News talk 2014-01-16: Study hate speech

I don’t think there should be any such thing as a hate crime. In fact, this relatively recent trend constitutes one of the most hideous assaults on freedom in American history. Why?

It’s because it doesn’t much matter what motivates a crime. A crime can be trivial, moderate, or monstrous. And it remains trivial, moderate, or monstrous, regardless of whether a black perpetrator loved or hated his white victim. Yeah, I know. I said it the reverse of the way you were expecting to emphasize my point.

Now what about hate speech? Let it ring! I want to know who hates whom, who’s biased, and who’s ignorant. Information helps. This is another scary, scary, scary (yep, that’s triple scary) scheme to “study” something. But study isn’t the objective. And free speech is the target. — MC