It's ironic that the people we elect to protect free speech often hate it the most. Politicians hate it because it's hard to control an electorate that can speak freely. To a politician so-called "hate speech" is simply speech they don't like. Criminal law has always restricted what we can do, now some of our more fascist oriented politicians are determined to also restrict what we can say. If the people in power can control speech they can control us. The best we can hope for regarding this frightening trend is that a lot of these politicians are pandering hacks who are not bright. Beyond that we have the U.S. Constitution.
In May 2019 a Massachusetts state legislator named Daniel J. Hunt introduced a bill titled "An Act Regarding the Use of Offensive Words." (Italics mine.) Mr. Hunt's proposed law read: "A person who uses the word 'bitch' directed at another person to accost, annoy, degrade or demean the other person shall be considered to be a disorderly person." At first blush one might think this was a joke or fake news. It was neither.
Under Mr. Hunt's bill, if a victim of this outlandishly unconstitutional law could produce a witness who overheard the outlawed word uttered with intent to, let's say, annoy, the perpetrator with the criminal tongue could be fined $150.
If the word "bitch" came out of the convicted criminal's mouth again and annoyed the same person the violator could be sentenced to up to six months in jail.
If free speech-hating politicians get control of our government they certainly won't stop with the word "bitch." Americans could go to jail for uttering thousands of other words such as "bastard," "fat," "crazy," "stupid" and "ugly." Words often used to describe politicians such as "asshole," "moron" and "hack" would certainly be outlawed and possibly classified as felonies.
In May 2019 a Massachusetts state legislator named Daniel J. Hunt introduced a bill titled "An Act Regarding the Use of Offensive Words." (Italics mine.) Mr. Hunt's proposed law read: "A person who uses the word 'bitch' directed at another person to accost, annoy, degrade or demean the other person shall be considered to be a disorderly person." At first blush one might think this was a joke or fake news. It was neither.
Under Mr. Hunt's bill, if a victim of this outlandishly unconstitutional law could produce a witness who overheard the outlawed word uttered with intent to, let's say, annoy, the perpetrator with the criminal tongue could be fined $150.
If the word "bitch" came out of the convicted criminal's mouth again and annoyed the same person the violator could be sentenced to up to six months in jail.
If free speech-hating politicians get control of our government they certainly won't stop with the word "bitch." Americans could go to jail for uttering thousands of other words such as "bastard," "fat," "crazy," "stupid" and "ugly." Words often used to describe politicians such as "asshole," "moron" and "hack" would certainly be outlawed and possibly classified as felonies.
Legislator Hunt's proposed bill did not become law.
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