THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

Leftists, with the help of respectable conservatives, are now trying to limit access to "Hate" on the Internet. They are also trying to get the power to decide what "hate" is, and the right to ban it everywhere.

How much power should we give liberals and respectable conservatives to decide what kind of speech should be banned? The left and its conservative allies say that free speech should be permitted, but hate speech should be banned.

So one regularly runs into a question that is debated in the media these days: "When does free speech become hate speech?

The answer is: "From the word 'Go.'" All MEANINGFUL free speech is somebody's Hate Speech.

You don't have freedom of speech if you are only allowed to say things that don't offend anybody. Real freedom of speech means precisely the opposite. Your freedom of expression doesn't need any protection if you only say things that everybody approves of.

So the first amendment right to free expression is only necessary to protect you when you say something that offends somebody. In other words, every word of real free speech is what somebody would call hate speech.

Both Hitler and Stalin could have readily agreed with the present liberal-respectable conservative definition of free speech. Both Hitler and Stalin thought that anybody should be allowed to say anything they wanted to, so long as it didn't offend their deeply held beliefs.

For example, Hitler would agree that you could say anything you want to, so long as it didn't offend a dedicated Aryan like himself. Stalin would allow you free speech except where he felt that your words were offensive or harmful to his ideas of what was good for the working class.

In other words, all dictators take the same position our American censors do. The dictators agree that people can say anything that isn't "offensive" to important opinions. They just have a little different answer as to what is "offensive."

But Stalin, Hitler, liberals and respectable conservatives all start from the same place: Some OPINIONS must be outlawed as Hate Speech.