Many people have a false belief that America, as the world’s largest and strongest liberal democracy, should provide an open and free “marketplace of ideas” where everyone’s opinion – no matter how toxic or offending they may be – has the right to be heard and taken into consideration. This has resulted in fascists, sexists, homophobes, and bigots of all kinds being given platforms to spread their harmful views to larger audiences. The hate speech spewing forth from these people not should be discouraged from being shared, but it should be actively hunted down and silenced.

Violence is defined as “behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something”; this definition doesn’t include hate speech, but it should. Hate speech is violence because its goal is to alienate and emotionally harm another person. People who use slurs need to be silenced because their intent is the same as using physical force.

People who have regressive standpoints towards socioeconomic and political issues also need to be silenced because their beliefs can, will, and do lead to oppression. For example, fascists and neo-confederates don’t deserve to have their ideas heard because their ideologies are based on the oppression of people of color and people who identify as non binary. They use hate speech as violence against these oppressed people and advocate for a society in which these people would be considered subhuman. People who consider themselves to be centrist or right-of-center often try to protect the right for bigots to spread their destructive viewpoints under the notion of “free speech”; however, hate speech is used as violence and should not be protected under freedom of speech.

The type of rhetoric that those on the right use is harmful to the advancement of humanity and should not be given a voice. The violent hate speech these people use are used with the intention of putting down marginalized demographics. For this reason, any attempt for those on the right to advocate for their harmful ideologies must be frustrated and stopped through any means – even violence.