preview

Essay on Hate Speech is the Price We Must Pay for Freedom of Speech

Better Essays

Living in the United States we enjoy many wonderful freedoms and liberties. Even though most of these freedoms seem innate to our lives, most have been earned though sacrifice and hard work. Out of all of our rights, freedom of speech is perhaps our most cherished, and one of the most controversial. Hate speech is one of the prices we all endure to ensure our speech stays free. But with hate speeches becoming increasingly common, many wonder if it is too great of a price to pay, or one that we should have to pay at all. 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 …show more content…

After a conviction in a lower court for offensive speech, and an affirming decision by the Supreme Court, the fighting words doctrine was born. It is worth noting that the fighting words doctrine has not been extended to written works. If someone were to put the exact same thing in a book or an advertisement it could not get the fighting words classification. This is because the expression needs to “incite an immediate breach of peace” and to date no written material has lived up to this standard; the court is looking for a true “verbal attack”.

It would seem that in the wake of the Chaplinsky ruling that a hate speech would be a very difficult, if not impossible thing to pull off. So how can the Ku Klux Klan have a rally two days before Martin Luther King Day? And according to one Klan leader, “Protesting the holiday and “Celebrate Robert E. Lee's birthday and talking about Americanism, as opposed to Karl Marx and the philosophy of Martin Luther King. We'll also talk about American sovereignty, imbalance in immigration and the loss of jobs to immigrants," (Associated) Surely during a gathering like this there will be a lot more offensive things said than someone being called a dammed fascist. The reason groups can get away we these types of meeting has made possible in part by the decision in the case Village of Skokie v. National Socialist Party (1978)
Most hate groups look to schedule rallies and marches in

Get Access