Where there are laws about hate speech one can indeed legislate restrictions on freedom of speech. This opens the door to state mandated thought control.

One can go to the Bible, the New Testament and the Qu'ran and find advocacies of persecution and hatred.

In the United States, these liberties are available to the common people as well. Unlike Osip Mandelstam, you can't be sent to Siberia for comparing Stalin's moustache to a cockroach!


This does not mean that we practise 'absolute' freedom of speech. You are not allowed to be obscene over the public airwaves. You may insult someone to the point of physical violence and you will lose in court if you argue your freedom of speech rights. If you express yourself freely as to your boss's hairstyle, you might expect this to limit your ability to progress in the organization of your workplace.

(My favorite example is when an acquaintance told me about being attacked in a bar 'I paid him a compliment, told 'im his wife had a nice p****!")