But being too stubborn on one fundamental human right can end up infringing on another. If a bunch of hate speech results in death, I'd rather there be something preventive in place to deal with the hate speech than wait for the death and deal out retribution.
This is essentially the view I take as well: Have whatever thoughts you want, but as soon as you start acting -
and talking in public is an action! - you need to consider the consequences and face sanctions if the consequences are bad, with "bad" being "a very wide consensus on what's bad".
I kinda like the way it's dealt with in the German Grundgesetz (A constitution by any other name...) :
"Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar."
(The dignity of the human being may not be infringed upon.)
It's one of only two parts that cannot be changed with a large enough majority: It stands even above the principle of democracy. It is the ultimate goal of the state, and the state will do whatever is necessary to fulfill its duty of protecting it.
On the videogame part: These games should be censored if they lead to undesirable consequences, e.g. people running amok. As there is no indication of any such connection, I'm against the bann - the whole thing is obviously a "Think of the children!"-type campaign.
This has nothing to do with "expression of thoughts" - these games (I assume, although there surely are other games where this does not apply) are purely commercial, therefore without value for the public discourse and therefore should not be protected by the first amandment, but by the principle of liberalism alone.
On the child pornography part: We have to ask ourselves if allowing child pornography to circulate once it's been produced will lead to undesirable consequences. At the first glance you wouldn't think so, but think about this: If circulation is allowed, getting newly produced (and we all can imagine the sort of process) material of the type into circulation will be easier, and producction will be more likely to take place. Therefore even only allowing circulation indirectly harms children. However, I think that non-active pedophiles have it hard enough already, so persecution should focus on the people in production and distribution, similar to the approach to drugs (Although that may be different in America; at least in Europe the idea is to get the junkies into rehab instead of prison.).
And yes, I just showed sympathy for
(some) pedophiles and advocated leniency against
(some of) them.