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I have been hearing about a “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment, or statements such as, “This isn’t free speech, it’s hate speech,” or “When does free speech stop and hate speech begin?” But there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment. Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) are just as protected under the First Amendment as other ideas. One is as free to condemn Islam — or Muslims, or Jews, or blacks, or whites, or illegal aliens, or native-born citizens — as one is to condemn capitalism or Socialism or Democrats or Republicans.To be sure, there are some kinds of speech that are unprotected by the First Amendment. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater, But those narrow exceptions have nothing to do with “hate speech” in any conventionally used sense of the term.
Free speech means the right vested on a person where by s/he can speak freely. Free speech also includes the right to write and publish ones own sentiments. The following is an example of a state statute (Wisconsin) defining free speech. According to Wisconsin. Constitution. Every person may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right, and no laws shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press.
In all criminal prosecutions or indictments for libel, the truth may be given in evidence, and if it shall appear to the jury that the matter charged as libelous be true, and was published with good motives and for justifiable ends, the party shall be acquitted; and the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the fact.Hate speech is a communication that carries no meaning other than the expression of hatred for some group, especially in circumstances in which the communication is likely to provoke violence. It is an incitement to hatred primarily against a group of persons defined in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and the like. Hate speech can be any form of expression regarded as offensive to racial, ethnic and religious groups and other discrete minorities or to women.
We all now know that any speech is offensive to someone some where, so it follows that all speech is hate speech? Perhaps, but saying go out and kill someone because of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion, or sexual orientation is certainly hate speech because it may incite someone to do it.Criminal speech refers to a legal concept that that identifies certain kinds of speech as a crime. Accordingly, any speech that odds with the concept of freedom of speech as guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution is a criminal speech. Inciting a riot is an example of criminal speech. Any criticism of government or the President as per The Patriot Act is an example of criminal speech.
Offensive speech is speech that an individual for what ever reasons they may have offends them, We all now know that any speech is offensive to someone somewhere, often but not always, the offender is totally unaware of the offense...
But alas, in the Americas we have to make everything complicated, so the Lawyers can make money.
So now we must examine Libelous speech. Libelous speech involves accusing someone of acts that can not be proven or are not true. Here the courts intervene by giving cash awards to the injured party.Still there are other kinds of speech, perhaps the strangest type of speech is copyrighted or protected speech. This occurs when someone, writes something (that is to say put words in certain arrangements and copyrights them) Examples are books, songs, advertising and newly formed words. These special groups of words are now protected and can not be repeated without permission or the paying of royalties to the person who copyrighted them. This is why the second best slogan ever "how do square fish swim" will not ever be heard again, because Wendy's owns them and now Wendy's serves square fish just like everybody else.
So at some point Television and movies became recognized as free and protected speech. Except there is this thing called the FCC, who doles out a list of words and images that are prohibited, giving us George Carlin's seven words that you can't say on TV and why we don't see breasts or full frontal nudity on TV.
Now we look to see if you have free speech on the internet. Well only if you have your own sever with T1 connection to the web. Otherwise just like a Newspaper won't let you say anything, someone owns the server and they get to say what they don't want you to say or which images to show. So in reality free speech ends at your lips...
Finally there is a kind of speech, that defies all other representations. It's called Campaign Speeches. In Campaign speeches you can lie distort, mis-represent promise anything and never have to do anything or be accountable for what you said. So it turns out there is free speech but it's reserved only for Political candidates and police officers...
