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Hello there everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here with Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday,
March 2nd, 2022, Ash Wednesday. It's about three o'clock in the afternoon on the East Coast and I
come to our cameras to discuss with you a topic that most people probably don't
want to talk about, but it's very relevant today.
And that is hatred.
Is there the freedom to hate?
So last week, the government concluded a criminal trial.
The federal government concluded a criminal trial in Brunswick, Georgia, of the three
already convicted
murderers of Ahmaud Arbery. You probably know of this case. Three white supremacists chased and
filmed their chase, and then one of them shot and murdered Arbery in the back with a shotgun
two years ago in Brunswick, Georgia. They were arrested, prosecuted, tried, and convicted of murder,
and they received life sentences. Instead of being sent to the Georgia prison system,
the Georgia authorities sent them over to the federal government, which tried them not for
murder, because murder by a private person of another private person is not a federal crime. Instead, they tried them for thought crimes. They tried
them for animus towards Arbery's race. How can you try somebody for a thought crime? This is the
latest fashionable event in federal government litigation and legislation to condemn certain
thoughts as hateful. Look, many thoughts are hateful,
and hating somebody because of their race is a hateful thing to do. But do you really want the
federal government getting into a person's thoughts and deciding which is a good thought
and which is a bad thought? I mean, the government itself has fomented hate. The government hated
African Americans when they were slaves,
and the government hated them again during Jim Crow,
and the government hated Germans during World War I and World War II,
and the Japanese during World War II.
The federal government famously incarcerated 120,000 Japanese Americans
during World War II because of racial animus and hatred towards them.
The government preached hatred of the Soviet Union for 50 years, and then we were supposed to hate
Iran, and then we were supposed to hate COVID, and then we were supposed to hate, and in there
was Saddam Hussein, and now we're supposed to hate Vladimir Putin. Why do I say this? Because the government uses hatred for its own purposes.
And then the power that the federal government has to condemn hatred and try people a second time.
And at the second trial, there was no evidence about the killing.
The evidence at the second trial was their thoughts.
Look, the Supreme Court has ruled that
hate speech is protected speech. It's protected by the First Amendment. The First Amendment says
you can think as you wish and say what you think and publish what you say. Well, if you can speak
hateful words, surely the thoughts that animate hateful words must also be protected.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not defending these guys at all. They were properly convicted,
properly tried, and properly sentenced to life in prison. But they have natural and constitutional
rights like the rest of us. And unless the judiciary does not stop this business about punishing people for their thoughts,
who knows what thoughts the government will cook up to punish us for next.
The government loves hatred.
It's a dangerous business, and they should have nothing to do with it.
Judge Napolitano, judging freedom.