The Feb. 8 opinion column by Teddy O'Reilly, 'No criticism, no freedom,' was a case for hate speech. O'Reilly argues that free speech can only truly exist if we have the right to offend other people.
Throughout history, people who have wanted to combine the idea of free speech and hate speech into 'freedom of speech and expression' have used it as a tool to dehumanize minorities. To list a few examples, Adolf Hitler used it on Jews, the American government used it on American Indians and the KKK used it on African Americans. A few of the consequences were Holocaust, the death of hundreds of languages and widespread lynching. O'Reilly's column has targeted the Muslim minority at UW-Madison and elsewhere in America.
O'Reilly dehumanizes Muslims by summing up their reaction to the cartoons as solely violent and thus implying that Muslims are inherently violent. To put things into perspective, two embassies have been burnt as a result of the riots. In contrast, the riots that happened in Los Angeles in 1992 caused building damage of $1 billion. It doesn't take much more common sense to figure out that if 1.2 billion people were inherently violent, they would cause more damage than burning two buildings. It is disappointing that O'Reilly fails to mention the many peaceful methods that the vast majority of Muslims have chosen to protest this hate speech.
