> Why do we need to protect speech like "Group X likes to chop up babies and eat them, and has had several baby feasts so far this year"? We need to protect it

> Why do we need to protect speech like "Group X likes to chop up babies and eat them, and has had several baby feasts so far this year"? We need to protect it because humans are prone to becoming very protective or defensive about certain opinions, especially religious ones[1] or, lately, statements like "women are women"[2]. Since drawing the line at good opinions and "hate speech" is impossible, regulating them gives a rise to authoritarianism, as is the case across Europe and in much of the rest of the world. And we know that "banning hate speech" doesn't actually prevent the thoughts from persisting or being expressed privately. Germany still has neo-Nazis[3] and Holocaust deniers[4]; they have merely been driven underground, not reformed. How could they be reformed, since even expressing any of the thoughts they believe is illegal? And, as many have cited, often the small groups whom hate speech laws are meant to protect end up being the primary victims of it.[5] The social benefits of protecting horrible opinions are not a first-order good, but they are a second-order good once we realize that all opinions are subjective and thus impossible to judge in a systematic way. [1] https://www.npr.org/2020/09/01/908414559/charlie-hebdo-to-reprint-muhammad-cartoons-as-trial-linked-to-2015-attack-begins https://www.npr.org/2020/09/01/908414559/charlie-hebdo-to-re... [2] https://www.spiked-online.com/2018/11/28/meghan-murphy-and-the-silencing-of-women/ https://www.spiked-online.com/2018/11/28/meghan-murphy-and-t... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/24/eight-german-neo-nazis-jailed-over-planned-attacks https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/24/eight-german-n... [4] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ursula-haverbeck-holocaust-denier-germany-prison-sentence-six-months-nazi-far-right-racism-anti-semiticsm-a8006496.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ursula-haver... [5] https://www.jta.org/2020/09/03/opinion/former-aclu-president-says-censoring-hate-speech-can-backfire-just-like-it-did-in-nazi-germany https://www.jta.org/2020/09/03/opinion/former-aclu-president...