IIRC, the FREE SPEECH part of the Constitution refers to the right of the people and the media to SPEAK OUT against the government. It was never meant to regulate personal conversations.
Correct except over time, “free speech” was limited, sometimes severely, esp. during the Civil War and WW1 (I’ve been reading FBI and military Intelligence reports from WW1 regarding who was arrested and convicted under the Alien and Sedition Acts as well as the Espionage Act of 1916/17/18 amended.
The same thing happened during the Palmer Raids in the 1920’s esp. regarding illegal aliens or communist/Marxist agitators.
This again happened to a lesser degree in WW2.
The unfortunate thing was that the concept of “hate speech” in the form of advocating mob action was never successfully used against the KKK and its affiliates for the most part, at least not until the 1965 raids and arrests.
The Left understood this weakness in American “advocacy” laws esp. regarding the Communists, and exploited it to the nth degree, including the Chicago 7 trial and the earlier New Haven Black Panther Party murder conspiracy trial re Alex Rackley. I spend a little time with the Communist Party and supporting lawyers for the Chicago 7 trial (esp. Kunstler, Kinoy, etc), and they knew how to “advocate” violence by using certain code words, and as I said in my congressional testimony on the subject, they knew how to agitate a mob into motion, give it some guidance targets, and set it free. Then they stepped back into the shadows and let SDS/Weathermen, Black Panther Party and Progressive Labor Party do their dirty work.
I was there in DC watching all this happen. The recent Antifa street mobs operated the same way and so far prosectutions have been minimal to dismal because the police never understood how they were organized and trained in violence, plus the gutless political leaders of Portland, Seattle, DC, etc. often told the police to “stand down” or not to enforce the law about violent parades, etc.
While “hate speech” is not necessarily “actionable speech” (I used the wrong word, “speech” in stead of “hate crimes”), it can be a precursor to violent, unlawful action, by proxy and time proximity (which the courts often let slid, which leads to the dismissal of charges or not guilty verdicts).
In terms of “national and internal security, the “law” is an ass (or a whole herd of asses, just as many judges are). If you don’t know how the enemy operates, thinks, uses its ideology as a weapon of war (verbal, in print, for indoctrination etc)., then you will lose the war.
We saw this in Vietnam (where I was) as well as on the homefront. If you ever find a book by Edward Hunter on brainwashing, read it. Ed put the concepts of communist indoctrination and tactics out there for all to see (he was working for the CIA and Air Force during the Korean War).
If you want another good book, re George Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal Farm” to understand “newspeak” and “peacespeak”, etc.
Words are as powerful as swords, and sometimes more so. Words can incite a mob or people to violence and the speakers never had to fire a single bullet to have it happen and succeed.