Hate speech is, outside the law, any communication that disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic. The Court defined fighting words as those words that "by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace." Fighting words are excluded, the Court reasoned, because any benefit derived from their utterance is outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. I find it interesting that the Jevaoh Witness didn’t get introuble for passing out his literature and denouncing religion, but he got introuble for personally saying fighting words to a cop.
The Obama article focused on the idea of how in the United States of America there is a big controversy having Barack Obama as our President. Although it was a short article, there were many opinions stated about Obama that make this country seem very racist and cold. The beginning of the article started off by relating Obama’s healthcare reform proposals to a reason of why people do not like him and is being compared to Adolf Hitler because of his actions of taking over the country with proposals like this. Majority of this article were filled with quotes and opinions of citizens in the U.S. and what they think of Obama, mainly criticizing him. I found most of these quotes very disturbing to read, especially the racist opinions. The first strong “anti-Obama” quote I found was by Glenn Beck when he said on radio that “Obama is a racist with a deep-seated hatred for White people.” Tom Eisenhower compared Obama to Hitler and he said, “I’d take a gun to Washington if enough of you would go with me.” Pastor Steven Anderson from a church in Arizona even criticized Obama by saying, “Why I hate Obama, I’m going to pray that he dies and goes to hell.” All of these opinions were very disturbing to read but at the same time these people have the freedom of speech, but in my opinion the first two quotes were said by racist who don’t approve of Obama because of his skin color. When I read the quote from the pastor it made me second guesses if Obama is unsuitable for being President. The New York Times wrote in an article that “Some people just can’t believe a black man in president and will never accept it.” I thought this was a very strong quote because there are many extremist groups in the United States and also racist uninformed citizens who may not understand that having an African-American president will be different in many ways, so they choose to dislike Obama, instead of giving him a chance. Another idea that came up in this article was the idea of the South’s attitude towards having Obama as President. The African Americans are not qualified to lead this great country is the mentality of these Southern American citizens. In conclusion, I believe that all of these negative opinions are being said because of ones upbringing and that is how they judge whether or not Obama is right for the position of President of the United States. Therefore, I believe that everyone despite their personal opinion and beliefs should leave Obama alone.
The “Time to Kill the Wealthy article focused on several New York Lawmakers receiving freighting emails that tell them to tax the rich. The Email reads the following, “How hard is it for us to stake out one of the obvious access roads to some tech company, tail an employee home and toss a liquor bottle full of flaming gasoline through their nice picture window into their cute house,” The angry message demanded that Albany politicians “stop shoveling wealth from the lower 99 percent into the top 1 percent” and “set aside your ‘no new taxes on anybody’ pledge.” So basically they must pass the bill, or they will die. It is an easy choice to do because only 3 percent of the state population would be affected by the decision. In my opinion this is not hate speech, this is just a warning o inform people what they should do.
