When asked if fascism could ever come to America, Huey Long (the Depression-era governor of Louisiana) replied, “Sure, only here they’ll call it anti-fascism.”
Hate-crimes laws are fascism in the guise of protecting minorities. They’re fascism in crime-prevention drag. They’re fascism in the name of combating bigotry and hatred.

In the 18th century, at the time of the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson noted that in most of Europe, the views of the king were the views of the kingdom. To express a contrary opinion was to risk life and limb.

In America, freedom of expression and belief includes the freedom to believe things that are manifestly wrong - the freedom to believe things that are dangerous, the freedom to go against public opinion.

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes put it rightly in 1919, when he wrote in his dissenting opinion in Abrams v. United States: “The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” Holmes added, “I think we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death.”

What is a hate crime?

According to a federal law enacted in 1990, a hate crime is one in which there is “manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, including where appropriate the crimes of murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation, arson, and the destruction, damage and vandalism of property.” This statute requires the FBI to compile hate-crimes statistics, and nothing more.

Federal involvement here is governed by a 1969 law which allows authorities to prosecute a crime that was motivated by the victim’s “race, color, religion or national origin,” and then only if the offense involves interstate commerce or if the feds act to secure the victim’s rights to certain “federally protected activities” – such as voting, enrolling in a public school or traveling on a common carrier.

Lastly, a 1994 law changes federal sentencing guidelines to require enhanced sentences for hate crimes.

In 2007, there was an attempt to amend the law to add “gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability,” to the category of protected persons.

Hate crimes are thought crimes.

If a perpetrator gets 5 years in prison for aggravated assault, but 10 years for hating the person he assaults (if that person is a member of a protected class), clearly, the additional punishment is for his motivation – what he was thinking or believed when the crime took place, the thoughts behind the crime.

It’s an attempt to punish ideas – bad ideas, possibly reprehensible ideas, but thoughts, often accompanied by speech, nonetheless.

Thomas Jefferson declared: “The legislative powers of government reach to actions only, not to beliefs.”

The prosecution of hate crimes often results in unequal enforcement.

Compare the treatment of the Philadelphia 11 with those participating in a Boston demonstration, on October 29, 2005.

A mob of almost 1,000 left an anti-war rally and descended on Boston’s Tremont Temple Baptist Church, where a “Love Won Out” conference was taking place, which included testimony by ex-homosexuals. The demonstrators shouted obscenities and threats of violence and brought a sound truck which was parked near the front doors, blaring the message “Shut it down. Shut it down!”

Do you think those inside the church might reasonably have felt intimidated? Regardless, the police took no action. Apparently, the Boston demonstration was motivated by love and esteem, rather than hate.

When it comes to criminalizing speech, many states are way ahead of the feds.

New Jersey has a law that makes it a hate crime “to communicate in a manner likely to cause alarm or annoyance. “ Can you believe it, there are people so depraved that they intentionally cause alarm or annoyance? – the fiends!

In Washington State, it’s a crime to “Threaten a specific person or groups of persons and place that person…in reasonable fear of harm to person or property.” What is “a reasonable fear of harm”? The law states “For purposes of this section, a ‘reasonable person,’ is a member of the victim’s group.” Thus, if a “reasonable member” of the group in question happens to be paranoid, hyper-sensitive or vindictive, and feels “threatened” by any almost sign of disapproval, well, you’d better not raise an eyebrow at them.

Punishing speech is the objective of American hate-crimes laws, which currently punish views that motivate actions, but which could soon penalize words alone

The Dutch are reputed to be the quintessence of tolerance. They’ve legalized soft drugs, prostitution, euthanasia and same-sex marriage. It’s even legal to have gay sex in Amsterdam’s public parks. Soon, it may be mandatory.

But when Dutch tolerance meets political correctness, in the words of the Johnny Mercer song, “somethin’s gotta give”. That something is freedom of expression.

In January, a Dutch appeals court ordered Geert Wilders to stand trial for making a movie. The court directed prosecutors to charge him with “inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims.”

A member of the Dutch parliament, Wilders made a 10-minute documentary called “Fitna” (viewed millions of times on YouTube) which consists mostly of verses from the Koran, that Wilders says incite violence and death to infidels. There are also scenes of a radical imam doing the ever-popular death-to-the-Jews rumba.

The court’s ruling comes six months after Dutch prosecutors announced that Wilder’s film contributed to the public debate on Islam and that the parliamentarian had committed no criminal offense.

Now, Wilders will stand trial for trying to further the debate on a subject about which, the left has announced, the debate is closed.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference, which represents nations where minority rights are scrupulously respected (just kidding), admonishes that there is a “thin line separating freedom of speech and the instigation of hatred, animosity and discrimination.” The attitude seems to be: We can say it, but if you quote us, that’s Islamophobia.

Jordan, an OIC member-state in good standing, is demanding Wilders’ extradition to stand trial for the crime of “blasphemy of Islam,” which, under Shari’a law, is punishable by death.

By the way, at different times, various imams, sheiks and mullahs have told us that cartoons depicting Mohammed and the Pope quoting a 14th. century Byzantine emperor are also blasphemy of Islam – hence the 2006 demonstrations calling for the pontiff’s death.

On January 28, 2009, Egyptian cleric Ahmad Abd Al-Salam spoke on Al-Nas TV, a religious channel broadcasting in Arabic.

His remarks were simply titled “Why We Hate the Jews,” and contained such lunatic ravings as – The Jews “invest their utmost efforts… in conspiring how to corrupt the Islamic Nation… This is why we hate them.” Also, the Jews “infect food with cancer and ship it to Muslim countries.” And “The Jews conspire to bring Muslim youth down to the pit of sexual temptation.”

Such rancid rhetoric is heard daily in the Arab media. Should Mr. Al-Salam be extradited to Israel, there to stand trial for slandering Judaism and the Jewish people? In Egypt, you aren’t placed on trial for the instigation of hatred, animosity and discrimination against Jews, you get a medal and a weekend at a Sinai resort.

Here’s an example closer to home. During the Gaza fighting, the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition held an anti-Israel rally in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. There were at least 200 in the ANSWER crowd, and a much smaller group of Jewish counter-demonstrators.

At one point, a woman in a traditional Muslim headdress began cursing the Jews, and shouting: “Go back to the oven” and “You need a big oven, that’s what you need” – in reference to the millions of Jews who were cremated by the Nazis during World War II.

Does this qualify as a hate crime? What if the crude anti-Semite made a threatening gesture toward the Jewish activists? What if the Jews had reasonable cause to feel threatened by the much larger pro-Palestinian crowd?

After calling for a resumption of the Holocaust, if the woman had hit one of the Jews over the head with a picket sign, should she be charged with assault or with a more serious hate crime?

It shouldn’t be necessary to say this, but obviously no one should be assaulted, robbed, raped or killed for their race, religion, ethnicity, gender or lifestyle. Such crimes are abhorrent and condemned by all decent people.

If you think the penalties for these offenses aren’t tough enough, by all means, work to make them more stringent.

But don’t criminalize speech. Punish the act itself, not the ideas behind it, even ideas you find abhorrent.

“I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That quote, usually attributed to Voltaire, has become a cliché.

Yet it represents 19th century liberalism at its best – the idea that if one man is censored, the freedom of all men is diminished.

Some in this audience may think that those who commit hate crimes are evil, and deserve to be punished more severely than ordinary criminals for the same act.

Some may have no problem with the premise that speech alone should be actionable. If what’s said offends them, makes them feel “unsafe,” calls their conduct into question, or passes judgment on them, they believe it should be silenced

Be careful, the principle you establish today could come back to haunt you. Thought crimes – which hate crimes manifestly are – is the proverbial double-edged sword.

Recall that it wasn’t all that long ago that to step across the race line was a crime in certain states.

Bull Connor, the public safety commissioner of Birmingham Alabama in the early ‘60s, felt so intimidated by civil rights demonstrators that he used fire hoses and attack dogs against them. One of the arguments white Southerners used to fight for Jim Crow was that integration would make them feel unsafe.

Ultimately, safety for minorities – as well as the rest of us – not to mention the survival of free speech, lies in the unfettered marketplace of ideas.

This speech was reprinted with authorization from Don Feder.