^{By Kate Tiskus}

The first amendment is one of the most argued-over bits of writing in history, and perhaps the most controversial part of it is that little clause about freedom of speech. Teenagers know and use it as an attack on dress codes (we have the freedom to express ourselves!), adults debate it in issues ranging from restricted movies to a proposed flag burning amendment. No matter what has been said or done, the first amendment's protection of our right to speak freely has always been there. That may soon be gone. What could this threat to our jealously defended freedom of speech be? The eradication of hateful speech.

Legislating out hate speech seems to be a noble goal at first glance. Advocates of the measures point out that it wouldn't be too comfortable to be an African American, Hispanic or Jew while a member of the World Church of the Creator hollered out that you were non-human and there was bound to be violence if there was forced integration. They do have a point, but an equal point can be made in favor of ordinary citizens who travel through a diverse world every day. Once it is acceptable to silence one kind of speech, no matter how hateful, where do we stop? Do we only forbid expression that has racial or gender prejudice? Or do we stamp out speech that has any sort of offensive connotation at all? How about speech that only sounds offensive, when the intent is not?

This last may sound farfetched, but last year a man lost his job for using the word "niggardly", a perfectly benign synonym for cheap or skimpy. As citizens of the United States, do we really want the government to take the first step down a road that can lead to consequences as bad or worse as this? After all, these are the people who came up with "politically correct" terms which they change every week. Does anyone really want their expressible thoughts to be limited by so fluid a standard?

I'm not advocating hate speech at all; far from it. However, legislation is not the way to go. We have a far greater tool in our hands than law, and that tool is the power to walk away. No one, including the government, can or should mandate what people can or cannot think or say. No one, hate groups included, can force you to listen to them. Which is more likely to be effective: telling a fervent white supremacist that he can't express his bigoted opinions, or taking away the audience he's trying to express them to? The easy answer to the hate speech question is to let it fall on deaf ears. I can guarantee you that it will be more effective than legislating thought.

^{By Jordan Dawson}

In life it's not always whether something is legal. It's about morals, ethics, and what's acceptable. A person can stand on the street smoking a cigarette and blow the smoke into everyone's' face that walks by. There is no law against it, but is it right? You may say that people can walk further away, but should they have to? Why should they be the ones that have to move when the man with the cigarette is causing the disturbance?

It's not illegal to preach sermons of hatred towards other races and ethnic groups. But, is it right to make people feel like trash because they're not like you? It's as bad as a snobby clique in high school putting others down to make them feel better than everyone. These groups are doing nothing more than just that, and it is not right.

Yes, the first amendment gives people the right to free speech, but do you think hatespeech is the kind of speech George Washington and the other founding fathers had in mind? This amendment, like all of the others, was set up to protect the people's rights. Are we protecting the rights of all Americans if we allow these sort of slanderous groups to continue filling people's heads with these horrible messages of hate?

Yes, the first Amendment gives us the freedom of religion, but there is a big difference between the blissful innocence of Sunday school worship, and preaching to a six year old that he can't play with the neighbor kid because he's not white. If we as Americans are going to allow that,we might as well go ahead and allow full segregation, right down to white and colored drinking fountains. Why don't we do just that? Because it's unnacceptable and it's wrong. It would teach children to play god, to decide what is good and what is bad. That's not acceptable.

Isn't segregation supposed to be over? Didn't we have a freedom movement? I thought we decided that all men were created equal, and we were going to judge each other not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character.

We as Americans need to stand up take responsibility for our civilization and clean it up. We are not uneducated people. We are responsible for the future of this country. We need to take a long, hard look at the direction the future of this country is headed in and decide if these groups will help us get to where we want to be. If we don't like this direction were going we need to stop the bus. These groups are not productive, they are extremely destructive. They should not be tolerated in anyones lives at all.

The question remains; exactly what should we do to stop these hate groups? A peaceful rally, perhaps letter campaigns, new laws, anything as long as it's productive and not destructive.

Let's stop the hatred, learn to accept each other, and start living as one nation. We were all created the same, created equal, so let's all just get along.