Shut Up And Play Nice Analysis

In Turley’s essay Shut Up and Play Nice: How the Western World Is Limiting Free Speech (Turley 2012) he discusses how free speech is not tolerated in many other countries and how it is dying in the Western world. There is so much violence from anti-religious groups, racism and many others that do not share the same views and scream first amendment rights as a defense.
As American Citizens our freedom of speech is protected by the Constitution’s first Amendment which “guarantees freedoms concerning religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition…” (Cornell Law 2017), but that doesn’t or shouldn’t give anyone the right to cause harm or violence against another person or group of people if we do not agree or share the same beliefs. The laws were created to protect us, but many people interpret the laws differently and therefore, feel entitled to speak freely even if it causes
Such penalties were enforced in 2008 when a Canadian minister was forced to pay fines for verbally expressing anti-gay sentiments. Also, a Canadian comedian named Guy Earle was found guilty by the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal for cursing and at a lesbian couple in a bar and had to pay a fine of $23,000 to the couple.
In other countries it seems as though they have less tolerance for this type of targeted hatred as well as for people who use their “free speech” rights as a self-defense to cause harm or humiliation to others. In Canada, they outlaw any representation of hatred against any group’s beliefs and in Britain they prohibit any derogatory or abusive language against another person or group that would stir up hatred. I believe that the U.S. government should be less tolerable of these types of offenses and place stricter laws limiting freedom of speech if it causes anyone else