When our country was founded, the memories of a tyrannical king were still fresh. The Constitution was written to prevent that from happening again. As such, important provisions were put in place to ensure that The People would have certain freedoms, the most important of which is freedom of speech. Without such a freedom, a person could be jailed for speaking out against the government. A side effect of this is that vile and disgusting speech is protected. It is up to us to consider the ramifications of what might occur exercising that freedom.

One of the most obvious current examples of this quandary is the "minister" in FL who is holding a "Burn a Quran Day" bonfire. This certainly falls into the dual categories of religious freedom and freedom of speech that needs to be protected, but is it a good idea? On the surface, it certainly seems in bad taste at best, and completely offensive at worst. Beyond that, though, are the consequences. None other than General Petraeus has warned that a a backlash in Afghanistan could harm our troops there, and set back our mission:

The Quran burning is not the only action taken by Americans that can have the unintended consequence of creating problems for our soldiers. There's also the protests against the intended "mosque" (ie: community center) in NYC near the WTC site. There is the very real possibility that moving the center and/or the ire directed against it could be used for recruiting by al-Qaeda:

There is a certain part of the American DNA that engenders a certain "fuck the rest of the world - they can't tell us what to do" attitude. While we should never let fear drive our decisions; neither should we ignore our responsibility as citizens of this planet to help promote peace, understanding and goodwill.

If we need a good example of what CAN happen as a result of hate speech, we need look no further than Rwanda. It is largely accepted that hate speech by a radio host resulted in one of the worst cases of genocidal mass killings since the holocaust:

So if it seems reasonable that "protest" speech can feed into emotions, push people to become extremists or murders, why is it so hard to think that could happen when right-wing radio and TV does the same thing? When someone like Sarah Palin says "reload", it may be more subtle than "cut them to pieces", but it can (and will) certainly be interpreted by certain people in the same vein.

Think about all of the anti-Muslim violence being carried out here in the U.S., including the stabbing of a cabbie in NY. There's the guy who opened fire in a TN church because it was too "liberal". There was the guy in CA who murdered several people because of what he heard on the radio.

These incidents are ALWAYS chalked up to the person being a "loony", or simply a "bad apple". They are thought of as singular isolated incidents, unrelated to any movement. Yet - one could say the same of al-Qaeda. They are a tiny group of sociopaths using religion as a tool. One could say the same about the murderers in Rwanda. What percentage of the population actually willingly participated? It's probably pretty small (I cannot find statistics, although many were forced to kill their neighbors or be killed themselves). Initially, it was only a small percentage of Nazis in pre-war Germany that targeted the Jews.

So - one could say the same thing about the racists in the tea party, the gun nuts, the angry tenthers, the birthers, etc. There's likely only a small percentage among them too that might tip past the breaking point and commit violence.

As we've seen, though, it only takes a small percentage to wreak great havoc, to kill large numbers, to destabilize a country so much that it falls into chaos and destruction.

Such are the consequences of Freedom of Speech. This is why - like a gun - it must be used responsibly.