areas is so clear, and so absolute, that it did not need addressing. Just as we were not given a specific “freedom to breathe” because questioning or limiting one’s right to breathe would have been patently absurd.

That having been said, our legal system seems to have established over the years some situations where an abridgement of free speech is deemed to be appropriate. In those cases, though, it is not the speech itself that is abridged, but rather the commission of a crime in which the speech is simply the manner of committing the crime. An example of this would be inciting a riot. Urging others to commit a crime is a crime. Speech (whether verbal, written or hand signals) is simply the tool used to commit the crime.

All of that brings me back to the area of hate crimes laws. There are a multitude of statements that may be subject to criminal prosecution on hate crime laws. Some of these statements might be simply incorrect. Others might be tasteless. Some might be offensive to some part of the population, whether a great part or a small part, even though they are completely true. But if they do not aim to incite violence against some individual or group, they simply amount to a person speaking his mind – whether a brilliant mind, a narrow mind, a shallow mind, or an incompetent mind.

There was a time within my memory when the reaction of most people to someone making an outrageous statement would be either “He’s sure got that right!” (I don’t care WHAT you say, there will be people who agree) or “What an idiot,” in which case they would argue the point or simply walk away – which includes turning off the radio or TV. The reaction was not an attempt to silence the speaker. That was in the day when people still stood by the idea “I detest what you’re saying, but will defend to my death your right to say it.”