Why we should abolish “hate speech” laws

The state has no right to police our thoughts and words.

Since when did it become the business of the state to audit our emotions? In effect, this is precisely what is happening by means of the various “hate speech” laws that have been implemented throughout Europe in recent years. In Ireland, the imminent Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence of Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill would represent one of the most draconian forms of hate speech legislation yet produced. And how is “hatred” defined in the Bill? The following is a direct quotation:

“hatred” means hatred against a person or a group of persons in the State or elsewhere on account of their protected characteristics or any one of those characteristics

So hatred means hatred. Glad we cleared that up.    

This kind of circular definition is what we have come to expect from legislators when it comes to this most nebulous of concepts. In his book Censored, Paul Coleman helpfully includes all of the existing legislation on “hatred” from across Europe and, in doing so, reveals that no two governments are able to agree on its meaning. In 2012, the European Court of Human Rights concluded that there “is no universally accepted definition of the expression ‘hate speech’” and a manual published by UNESCO in 2015 accepted that “the possibility of reaching a universally shared definition seems unlikely”. 

When it comes to the statute books, one would have thought that precision and detail would be of paramount importance. After all, we have seen how vaguely-worded legislation is wide open to exploitation. Consider, for instance, how trans rights activists are now claiming that the reference to “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 connotes a sense of “gender identity” rather than the biological designations of male and female. If the state is empowered to imprison its citizens on the basis of “hatred”, surely we need to know what that means.

Hatred, like any emotion, cannot be legislated out of existence. Will we be seeing laws against “envious speech” on the statue books? And what about codes against wrath or pride? If the government were to prohibit narcissistic speech, most of the flag-waving pronoun-declaring gender ideologues would have to be incarcerated. And while this would doubtless create a much more sane and serene society, it would also involve the obliteration of our fundamental values. 

As for “hate crimes”, there is no need for mind-reading in order to determine the appropriate punishment. If I am physically assaulted, it makes little difference to me if the assailant was motivated by homophobia. I would prefer the sentence to reflect the crime itself, not to be moderated according to speculations about the perpetrator’s private thoughts. The state should have absolutely no licence to probe inside our heads, any more than employers should insist on compulsory “unconscious bias training”. In a free society, we are entitled to think and feel as we see fit. And so long as that does not interfere with the liberties of others, that includes the right to hate.

But even if one were to accept the premise that the state must crack down on hateful thoughts – which I most assuredly do not – hate speech legislation is wholly ineffective. Censorship of hateful ideas does not cause them to disappear; it drives them underground, where they can fester unchallenged. Moreover, hate speech laws are easily weaponised by activists seeking to silence their political opponents.