Ferris Bueller:

>  There is something to be said for discouraging hate speech & symbols, but where do u draw those lines?

I think that while extremist racists have their freedoms of scpeech protected by the Constitution, there are limits imposed on what they can do.

Here in Canada we had a famous case in 1984.  James Keegstra was the town mayor and a school teacher in Eckville, Alberta.  He taught his social studies students that the holocaust was a fraud and that Jews were greedy, power-hungry, destructive, treacherous, etc.  Keegstra was saying that Jews inveted the Holocaust to gain sympathy.

He was charged with hate crimes for willfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group.  He tried to have the charge quashed because he said that the charge infringed upon his right to freedom of speech.  The Supreme Court denied his claim and he was fined $5000 (a joke) and given a 1 year suspended sentence which he served doing community work.

The case was a landmark case and later other Aryan Nations and KKK members in Canada found themselves in trouble with the law.

Where do we draw the line?  I think the line is clear.  Anything that promotes hatred or racism is against the spirit of the Constitution.  Freedom of speech does not mean freedom to hate.