Imagine a person speaking with one hand holding their tongue, it looks quite uncomfortable. Now, imagine a person who has to do this every time they talk to their friends, family or boyfriend/girlfriend. Holding their tongues would limit what they could say and when they could say it. Believe it or not, this is a topic that has been ricocheted from the Supreme Court into everyday life. People have different opinions about how it should be regulated or whether it should be regulated at all. It's hate speech. What exactly is hate speech? Hate speech happens when a person uses words intentionally to hurt someone else; may use hateful words based on race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation (dictionary.com). Yet the origins of hate speech laws have been largely forgotten. The divergence between the United States and European countries is of relatively recent origin. Indeed, the United States and the vast majority of European (and Western) states were originally against the internationalization of hate speech laws. European states and the United States share the view that human rights should protect rather than limit freedom of expression. (Hoover Institution: Stanford University). Although many believe that hate speech is designed to humiliate people, hate speech should not be regulated or restricted because it is virtually impossible to control tensions between people by preventing them from expressing their true opinions, without violate the First Amendment. Hate speech is a very important topic, especially in the United States. Many are unaware of the fine line that separates criticism from hate speech. One way in which criticism and hate speech differ is the intent of the hate speech, whether it was used purposely to "arouse hatred and hostility in... middle of paper... to determine who had right and who was right." wrong would create the problem because they would have to justify why they governed the way they did. To justify why the Court ruled this way would be to overstep the bounds of the freedoms afforded to citizens of the United States. Limiting what can be said would contradict the First Amendment, which states that every citizen is guaranteed free speech. The First Amendment will be useless if the government dictates what can be said. For example, many people were divided over which side to support when a Canadian magazine published an article about the growing Muslim population. During the trials, half of the people felt that it was hate speech and the other half felt that it was about freedom of the press (Liptak). This shows that there is no common ground on the regulation of hate speech and the overlapping rights granted to citizens