Nadine Strossen is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. She hates Nazis more than she loves free speech. Over coffee, she told me her mission is to get rid of the hate, not the speech. She has spent decades looking at hate speech through history, and found no evidence that banning it reduces hate. As the former head of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an author and a law professor, she would know.

New Zealand's draft hate speech legislation has been put in the freezer, for now. Extending the Human Rights Act to cover hate speech against religion and politics was a well-intentioned response to the Christchurch shooting. But it is bad law. The first red flag was the Government's inability to define hate speech. ”You know it when you see it,” the former prime minister said.

You don’t know it when you see it. One person’s hate speech is another’s just cause. Words cannot define precisely enough what is a subjective concept. “Hate is an emotion after all,” says Strossen. “No two thinking people can possibly agree on what is hateful and what is not.”

Josie's Stuff column is here.