Free Speech Vs. Hate Crimes

I saw something on Dr. Phil today that caught my eye. Today he was discussing an issue as old as the Constitution itself. One of the guests on his show was a city council member. She was a woman of maybe about seventy or so, with glasses. She aroused concerns among her fellow citizens--most likely fellow councilmembers too--when she posted some jokes on the Internet that were antiblack, antigay,and so on. Needless to say, this lady (I use the term loosely) was pressured to resign from her local post.

Now she is on the show with her lawyer, talking about how her freedoms are being violated. Count me in as being in agreement with Dr. Phil McGraw when he said that, while, of course, she has the right to say such things, McGraw had the right to take offense at such tripe. He said that such material is not funny, and not becoming to a community leader. All of which I agree. There is no right to post things to an Internet forum that make people feel offended, threatened, and so on. If such things are posted, the webmaster there has the right and the responsibility to boot such participants out of such a forum head first, and to toss away the key. Believe me, as an experienced forum webmaster I have had to deal with that very problem. One Friday night in February of 2000, I was running a forum on Dr. Laura Schlessinger. One of my male participants was constantly harassing one of my female participants about the details of her personal life away from the Internet. I issued a warning that this individual should stop. The participant basically thanked me to kiss his butt.

Basically, it was a wrap. Teed off at the idea of having my authority as webmaster disrespected, I booted him out. The barrage came at me. I took a huge hit from community members --as well as the ousted participant--who felt that his free speech rights were infringed upon.