Hate Speech, Where are Thy Limits?

Hate Speech: U.K. Political Leader Arrested for Quoting Winston Churchill:

No doubt someone will foolishly say "that couldn't happen here". I can only say that I don't write this blog for that level of thinker -- go elsewhere, there are PLENTY of sources for what you want.

Our founders worked very hard to set up a system that LIMITED the powers of government, and ESPECIALLY limited the power of the mob -- a Republic, ruled by laws, not men. They also worked very hard to maximize the freedom of the individual, and especially SPEECH, because they well understood that in the aspects of man that pertain to culture, civil society and governance, "speech and thought" were very close to the same thing. Without radical speech freedom, freedom of thought was also under attack, and with it, the very soul of man.

Even up to my youth, "sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you" was a very common piece of the training of a child. We were once a nation that VALUED very strongly ACTUAL HUMAN DIVERSITY! Which is the diversity of THOUGHT, not of skin, sex, preferences, wealth, etc. It was the diversity that mattered in our HUMAN / SPIRITUAL nature, not our physical / animal nature.

In America now, and I go down to the mall and read from the book of our great leader BO?

“Get your hands out of my fries. You ain’t my bitch, nigger … buy your own damn fries. Now what was I talking about?”
Obama, Barack (2007-01-09). Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Kindle Locations 1391-1393). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition. 

York with a nice jumper, who, after a pick-up game with some talkative black men, had muttered within earshot of me and three of my teammates that we shouldn’t have lost to a bunch of niggers; and who, when I told him— with a fury that surprised even me— to shut up, had calmly explained the apparently obvious fact that “there are black people, and there are niggers. Those guys were niggers.”
Obama, Barack (2007-01-09). Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Kindle Locations 1522-1524). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition. 

Well, that’s true, Ray would admit. Maybe we could afford to give the bad -assed nigger pose a rest. Save it for when we really needed it. And Ray would shake his head. A pose, huh? Speak for your own self.
Obama, Barack (2007-01-09). Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Kindle Locations 1548-1551). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition. 

Until you want to actually start running things, and then they’ll yank on your chain and let you know that you may be a well-trained, well-paid nigger, but you’re a nigger just the same.”
Obama, Barack (2007-01-09). Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Kindle Locations 1818-1819). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition. 

What Granny had told us scrambled that image completely, causing ugly words to flash across my mind. Uncle Tom. Collaborator. House nigger.
Obama, Barack (2007-01-09). Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Kindle Locations 7160-7161). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.  

Note, I'm NOT saying that BO shouldn't be able to write this,  just that under what was the "Equal Protection" clause of the Constitution, if he can, we ALL CAN! What is even FAR MORE IMPORTANT, under the culture that used to exist in the US, not only was it LEGAL for all to use whatever words they wanted, it was VALUED. There was a DIFFERENCE between say Paula Deen saying something 30 years ago, or someone saying something in a private conversation surreptitiously taped, then someone standing out on a corner taunting blacks! One could still use the word FIRE! even though you couldn't yell it in a crowded theatre!

Imagine a country with those kind of values and sophistication! Yes children, THAT was once America! Bur no longer, we no longer know how to differentiate between words and actions, nor I would argue, speech or thought, and so our liberty dies!
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