Canadian Politics Today

United States

The fighting words doctrine, in United States constitutional law, is a limitation to freedom of speech as protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In 1942, the U.S. Supreme Court established the doctrine by a 9–0 decision in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. It held that "insulting or 'fighting words', those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech the prevention and punishment of [which] … have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words

There are two key points here.

"...by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace"

There's a way to present controversial ideas for discussion.  Hucking a banana at a black man isn't it.  Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

"well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech the prevention and punishment of [which] … have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem"

Kid Nazi wasn't going to be reciting any Rimbaud here. Nothing of value is being suppressed when somebody gets punched in the face for calling someone of African ancestry a monkey.

 -k