Free speech as a notion comes from the constitution which espoused the idea that government should not make laws limiting the ability of the individual to criticize the state or it's actors or say something unpopular. This was a measure against the possibility of tyranny. If a tyrant wanted to take over the United States, one of the first places he or she would start is by restricting people's ability to speak freely to criticize the ruling regime and its policies.

Free speech was never meant to be unlimited license that 20th century Americans interpret it as. . . It almost seems like modern Americans have mis-interpreted the intention of the drafters when they enshrined the ideal of free speech.

For one, the constitution became effective in 1789, a time when blasphemy laws were widespread in the United States and people were still being convicted under them. Yet blasphemy laws still continued to be enforced well after the constitution became effective and nobody had any problem with this, and none of the drafters spoke out against this or expressed having any kind of problems with this.

The same is true for pornographic speech, as is true in the modern day for defamatory speech, libel, obscenity, false light, false statements of fact, highly offensive speech/fighting words 1.

The United States Constitution and its free speech provisions were intended to protect against tyranny and meant to prevent a tyrant from suppressing speech to gain power. In the case of blasphemy laws, this might apply when there is a state sponsored religion, but that is not possible in the United States because the establishment clause of the constitution prevents that.

Over a century and a half after the Constitution came into effect, in 1952 the United States supreme court struck down blasphemy laws as unconstitutional. However, it struck them down on vagueness of the term "sacrilege" and disliking requiring government permission to show things which might be sacrilegious. It is not really clear whether people can be punished for sacrilegious actions after the fact and I would argue that it is still constitutional to do so in the United States. Several states still have blasphemy laws on the books, albeit wisely unenforced. However states do still prosecute for egregiously offensive conduct as a certain teen discovered when he took pictures of a Jesus statute in a sexual pose and had to do community service 2.

At the same time blasphemy laws in other nations are very different from what existed or currently exist in the United States. That is because many countries, particularly in Asia, have a state sponsored religion, or a popular religion that is closely tied with the ruling party. Blasphemy laws are used in these countries to reinforce the power of the state and push down religious minorities. This isn't just Muslim countries, my own Country Sri Lanka has a ruling party that is based on Buddism and has Buddist monks sitting as MPs. Criticism of religion is severely restricted in this country, for example a British woman was deported for having a Buddha tattoo.

While these laws may look superficially similar to what existed in the United States, it is different because of the state sponsorship and high entanglement with Buddhism. I think so long as there is no such state sponsorship, and that the ruling party prevents only egregiously offensive conduct, and not criticism, and the punishment is relatively light like the kid who did some community service, I don't think it's such a big deal.

I think there is some justification for prohibiting hate speech laws, particularly when religious based hate is becoming more prominent in our society. With the election of Trump, many Muslims have been subjected to hate speech and abuse merely because of their religion. I wouldn't have a problem with sates enacting laws to protect these protect these people from abuse. I think freedom of speech as an ideal is good when it protects against tyranny, but we can take the ideal too far, become rigid and inflexible, unwilling to compromise or see logical exceptions, when we can allow vulnerable people to be subject to abuse and hate in the name of free speech, I don't think that's a positive thing.

The notion of free speech was created to serve America and it's people, to help establish justice and domestic tranquility, to secure a peace, prosperity and general welfare. America and it's people were not created to serve free speech. and when we treat is as an ideal and allow it to threaten or reduce justice, tranquility, peace and prosperity, when we allow individuals to be harmed by it, and when there is no benefit of protecting from tyranny, I think it becomes an empty ideal divorced from its purpose and ultimately harmful.

1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

2. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/10/03/teen...