ubernoir wrote:
edit having recommended this i note a, that i recommend it not to express an opinion but because it is a good article but it also occurs to me b, clearly i generally believe in a marketplace of ideas (why else would I be attracted to a site about memes?) and c, America protects hate speech yet America, first amongst the western nations, is potentially on the verge of electing a black leader. This doesn't prove anything but it is interesting to note.

Interesting indeed.

article:
Some prominent legal scholars say the United States should reconsider its position on hate speech.

"It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken," Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books last month, "when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack."

I think "the atmosphere of mutual respect" would benefit from the truly open communication afforded by the right to free speech, rather than be hindered by it.

RE: Hate speech or free speech? What much of West bans is protected in U.S. - International Herald Tribune