Many countries in Europe have laws against "hate speech." A person can be arrested, charged, tried and incarcerated for saying things out loud or online that are deemed harmful to someone else... even if it's only words.
The European Council on Human Rights defines hate speech as "all types of expression that incite, promote, spread or justify violence, hatred or discrimination against a person or group of persons, or that denigrates them, by reason of their real or attributed personal characteristics or status such as “race”, colour, language, religion, nationality, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation."
Take a good look at that list. That's a lot of ways to go to pr8son just for expressing your thoughts publicly.
In Great Britain recently, a 53-year-old woman from northwest England was jailed for 15 months after posting on Facebook that a mosque should be blown up “with the adults inside.” A 45-year-old man was sentenced to 20 months for goading his online followers to torch a hotel that houses refugees. A 55-year-old woman was questioned by the police for a viral post that wrongly identified the suspect in a deadly knife attack at a children’s dance class.
Also in Great Britain, a man was sentenced to 21 months in prison for encouraging people to join the protests against mostly out of control immigration in the country and for saying he hopes the boats sink.
All of these examples have one thing in common. Words were stated/posted but no actual incidents occurred because of those words. Yet four people are in prison.
Imagine these laws being in place in the United States. Some will say "That would be great." But would it, really?
Imagine being imprisoned for expressing your anger at "Muslim" terrorists for an incident here in this country. Those involved are terrorists and they're Muslim, but someone gets their feelings hurt because you linked the two words together... because they're factual. You go to jail.
Imagine being arrested because you express your outrage over illegal immigration, or you loudly criticize certain politicians because they allow it. Imagine Madonna going to prison for saying she sometimes thinks about destroying the White House, or Johnny Depp for asking his stupid question, in a fairly blatant reference to Lincoln and Trump. Can't happen, you say? I'd bet the many people imprisoned in Europe for mere words didn't think so either.
Imagine being jailed for explicitely expressing your strong dislike for a Presidential candidate, or publicly telling lies about him/her...
Where do laws like this stop? How far is too far? People are already being called haters and bigots for having their own opinions on social issues. How long before having those opinions becomes illegal.
The beauty of our First Amendment is that we have the legal right to have and share our opinions on any topic as long as it remains opinion and doesn’t harm someone. Newsflash: just as we learned as children (sticks and stones) - words alone cannot physically harm someone. And its not illegal for someone's feelings to be hurt. I would hate to see that day come.
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