Hate Mongers like Fred Phelps Should Not Be Protected from Prosecution Under Hate Crime Laws

I find myself agreeing with Greg Reeson more than I care to admit, as he is an avowed conservative and I am, well, not. However, in two of his recent articles, “Defending the Right to Hate (Part 2)” and “Does Government Know What’s Best us?” he defends the First Amendment in ways that I think are a bit too extreme.
On a very basic level, I agree with Reeson’s ideals. Free speech should just be free speech. People should be allowed to express ideas freely. 

But the founding fathers assumed a level of personal and public responsibility that no longer exists and the right to free speech has been impinged on almost as long as we have had a constitution. The Constitution was signed in 1789; less than 9 years later, Congress enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts restricting freedom of speech. 

The act basically made it a crime to “write, print, utter or publish” any untoward comments about the President or the Congress. And, made it a crime, punishable by two years in prison, to speak ill of the laws of the Untied States.
The law expired after just a few years, but its major opposition came not from its infringement on Free Speech, but because many people in the lead up to the Civil War, believed in infringed on states’ rights. 

In 1918, Congress passed a sedition law restricting the free speech of anyone who criticized the government or troops during the war. Though it was repealed 3 years later, while it was the law of the land, it was even upheld by the Supreme Court. The mainstream media of the time supported the law in the name of patriotism. 

Even now, there are laws restricting freedom of speech, ostensibly to protect the public from themselves. There are laws against yelling fire in a crowded theater and laws against freedom of speech when that speech can be defined as a hate crime.