[This Title Has Been Censored]
As much as I enjoy wondering how the United States somehow manages to stay a country while their citizens are divided, almost to the brink of a revolution because of two giant opposing political ideologies, the nation’s speech laws are impressive. Everything you say is protected. Supposedly.
The American constitution’s very first article affirms that everybody has the right to express their opinions in any form imaginable, as long as they’re not an imminent threat to a group or individual’s safety. For example, if I were to tell you that we should attack a person because they’re black, that would be illegal; although it’s an opinion, I am directly suggesting someone commits assault. One can confuse this for hate speech, but its definition is quite different: “abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice against a particular group, especially on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation.”
After the Dario Larralde scandal last year, I heard some say he should have his twitter banned and claimed that discriminatory speech being regulated by law to the point where certain opinions would be fine by them.
Hateful speech is immoral. I’ve never approved of anyone being rude to a group or individual because of their race or gender. Even so, nobody can have the power to control what someone else says. If someone is not directly causing violence with their words, it’s nothing more than an opinion, and although nobody needs to agree with anybody, respecting one’s beliefs, even though they may go against your own, is among the most important values one can have.
The internet, a significant part of modern culture, generally shows the least amount of respect for free speech, where comedians like Steven Crowder have people wanting to shut his show down for hate speech, after making fun of a Vox reporter’s video titled “How Conservatives Control the Media”. Crowder received backlash and accused of being homophobic after making a few jokes regarding the writer’s sexuality, and thanks to the intolerance of some internet-obsessed people, Crowder had his show demonetized - meaning he can’t profit from his videos anymore.
But the point isn’t how sensitive the internet can be sometimes. It’s that people believe they can have the authority to claim controversial opinions as hate speech and have others shut down for having a different way of thinking.
Really, even if Steven Crowder were a homophobe, I’d still think that his scandal was exaggerated. Intolerant or not, it’s just an opinion, not directly causing any sort of violence. Do I think being homophobic in 2019 is immature? Absolutely. However, there can’t be limits to free speech. Nobody, not even federal governments, should have the authority to suppress harmless opinions or jokes.