It is, but it is not the paramount human right. Other rights, like "life" trump "liberty".
One may argue that certain instances of "hate speech" encourage actions against "life" and that the "liberty" of exerting that speech is trumped by the need to protect that life.
If you extend "life" to mean "health" and "health" to include "mental health", than the right to be a raging racist seems pretty obviously below the right for other people to not be attacked or threatened. QED.
Exactly, then you can broaden the scope of "harm" to be whatever is politically convenient. For example, I could turn your same argument around and use it to suppress any discussion of abortion whatsoever because the life of the embryo has precedence over any speech that would jeopardize it
Not that I personally think that's the right thing, just there's a danger in making core principles this ambiguous
It is, but it is not the paramount human right. Other rights, like "life" trump "liberty".
One may argue that certain instances of "hate speech" encourage actions against "life" and that the "liberty" of exerting that speech is trumped by the need to protect that life.
If you extend "life" to mean "health" and "health" to include "mental health", than the right to be a raging racist seems pretty obviously below the right for other people to not be attacked or threatened. QED.