You Don't Say

Dahlia Lithwick's latest piece in Slate is about how America is coming close to criminalizing bad thoughts. I thought great, it's about time she wrote something on hate speech.

I was disappointed when it turned out to be about the application of conspiracy laws against potential terrorists. The line between merely talking or thinking about something, as opposed to committing a criminal act, has always been tricky to determine, but it's a pretty old question. Criminalizing "hate speech," on the other hand, crosses the line completely, and punishes people directly for holding unpopular views.