russell turpin wrote gregory alan bolcer i m not sure since i haven t attended civics class in quite some time but the first amendment doesn t cover protected speech hate speech or actions the first two are wrong the first amendment does protect speech the supreme court decides it protects duh and that happens to include most of what people consider hate speech unlike many other nations the us has no laws against hate speech per se and the first amendment is the reason for that this was poking fun of the practice of making up differnt types of speech with different types of protected status i think the laws specialing out hate and protected speech are ridiculous the point i keep trying to make is that there s only two types speech and action i agree they are all speech and should be covered by the first amendment but if hate speech is so protected why are certain states trying to prosecute people for it there s only two answers and one of them is wrong NUMBER because hate speech is different and needs to have a different level of protection dictated by whoever s offended at the time NUMBER it s because it s not just speech but action a action who s consequences are foreseeable by any reasonable person hate speech is mislabeled it s really threat i think they let the mislabeling perpetuate as there s advantage in being able to counter threat with loss of liberty and money through civil and criminal lawsuits for people they don t like greg _________________________________________________________________ join the world s largest e mail service with msn hotmail URL 