America Doesn’t Need ‘Hate Speech’ Laws

Will someone in our free press stand up for free speech?

Just as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been harangued by politicians and legacy media journalists about not doing more to censor speech on his social media platform, an opinion column Tuesday in The Washington Post called for passing “hate speech” laws that take direct aim at undermining the suddenly problematic First Amendment.

Richard Stengel, a former editor at Time magazine who then served as the State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs under President Barack Obama, argued that the First Amendment is outdated and that America’s unique protection for free speech just doesn’t work anymore.

Stengel wrote that while traveling the world and “championing the virtues of free speech,” he “came to see how our First Amendment standard is an outlier.”

Yes, the First Amendment is an “outlier,” and for that, we should be incredibly thankful as Americans. It is undoubtedly a cornerstone of American exceptionalism.

Not for Stengel, however.

Stengel wrote that our broad protections of free speech, which allow “hate speech”—however one may define that—“diminishes tolerance” and “enables discrimination.”

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