A number of posts here have mentioned "thought crime" and hate crime legislation as supposed indicators of lack of freedom.

This makes me wonder about what exactly it is that the opponents of hate crimes want to be free to do, were their actions not criminalized?

For many conservative opponents of hate crime legislation, their intent is pretty clear: they want to commit violent acts against gays, blacks, and other minorities with minimal reprecussions. They are afraid of and opposed to a vision of society that respects minorities and other traditionally oppressed groups, and that (and not some purported ideal of "freedom") is the real reason they fight hate crimes legislation.

David Neiwert[1], has made some excellent rebuttals[2][3][4] to the "thought crime" and anti-hate crime legislation arguments, from which I'll quote below. I encourage you to read the posts in full, because they make many other excellent, relevant points from which I'll have to refrain from quoting in the interests of not making this post too long.

Do hate-crimes laws create thought crimes? The issue has certainly
been addressed in the courts, notably in the definitive Supreme Court
case, Wisconsin v. Mitchell:

Mitchell argues [via the First Amendment] that the Wisconsin
penalty-enhancement statute is invalid because it punishes the
defendant's discriminatory motive, or reason, for acting. But motive
plays the same role under the Wisconsin statute as it does under
federal and state antidiscrimination laws, which we have previously
upheld against constitutional challenge. … Title VII, of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, for example, makes it unlawful for an employer
to discriminate against an employee "because of such individual's
race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." … In Hishon, we
rejected the argument that Title VII infringed employers' First
Amendment rights. And more recently, in R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505
U.S. at 389-390, we cited Title VII (as well as 18 U.S.C. 242 and 42
U.S.C. 1981 and 1982) as an example of a permissible content-neutral
regulation of conduct.

Nothing in our decision last Term in R.A.V. compels a different
result here. That case involved a First Amendment challenge to a
municipal ordinance prohibiting the use of "`fighting words' that
insult, or provoke violence, `on the basis of race, color, creed,
religion or gender.'" … But whereas the ordinance struck down in
R.A.V. was explicitly directed at expression (i.e., "speech" or
"messages"), … the statute in this case is aimed at conduct
unprotected by the First Amendment.

Moreover, the Wisconsin statute singles out for enhancement
bias-inspired conduct because this conduct is thought [508 U.S.
476, 488] to inflict greater individual and societal harm. For
example, according to the State and its amici, bias-motivated crimes
are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct
emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest. … The
State's desire to redress these perceived harms provides an adequate
explanation for its penalty-enhancement provision over and above
mere disagreement with offenders' beliefs or biases. As Blackstone
said long ago, "it is but reasonable that, among crimes of different
natures, those should be most severely punished which are the most
destructive of the public safety and happiness."

Of course, this is William Rehnquist, but the ruling was unanimous.
Nonetheless, I think Matt Singer puts more or less the same argument
much more elegantly in his first post on the matter:

[T]he real answer is that hate crimes laws don't punish individuals
for their thoughts. They punish individuals for acting on their
thoughts in unacceptable ways, by targeting a community for
violence.

Frankly, I've always found the argument that these laws are "thought
crimes" to be a little creepy, since it is echoed in the claims of the
Christian Right that hate-crimes laws that include sexual orientation
are an attempt to impinge upon their freedom of speech. But gay-bashing
is no more a free-speech right than is lynching or even, say,
assassinating the president. Political thought may motivate all of
them, but that doesn't mean the Constitution protects any of them.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_neiwert

[2] - http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003_06_08_dneiwert_archive.htm...

[3] - http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003/12/thought-crimes-newspeak...

[4] - http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003/06/hate-crimes-response.ht...