Being Abrasive And Over The Top Critical Is Not Hate Speech....

In the PC world of the US, critical and abrasive speech, if it does not fit the politically correct agenda of the liberal lefty crowd is now being branded hate speech. I am not a big fan of Ann Coulter but she has every right to say the things that she does and I do not view it as hate speech. Yesterday, she was heckled during a speech at UC...

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter gave up trying to finish a speech at the University of Connecticut on Wednesday night when boos and jeers from the audience became overwhelming. Coulter cut off the talk after 15 minutes and instead held a half-hour question-and-answer session.

"I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am," Coulter told the 2,600 people at Jorgensen Auditorium.

Coulter's appearance prompted protests from several groups, including Students Against Hate and the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center. They criticized her for spreading a message of hate and intolerance.

For those that are not familiar with Ann Coulter, she is essentially a female Rush Limbaugh. With a JD degree and after working as a law clerk for the 8th circuit of Appeals and for a Senator, she has pursued a career as a writer [How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism ; Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right; and High Crimes and Misdemeanors:The Case Against Bill Clinton], columnist and pundit.

In order to be hate speech there are 3 critical factors that must be met...

1. Is it the expression of personal thoughts, or is it a form of action that affects and can harm others?

2. Is the free expression of ideas which some perceive as hateful necessary for healthy public debate, or is it harmful to public debate?

3. Should governmental policies be founded upon the protection of interests and rights of individuals, or identifiable groups, such as homosexuals and racial minorities?

So is Ann guilt of these three things? Far from it. As far as #1 is concerned, it appears as if her rantings are personal thoughts, appears to be no worse than the rantings and ravings of liberal pundits such as Al Franken and his Air America crowd. In point #2, it appears as if her thoughts may be harmful to the public debate if it wasn't for the problem that the students didn't allow her to make any points are were actually guilty of themselves. Yes, she is definately harmful to Liberals and their talking points, but that is the idea of political debate. And, unless you think that Democrats or liberals need government protection as an identifiable minority group [Liberals are working harder every day to remain in the minority] who is it that she is bombastically attacking that needs protection from damaging speech?

Without knowledge of what she said during her first 15 minutes at UC, there is no way to know what it was that prompted the heckling. It appears to me as if the heckling and protesting was planned to happen no matter what Ann said. It was a prepackaged assault and ambush by the students. No matter what was said, there was going to be the heckling and jeering.

As far as I am concerned, the denigration of liberal ideas and ideals does not constitute hate speech. However, if one makes the argument that liberals stand for all that is good and just and this includes exclusively minority, religious and gender rights, then in ones small mind, this may, in fact, constitute hate speech. So if Liberals are the only champions of these rights and they take on themselves, even if they are white Northgesterners the oatina of these minoroty groups so that they are one-in-the-same, then yes, it is hate sppech. But unfortunately, without the use of mind altering drugs, this is not the case.

Ann has touched or crossed the line at times, and this is actually an area that she can be questioned on. And this is alos an area that people can claim that I promote hate speech, my blistering attacks on Islam and on the weakness of Arab males. If it is hate speech, then so be it. If a friend or relative you know gets blown up or killed by some frothing at the mouth Islamic militant, then maybe you may think like I do.