The Influence Of Hate Speech On Freedom

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One thing that sets America apart from other countries is its freedom. The freedom to say, do, or practice whatever one wants. Hate speech is part of that freedom. Not allowing “hate speech” is essentially telling someone, “Hey, you shouldn’t have an opinion.” There are quotations marks around the words hate speech because there’s no real guideline on what is considered a hate speech. It’s sort of a gray line. In the end, no one is forcing anyone to listen to hate speech. The listener has the choice to ignore what they've heard or react to it. So, hate speech should be protected.

People are brought up differently and depending on that upbringing, they tend to have different opinions on various topics, such as; religion, politics or even other races. Americans have the right to say their opinion in any way shape or form. In the U.S Constitution it states, “The First Amendment... prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech…” (Amend. I, Sect. 4). Taking away people’s freedom to share their opinion, is an abuse of the First Amendment. Depending on who’s listening opinions can come out in many different tones. …show more content…

For example, ‘Kill all the Jews’ sounds a bit different from ‘Kill that Jew who gave my son an F’. At least to people who aren’t Jews can see the slight variation between the two statements. Meanwhile, a Jew doesn’t see any difference. It’s not that easy to really just go in and claim that something is a hate speech or not. There are too many variables to think about. A person can’t know truly what someone’s intent is when words come out of their mouths. When, there’s a situation where statements can’t be deciphered as hate speech or not then the listener or reader can ignore