The first time I ran into the term “hate speech” was on a mainstream political site that assured the reader that it was not advocating censorship but linked prominently to a site whose title was “Hate speech is not free speech.” From its beginning, “hate speech” has been what Ayn Rand called an “anti-concept,” a term that doesn’t define a category with specific characteristics but serves to obscure the speaker’s intent. The term is and has always been a call for censorship.

Hatred is an emotion and can be good or bad. Hating tyranny and deadly diseases is good. Hating people for their sexual preferences or skin tones is bad. Either way, it isn’t really the emotion that matters; it’s what people do and say. What’s actually wrong is spreading falsehoods, uttering gratuitous insults, using appearance as a proxy for character, making threats, and suppressing people with discriminatory laws and violence.

“Hate speech” doesn’t mean speech expressing hatred. In practice, it means “speech I hate” or “speech I want banned.” Saying “I hate spinach” or even “Fuck J.K. Rowling” isn’t considered hate speech. Grossly insulting everyone who registers Republican isn’t hate speech. However, I’ve seen claims that drawing a picture of Muhammad and saying “there are no atheists in foxholes” are hate speech.

The claim that “hate speech is not free speech,” that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to hate speech, is a straight-out lie. This claim turns up repeatedly, often alongside quotations (or misquotations) of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ statement that “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” Holmes made that statement in Schenck v. United States to justify locking people up for criticizing the military draft, giving you a pretty good idea of what those people would like to suppress.

Some statements are the kind that most reasonable people consider repulsive, and it’s appropriate to condemn them. But let’s not use terminology that lends implicit support to would-be censors. Let’s use more meaningful terms like “lies,” “bigotry,” “slander,” “threats,” and “advocacy of violence.” And let’s not make false claims about what people are free to say in the United States.