This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, December 26, 2013. I'm Caleb Brown.

You don't have the right not to be offended, but laws banning or regulating so-called hate

speech don't tend to protect persecuted minorities.

That according to Jonathan Rauch, author of the newly re-released kindly inquisitors,

the new attacks on free thought.

Rauch says hate speech laws are the cart and greater tolerance by society is the horse.

He spoke at the Cato Institute in October.

The critique of liberal science I believe is now more careful and more narrow and more plausible

than it used to be. It used to be something like if a member of a vulnerable minority group,

gays for example is offended, you've done something wrong and you should be punished

for it, or you should be silenced.

Today it's something more like a hostile environment doctrine.

You can read about it in a fine book by Jeremy Waldron

called The Harm in Hate Speech.

I disagree with it, but I can recommend it.

And it says something like this.

Look, if someone just offends Jonathan Rausch subjectively, tough for Jonathan Rausch, that's free

speech, we're for that.

But what about a case when you've got so much hate speech going on that you created a hostile

environment for minorities, especially traditionally vulnerable minorities,

gays, blacks and so forth,

that they cannot effectively function

...