In the United States, Hate-Crime enhancements are unjust.

"Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts." - E.B. White Let's start off with defining Hate Speech and then Prejudice. Hate speech: a term for speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, moral or political views, socioeconomic class, occupation or appearance (such as height, weight, and hair color), mental capacity and any other distinction-liability. The term covers written as well as oral communication and some forms of behaviors in a public setting. It is also sometimes called antilocution and is the first point on Allport's scale which measures prejudice in a society. (wikipedia.org) Merriam-Webster: 1prej•u•dice 1: injury or damage resulting from some judgment or action of another in disregard of one's rights; especially : detriment to one's legal rights or claims2 a (1): preconceived judgment or opinion (2): an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge b: an instance of such judgment or opinion c: an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics My opponent: "The reasoning behind this argument is simple. While a suppression of an idea will never allow its errors to be revealed, the expression of the idea will allow for ‘collision of adverse opinions' from which the truth can be seen. If the silenced opinion is without a forum in which to challenge other ideas, those ideas will harden into prejudices and falsehoods." Key words, Prejudices and Falsehoods. First off, let me state that Hate Speech is a prejudice. Let's give a few examples and please do tell me if you can find any factual information in any of these, or information that doesn't lead to hostile behavior and violations of human rights: 1. "We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves." Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983. 2. "One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail." -- Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, Feb. 27, 1994 [Source: N.Y. Times, Feb. 28, 1994, p. 1] 3. "Many of those people involved in Adolf Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals, the two things seem to go together, it is a pathology it is a sickness." - Pat Robertson (Side information: Homosexuals were killed along side the Jews and many others during Hitler's reign.) 4. "In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison." - Hitler 5. "The false teachers of churchianity justify interracial marriages in order to keep the White race blind to administering God's laws." - Ku Klux Klan I'm going to continue by mentioning an individual who believes Hate Speech should be allowed and his reasoning and my critic against it: Derek Bok is a graduate of Stanford University, and Harvard University, where he received his degree in law. Mr. Bok was also President of Harvard University from 1971 to 1991. He wrote an article titled, "Protecting Freedom of Expression on Campus." Mr. Bok's thesis is that freedom of speech should be guarded no matter what the circumstance. He gives the conclusion that we need to pull people like racists aside and speak to them in private. Could this possibly educate them? I don't agree with Mr. Bok. Condoning racist speech is supporting it. If racists are educated, given a proper anthropological and biological class, they will learn that race is not even considered true any longer. They will learn that their claims of "race" are meaningless. Letting them make this ugly speech is letting them infect others with their eroded logic. Education cures misuse of our First Amendment rights, Mr. Bok is right, but where Mr. Bok is wrong is when he says that we should keep allowing them to voice their opinions. No, what we should do is change the school curriculum to teach scientific fact and not opinion. If opinions insult you, that may be legitimate, but if facts insult you, you are ignorant. Ignoring something in the speech department works well. Usually the reason someone announces something is because they want everyone to know. If everyone ignores them, then they have lost their main point. But, unfortunately, it doesn't work for everything. Sometimes ignoring them is just what they want in order to carry out their havoc. The difference between allowing something like racist speech and allowing some other more innocent type of free speech is that racist speech leads to violence. Vote for Hillary Clinton bumper stickers don't lead to someone shooting someone else, but the 'n' word would most likely lead to some sort of black eye. "Thus, the additional punishment is actually punishment for the opinion and thoughts of the perpetrator." – opponent Almost in the same way that a crime is more punishable if a person's intentions are more vile. Like, let's take for example a person who has been planning to execute an individual for weeks, has set everything up perfectly, and then goes and kills them as compared to a person who accidentally runs them over with their car. They both have killed him, yes, but the intention is what is what makes the crime more dangerous. Things will happen on accident, but when there is a specific purpose, it condones the act itself. As for Judge Jackson: The West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette was a court decision made because of religious belief that Jehovah Witnesses could not pledge to political symbols. This is a freedom of speech case, yes, but it is not hate speech. The Jehovah Witnesses were not outright spitting on the flag or cursing America. They were just expressing how they didn't want to pledge themselves to a political symbol. Bad example, Pro. And I doubt Justice Jackson, one of the main prosecutors in the Nuremberg trials, wouldn't know what hate speech could accomplish. Going to add a final point before I had the argument back over to my opponent: Hate Speech breeds indoctrination. Children get indoctrinated in false, non-fact based opinion instead of being taught a rounded opinion of things (What my opponent thinks letting hate speech will do; that is, teach people both sides. It doesn't do this, I'm afraid). Regards, Vi