Ban the ban?

The perception that something needs to be done is the mother of many a bad measure. It's a quote I've seen attributed to Daniel Webster. I can't confirm it, but I believe it.

The mayor of Brazonia Texas, for instance, had heard enough of the "N word" around town and having used it himself as many a southern gentleman would have to admit of, he knew it was wrong to use a hate laden epithet against an entire and diverse class of people. Was it an act of naivete that prompted Mayor Ken Corley, apparently a good and decent man, to decide that Brazonia shouldn't tolerate such meanness of speech and should ban the N?

Of course Brazonia thought otherwise, and I think I do too. I don't like "slippery slope" arguments, but legal precedent is of import and such a thing would make other nasty words easier to ban and other words easier to label as nasty. As one local gentleman of apparent African descent pointed out on CNN this morning: "we use it more than they do." If that is true, then the local authorities would be all over the news the first time they fined an African American for using it. Brazonia would be faced not only with having to selectively enforce the law thus not only creating two classes of citizen with different rights, but creating the need to establish a legal test to determine race - a bad measure regardless of its mother. Would such a law require books from Mark Twain to Malcom X to be removed from the library? Not a good idea if you ask me and not a good idea if you ask a constitutional lawyer.

It's true that other countries, like Germany have laws against hate speech or antilocution and one can be fined there for that favorite American one fingered wave, but somehow legal bans on merely ugly speech do not seem to me to be what we are about, or pretend to be about.