"The fundamental and unavoidable problem with hate speech is that no one can say definitively what it is. The result is that there are huge and consequential differences between the claims, and since it is essentially subjective, it is always open to abuse. To define hate speech according to the eye of the beholder is to put a sword in the hands of the power wielder. .. Subjective notions such as hate speech have in turn aggravated two other negative responses: victim playing and phobiaization. The first of these bad responses occurs when people feel threatened and then play the victim card in order to seize the high ground by posing as "more victimized than thou." This tactic works well, of course, in societies influenced by the Jewish and Christian faiths, for as Nietzsche recognized with scorn, the latter privilege the status of the victim. Under some philosophies and in some cultures they would be treated simply as history's roadkill. Needless to say, hate speech itself is a crime viewed from the perspective of the victim rather than society, so the encouragement to victim playing grows out easily from the category... There is no question that speech is a vital consideration for all who wish to promote freedom, that those who speak with hatred are a deadly menace to society and that censorship always arises at the hands of those who set themselves up as guardians of the community's moral standing—be they conservative as in the past or liberal as so often today. But for all the good intentions behind the policing of offense and the politics of hate speech, the unintended consequences are disastrous. For liberals who have introduced so much of the politically correct speech as well as the hate speech regulations on campuses, the hate crime bills in the British Parliament and the U.S. Congress, and the hate cases before the European Court of Human Rights, the result is the chilling of robust, tough-minded liberal debate. If ever there was a need for plain speaking and truth telling, it is now when core freedoms are endangered. Instead, the stifling blanket of "No offense" wraps around our heads, potential charges of partiality are like concealed tripwires for our arguments and the fear of lawsuits, countersuits and even death threats and bounties hang over us like a sword. Studies of earlier evils such anti-Semitism demonstrate that hate-speech prosecutions have not achieved what their authors hoped to achieve. Rather, such restrictions leave the universities and countries that adopt them more litigious, uncertain and restless than ever, and vulnerable to even greater tensions and conflict." (Os Guinness, Guest Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution)
