Hate is generally bad, but should it be illegal?

I hate “hate crime” laws. I think they are a sign of a society that is abusing its legal system in poisonous ways.

The typical example relates to increased penalties for acts that are already illegal: murder, assault & battery, etc. Beating somebody up gets you 2 years in jail, say. But beating somebody up “because” you have racist thoughts about them gets you 7 years in jail.

That means those extra 5 years in prison are the penalty for a thought crime. Think back to all your favorite dystopian stories. Remember any where it was a good sign that the government punished citizens for thought crimes?

I hate “hate speech” laws even more. These laws don’t usually fare well in the US because (thankfully) we have a strong legal tradition of protecting free speech. As they say, “It’s the First Amendment for a reason.”

Oddly enough, the places that try to criminalize free speech the most in the US have historically been our public universities who love to enact “speech codes”, which usually run afoul of the First Amendment and are struck down when challenged.

It’s another sign of a sick society when its institutions of learning don’t understand the value of free speech.

Perhaps even worse than the “thought crime” aspect of laws criminalizing “hate” is the way they balkanize the public along identarian lines. These laws elevate race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, etc as the “important” things about a person, worthy of legal protection above and beyond their rights as an individual.

I bring all this up because earlier this month, the US House of Representatives passed the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act by a vote of 320-91. This law requires the Department of Education to expand its definition of anti-Semitism as required by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

It’s bad enough when your government violates its own First Amendment, but it’s particularly insulting when it does so according to the edicts of some foreign organization.

The timing of this bill’s passage is telling. As public debate heats up over the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza and the West Bank, the House passes a law massively expanding the definition of what “anti-Semetic speech” is?

It’s perfectly obvious that those supporting the law would like to see it used as a cudgel against Americans critical of Israeli government’s behavior (and the fact that Americans are taxed to fund this behavior).

I hope the US Senate will reject this bill. Anti-Semitic discrimination is already illegal under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (I’ll save my criticism of this for another day). Let’s not make the situation worse by tying this law to some foreign entity’s definition of what anti-Semitism is.

Let’s instead refocus our commitment to free speech. It’s really important.

Naturally,

Adam