"Hatespeech laws are lame. Just punch the person in the mouth. That used to work fine."
That's a very clever response.
Homosexual acitivsts are promoting hatespeech laws this very minute, and they are on the books in Canada and other countries. So when hatespeech laws are passed here, what is your solution? Punch people in the face? That'll work.
Very few countries around the world have anything equivalent to the 1st Amendment. Hate Speech laws are constitutional in most countries. No serious legal scholar in this country, from Lawrence Tribe to Judge Bork, believes that such laws would pass constitutional muster in this country.
As for punching people in the face, I meant in terms of as opposed to hatespeech laws. That is, people used to just knock out someone who said something nasty about them or their race/ethnicity/religion.