There's nothing tricky about it. Hate speech is a vile thing, but you or I have as much right to say it as we say anything else. Freedom of speech should ensure that no one is silenced for their viewpoint. Whether we like what other people have to say depends, but they always have the right to say it.
Words have an impact on the world. If you call for violence against a group of people, you can be held accountable for that in Canada. Nobody is saying you can't say "I hate <group of people>", but when you say "<group of people> should be killed" you've crossed a line and can be held legally accountable.
It's a tricky issue, but personally I think our system is more in line with most people's natural sense of morality. If I call for violence, and violence happens, am I not at least partially culpable in that violence? Especially if I am a community leader, or other person of influence.
You'll still get in trouble in the US if you're inciting specific crimes. But "all them ___ should be shot" is just a (bad) opinion. And you can impotently rant about those all you want.
>"There's nothing tricky about it. Hate speech is a vile thing, but you or I have as much right to say it as we say anything else."
That's an opinion, and precisely why it's tricky. I understand "freedom of speech" is a fundamental representation of liberty, especially to Americans. There is also a school of thought that believes in looking at the normative angle of policy; when things can be determined, objectively, to be hateful or vile, why allow them? I'd rather live in a world that didn't allow hate speech than a world that does. Of course, how do you determine "hate speech" objectively, at the margin? That's the tricky part.
>when things can be determined, objectively, to be hateful or vile, why allow them?
And what is the objective criteria used to determine hatefulness and vileness? I am interested in how such a thing can be formulated in a definitively objective way.
I think by "objective" you probably mean "almost universally agreed", not actually "objective", because I don't think that any truly objective measurements of hatefulness and vileness are known.
