Where do you draw the line between "freedom of speech" and promoting hate/violence/instilling fear/etc.?

The line you draw is subjective. It's a matter of what YOU will tolerate.

There is a saying "People can say and be whatever they want, but you don't have to accept it.

If your speech is not directly harming someone (ie - the old thing about yelling fire in a crowded theater) then you should be free to say what you want. In the US we have the freedom to be as stupid as we want to be. Government has no business dictating our thoughts (as expressed by our speech) If a person is a bigot and says so there should be no law against that speech. If he is a bigot and does something to harm another, then he is past that line.

With any Right...there also goes responsability.....What I mean it that you can not go into a crowded theater and yell "Fire".....Just like on a plane you can not yell Hijack...

You have to balance the freedom with the good of all...To allow the KKK to hold a open air meeting right across from one being held by the Black Panthers (I know I am showing my age) is just asking for a blood bath...

It is the same here in Ca. right now...With the Prop. * people.....It is great to hold open talks to allow boths sides to see the others view...But if it comes to blows then both sides have crosses the line....

I am not MLK lover...But what he said in the 60's was right on the money....And he did it with out strikeing a blow....It is the same now...But where a great deal of Black Americans...( I refuse to use the term Afro American...will NEVER hyphenate any Amreican...they are just Americans to me) are forgetting that no matter what happens....the only time that violence should be used is in self defence...If someone is beatting you...Then strike a blow to defend your self.....But using the reason of "someone had more oppertunities that I did so I will burn down his shop....Well that is just trash to me...

And as far as Prop. "8" goes....like the T.V. ad stated...the people have voted twice...and twice we have rendered the law of the land....But you are not heaqring us.....You have domestice partnerships....wills give inhartence rights....you can get medical ins. with employment.....But now you want this religious cerromony....Why can you not hear what the people are saying....and live with it...



Sorry I am getting off the question.....But like I said....You do have a right of freedom of speach...But you also have the responcability of the safety of the people...You can talk all that you want to...But You can not raise a fist to make them hear....

Absolutely! Free speech includes unpopular speech. As for discrimination - what are we taught at church? To discriminate. If you don't like what you hear, stop listening; if you don't like what you see, don't look; if you don't like what you read, stop reading it. It's simple really. I'd rather be occasionally offended than live in a censored society. If you prhibit something which causes you offence, you are at risk of, one day, having something you like prohibited, due to it offending someone else. It's better to live and let live i think.

True Freedom of speech should be and is in reality (despite what the law says) is freedom to tell the truth- wether what needs to be said is pleasant or unpleasant, and to do it because it will bring about what is right.

I believe that everyone is entitled to their own opinions about things, even if there is a racist slant to them... and the bottom line is, if I say something that offends you, you don't have to believe that what I say is true and you don't have to allow it to offend you just because I said it. In the end we make up our own minds about the validity of other people's opinions.

Your right to swing your arms around stops at my nose. If somebody's speech in some way interferes with another's natural rights, a tort has happened, and they are entitled to recourse to the Law. In theory, that is. In practice, people get away with what they shouldn't, and get nailed for harmless actions. Nobody said life was fair.

I believe it's all or nothing. We either have the right to say what we want or we don't. The end. We can't be selective about what is acceptable and what is not.

The world is not some cutesy, fluffy-bunny place. People have to be able to internalize these nuggets of hate-speech and mentally decide whether or not to cast them aside as rubbish. Protecting people from hurt only makes them emotionally fragile.

The minute you draw the line you don't have free speech. Free speech celebrates the right of idiots to say idiotic things; it's a price we pay. If we're smart, we respond by not letting them get the best of us.