Hate and Speech: Where do we draw the line?

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Introduction

As I have previously alluded to in other posts on this site, my beliefs differ somewhat dramatically from many of my leftist peers. Although I am a leftist economically and socially, I am libertarian first and foremost, which is to say, my value of autonomy is more important to me than my value for socialism as an economic model. When considering this libertarianism, the obvious contradiction that has been suggested to me in the past is my rejection of typical free-market capitalism, however, I have addressed this here, wherein I argued that the capacity to self-actualize autonomously is more important than the capacity to engage in economic freedom, but there is another area of contradiction between my libertarian and leftist principles that has caused greater disagreement among my fellow leftists than of my fellow libertarians: my somewhat absolutist ideals regarding freedom of speech, and in particular, the intersection of speech and hate. I suspect many people will disagree with me, so I will state my thesis clearly: Although I do believe that hate speech exists as a discrete entity apart from typical speech, I do not believe that this speech should be intervened upon by a state of any kind. What this means in practice is I do not support laws that ban certain speech (with some key exceptions I will clarify in its own section), and reject the idea that a state can be trusted to reliably govern what speech does and does not constitute hate. This does not mean that I don't believe hate speech exists, nor that I believe it is moral, or even amoral, or that hate speech is something no one is capable of judging. Instead, I believe that hate speech is real and directly classifiable, but not classifiable to such an extent that anyone is capable of doing so, and it is immoral to engage in this type of speech, even if that speech cannot be determined reliably by a central authority to be hate. To justify this position, I will be giving examples of the ways in which standards of hate speech have been used to weaponize against marginalized people once a sufficiently hostile force was in power, thus demonstrating the flaw of hate speech laws as they exist, as well as provide key exceptions and demonstration of things that I would consider to be hate speech unambiguously. Ultimately, I want to make clear that although I condemn true hate speech, I do not trust the powers that be to an extent that allows me to justify granting them such direct control over my speech.

Abuse of the Theory of Hate

On September 10th of 2025, political commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University (Stern & Seely, 2025). In the wake of his assassination, there was a flurry of reactions that peppered the political spectrum with the kind of polarization we have all come to expect. From celebrations of his death in leftist circles, liberal declarations of unity and solidarity with Kirk's family, as well as desires to restrict gun ownership, and far right scapegoating upon the nearest minority they have come to hate, particularly trans people (Woods, 2025). None of this is new, as whenever a shooting happens in the United States, the American political response adheres fairly closely to that pattern, but something was different here. Like had not happened in other similar shootings before the current administration at the time of writing, there was direct administrative action against political opposition totally unrelated to the shooting by the governing party (Riccardi & Toropin, 2025). People were fired en masse for their reactions to the assassination, most prominently Jimmy Kimmel of Jimmy Kimmel live fame (McCready, 2025; Jingan, et al., 2025). Indeed, the reaction to Kirk's assassination on the left was directly compared to Hate Speech by the Trump Administration (Walsh & Yelick, 2025). Having gone over the response on the right towards jokes or even factual references to Kirk's own hateful rhetoric, I believe it is clear that any advocate for freedom of speech, including those that typically argue for free speech laws, are likely to see fault in the right's response, particularly the Trump administration. To me, this response demonstrates a misuse of the concept of hate speech, as hate speech does not and should not refer to any criticism directed towards any single individual, as this prevents the fair criticism of anyone, as any critical response would be deemed hate. This does not mean that all critical responses to individuals is always just, but they are always distinct from hate speech (see slander or libel laws, or individual bullying). Although these things can constitute harassment, or slander, they are not hate speech. Instead, hate speech, as Encyclopedia Britannica defines it, should be viewed as such:

"hate speech ... [is] expression that denigrates a person or persons on the basis of (alleged) membership in a social group identified by attributes such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, physical or mental disability, and others." (Curtis, n.d)

In this definition, hate speech cannot be individual criticism or mockery on the basis of their individual actions not aligned with attributes to a social group affiliation, but instead requires the mockery or criticism to be connected to their group membership. Unless we are to assert that racism and bigotry are associated traits of the political right, a statement which they themselves are sure to reject, we cannot state that criticizing Kirk on the grounds of his racism and other prejudices constitutes hate speech towards the political right. Therefore, this is a misattribution on the part of the Trump administration, yet despite that, they are all the same continuing to attribute, using the language of liberalism to push a decidedly illiberal action. Consequently, the standard view of hate speech as governable by the state is necessarily flawed, as it operates under the assumption that whoever may constitute "the state" is going to act justly in their administration of hate speech laws, and that their definition of hate speech is in agreement with the rest of society. I do not believe this is a safe assumption due to the events proceeding Kirk's assassination, and as I do not desire a benevolent dictator as such a concept is diametrically opposed to by values of autonomy, and is frankly oxymoronic, I believe that any existing laws that classify hate speech risks its misuse by administrations that differ from me in my ethical and social values. Yet, I do not classify myself as a free-speech absolutist, as I do feel there are some key exceptions wherein freedom of speech must be limited to have a functioning society.

Limits of Free Speech

To understand the areas where free speech should not be absolute, consider two of the following thought experiments:

Consider that you are in an airport, and someone screams "there's a bomb strapped to my chest!", before tearing open their jacket revealing a convincing looking fake-bomb. The resulting panic leads to an old woman next to you being trampled, as people flee from the would-be bomber. The man is then shot and killed by police. Now consider that we exist in a state of absolute freedom of speech. In this scenario, when trying to discern the guilt for the death of the old woman, we must either consider it an act of god, or more likely, blame any individuals who may have stepped on her without realizing, in much the same way a driver who is not paying attention to the road would be blamed for a hit-and-run. The police officer here as well would likely be charged for murder for killing the potential bomber. All of these are undesirable outcomes to me, but it is made worse when considering the adjacent consequences, such as law enforcement being hesitant to act in the event that the bomb is fake. Thus, bomb threats should be restricted, and related, other threats, even if they are ingenuine.What of the other exception?

Suppose that you are a black woman living in the deep south, with a white husband, and you are frequently being harassed by members of a local neonazi organization. Every time you step out of your house, they scream at you, call you the n-word, declare that you do not belong, and that your place is to be a slave, as well as comment on believing you are better off being raped and having your child sold off than live with your white partner. This continues daily for years, as your resolve is broken, and despite all attempts to the contrary, you begin to form internalized ideas of your own race and gender. Over the years, the comments do not relent, and you are driven to the edge of suicide, as you are unable to afford to leave, but cannot cope with the harassment any longer. It is made worse by the fact that they do not stop at your home, they follow you everywhere you go, day and night. There is nowhere you can go that escapes their abuse. You have gone to police before, tried restraining orders, and all have failed, as within this hypothetical, free speech is treated as absolute, and as such, harassment and verbal abuse is protected under freedom of speech. I do not consider a world where you would not have recourse against verbal and emotional abuse to be desirable, and as such, exceptions to free speech must be made for harassment.

Although I accept that other exceptions may exist, I have listed these two both for brevity, and because these are the two that I have considered at the time of writing as obvious exceptions to my otherwise straight forwards support of freedom of speech. This does still pose the question as to why I do not consider hate speech as one of the potential exceptions. If I am willing to make an exception at all, that would seem to devalue freedom of speech all together, and as such, exceptions should not be made. I disagree with this assertion as I feel that rules that do not allow for the flexibility of exceptions are not compatible with the complexity of the real world, and as such, any system of morality and law must factor into its calculation the potentiality of exceptions, and how we might determine what can and cannot be exceptional. Within my moral system, hate speech does not meet the criteria of an exception where harassment and threats do because of the potential for abuse. I have a hard time envisioning a way in which systemic application of laws surrounding harassment and threats of violence results in obvious abuse, or a world where this abuse is worse than the potential benefit of having these laws and rules in the first place. For harassment, I could envision the accusation of harassment to be itself a form of harassment if it is ingenuine, but this is where investigation may smooth out that edge. Moreover, threats of violence as jokes, such as someone saying "I'm gonna punch you in the face, I swear to god" as a playful joke towards a friend may be taken too seriously, but once again, the context of the joke and friendship can smooth over the edge. But for hate speech laws, there is a direct and present example of the concept of hate speech being used to restrict speech that should not be restricted, and greatly hinder the lives of individuals unjustly because of their speech. Yes, criticizing Kirk for his racist statements or even acknowledging their existence is not in any way comparable to calling an LGBT person a groomer, or a Jewish person a devil-worshiper, or a black person a thug, or criminal, but the Trump administration made that comparison through their crack down on left wing organizations and individuals in the guise of hate speech restriction (Schapiro, et al., 2025). Moreover, my previous exception of harassment and harassment laws may perfectly handle hate speech as a concept without reliance upon a distinct legal or moral category that is libel to be abused by the state, thus providing protections for marginalized groups while not allowing for the worsened abuse of the marginalized by the misuse of the concept of hate speech itself. Thus, hate speech as it exists within the United States is inherently flawed, and not conducive to my libertarian, or leftist, ideals.

Conclusion

I opened this post discussing the ways in which my beliefs differ from the broader left, and I feel that this has been a clear illustration of it. I have had plenty of debates and disagreement with my peers within left wing academic circles through undergrad and grad school, and within those discussions, I return to a fundamental difference that keeps me separate from many of my leftist peers, a difference I referenced earlier in this post: I am a libertarian first, and a leftist second. I do not value socialism so highly that I would abandon autonomy to adhere to leftism, nor do I value any particular political issue more strongly than my foundational principles, of which autonomy is one of the most vital. I view socialism and leftism more broadly as a means to an end of universal self-actualization, under which individuals are freely able to live and be happy in the means that is best for them, while not hindering other's ability to do the same. I have criticized free market capitalism in the past for the ways in which it reproduces the power structures of authoritarianism through corporate oppression, but that does not mean that I think that capitalism is necessarily evil. Socialism and anti-capitalism is not my religion, and I do not subscribe to it beyond how it may serve my ultimate goal of self-actualization. Economics is a tool for actualized values, and the values that I hold are those of autonomy, justice, and moral equality, and as such, I will not abandon my values to maintain economic or social purity to an ideal. In light of this, I believe that hate speech is a concept vulnerable to abuse when controlled by the state, or any central authority, and as such, without radical alteration, it should not exist within the letter of the law. Instead, it is important to approach the liberation of the marginalized from a place of thoughtfulness towards how our acts of liberation might be used to further marginalize us in the future.

brief addendum: I am very open to disagreement, and if you believe that I am mistaken in my beliefs, I am very open to changing my mind, so feel free to disagree!

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