I don't take kindly to racists, skinheads, nor David Duke. But I do appreciate the constitution of the United States. While waiting to be fingerprinted by Homeland Security yesterday, I had the opportunity to browse through the sample questions for my upcoming citizenship test. Question 74 asked about the Bill of Rights, and explained that as a new citizen, I would be guaranteed freedom of expression. Nice perk. At the same time, a TV in the waiting room announced details of some criminal charges being levied against Jeremiah Munsen in Louisiana.
Seems that on September 20th, 2007, Mr. Munsen woke up, brushed his tooth, had one too many beers, tied a pair of nooses to his truck and trolled a civil rights rally. For this offending behavior, he's been charged with a federal hate crime and civil rights conspiracy. It turns out "it is a violation of federal law to intimidate, oppress, injure, or threaten people because of their race," as quoted by the US attorney involved in the case.
Now, I'm no expert, but the last time I checked, Americans have always been allowed their freedom of expression, no matter how foolish or offensive. The U.S Supreme Court even told us so. Back in the '70s the Skokie affair taught us all that the First Amendment supports a "marketplace of ideas" however unpopular. In that case, Nazi supporters in Illinois wanted to wave their swastikas and goose step through a predominantly Jewish part of town, and the High Court supported their right to do it.
Flash forward to 2008. Did Mr. Munsen's behavior really intimidate, oppress, injure, or threaten the roughly 20,000 marchers he was up against? That standard is very tough to meet ..that is if the case even gets heard. One thing we do know is that stupid people say and do stupid things all the time. They have just as many rights to free expression as the most sage among us. After all, this is America, where all men are created equal .. even the ones missing a chromosome or two.