Beware the Hate Crimes Bill.

Paul Craig Roberts/Counterpunch:

""""Since the passage of the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act in 2004, the US Department of State is required to monitor anti-semitism world wide. The State Department is not required to monitor anti-Americanism or sentiments against Christians, Muslims or Arabs. Thus, the act created a specially protected class worthy of careful monitoring by the US Department of State of negative sentiments expressed against Jews.

In order to monitor anti-semitism, the term must be defined. The definition is subjective and will be widely, rather than narrowly, interpreted. The State Department has come up with its attempt. The State Department’s approach could include any truthful statements about Israel and its behavior toward the Palestinians that the Israeli government or AIPAC or the Anti-Defamation League would deny or contest.

Anti-semitic speech can be interpreted as inciting hatred. Inciting hatred can be interpreted to be a violent act. “Excessive” criticism of Israel is a subjective, undefinable concept that can be used to determine anti-semitic speech. It is easy to conflate “excessive” with “strong.” Thus, demands that Israel be held accountable for war crimes committed in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, or elsewhere become acts of the hate crime of anti-semitism."""""

The type of PC-language-paranoia embodied by the GASRA has been on the increase. Reasonable humans should object to racial epithets of all types--including subtle regional ones--ah to be expected--he's from Texas..etc--yet words, even ugly insulting and obscene words, do not bring about bodily harm, and are not literally weapons. In some circumstances, such as the shouting fire in a theatre cliche, trash talkers in bars, or outright threats, speech might be dangerous, may even incite hatred, though establishing the specifics of that hatred-inciting process seems about as subjective as any decision made by the geniuses of the Black Robe posse.

Mere epithets, however, do not equate to a pistol pointed to the head, much less the pistol fired. Making a joke about a Kissinger or Elliot Abrams or DiDi Feinstein does not imply that one has put Mein Kampf to memory. Zappa singing Jewish Princess-- with titanic titz and sand-blasted zits--did not mean to deny the reality of Dachau, I don't think. The big liberal sites--DailyKOS, Salon, DU, Fray--also engage in the PC-speech enforcement, and those who step out of line are troll-rated, banned, given the roadkill recipe.