The recent ruling regarding the rightwing nutters of Westboro Baptist Church and a dead soldiers father, Albert Snyder, has once again brought up the issue of hate speech being protected as free speech.
Personally, I have always held that hate speech should not be protected under the first amendment. I realize the horrific job of determining what is free speech and what is hate speech is a daunting, overwhelming one...but with today's technology, hate speech can be widely disseminated to anyone...including those who aren't playing with a full deck mentally.
Hate speech can and always has incited violence. If I have to give an example, Hitler, three letters: KKK, and the SPLC has plenty of cases to choose from.
I must acknowledge Bill O'Reilly...as impossible as that might seem m'dear reader. Bill-O has volunteered to pay the entire $16K court-ordered ruling recently handed down by the 4th Circuit Court in the Snyder/Westboro case. Thank You Bill-O, and I really mean it.
What that tells me is that this issue spans the political spectrum..and we all can't be fucking wrong! This bullshit needs to be fixed whether that comes from a SCOTUS ruling or a bill in Congress..fix it you fucks!
