Several students acknowledged the logical force of the arguments I had advanced, but most seemed eager to have the government intervene, somehow, to reduce the already small number of hate crimes even closer to zero. I've been turning this question over in my mind ever since the panel discussion last November, and have arrived at a number of conclusions. First, I see no proper place in a system of civil government for laws that attempt to regulate the content of people's thoughts. Let us consider a few relevant provisions from the current Libertarian Party Platform . This constitutes a general limitation on the laws Libertarians can accept.
Laws serving only to banish force and fraud from human relationships are acceptable.
Laws doing more than that are not. Clearly any law which regulates the contents of people's thoughts goes too far. Thus we must reject on principle any hate crime laws which punish people's thoughts or their peaceful, non-aggressive actions. Only when an individual's behavior infringes by force or fraud on another's right to seek his own happiness can government intervention be justified. We must accept the right of others to choose for themselves if we are to have the same right.