Once liberals define a word or give meaning to a political verbal weapon like hate speech, they own it. Abortion is about being “pro-choice” not pro-abortion. Homosexuality is not about sexual relations with people of the same sex; it’s about “gay pride,” whatever that means. And that’s the point. Ambiguity is the name of the game.

The same is true of hate speech. If you disagree with liberals on an issue, the disagreement is designated as hate speech. When liberals are losing an argument, they resort to rhetorical diarrhea and call it hate speech: racist, homophobe, propagator of hate, war on women.

These are tactics that were practiced on the third-grade playground when kids went at each other with verbal assaults over who was the best at this or that activity. The goal was to win the game of verbal insult one-upmanship in order to get peer bragging rights.

The first story is a form of hate speech. If you quote what someone said or wrote, you are engaged in an ad hominem attack, which today is a type of hate speech. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman accused Joe Scarborough of engaging in ad hominem attacks because Scarborough quoted what Krugman had written:

“That’s such a tired argument,” Krugman said to Scarborough, “to go and search for quotes in stuff I said once upon a time instead of dealing with the issue. It’s so disappointing if all you can do is ad hominem and say, oh, you said this, and you were — you know, pull out the ad hominem.”

An ad hominem (“to the man”) is an attack on the person instead of against his or her argument. Krugman was not being attacked personally; his views were being attacked by actually citing his own writings. Not only is Krugman a bad economist; he’s a bad logician.

“Scarborough pointed out the obvious, that is, that he was merely ‘quoting back what [Krugman] said.’” Liberals do this all the time. They’ll go back 50 years to find something a conservative said or did to smear him.

But don’t dare do it to a liberal or you’ll be labeled a hater.

If you want to see Krugman engage in a real ad hominem hate speech attack, go here where he describes Republicans as “fanatical” and “hostage takers.”

The next story is bizarre, but it’s typical of liberal double standards. Pamela Geller heads up the American Freedom Defense Initiative. Her organization “seeks to inform Americans about the dangers of Islamic extremism. Among other things, AFDI has placed advertising on buses in several metropolitan areas that contain educational messages. Many Muslims regard these posters as dirty pool, because they are so unfair as to quote the actual words of respected Islamic clerics.”

Here’s a direct quotation from an Islamic cleric: “Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah.”

These are hateful words, but they are what millions of radical Islamists actually believe. Not only are Islamists upset about the disclosure, but liberal San Francisco politicians are equally upset:

“Several San Francisco city leaders, including District Attorney George Gascon, have condemned the campaign. ‘San Francisco won’t tolerate Islamophobic bigotry,’ said Gascon. ‘The only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good people to look the other way and do nothing.’

“Board of Supervisors President David Chiu said the American Freedom Defense Initiative is made of ‘well-known hate extremists’ and said he is introducing a resolution at Tuesday’s board meeting to denounce the ads.”

Like Krugman, these Islamists and their fellow-liberal defenders don’t want people to know what they actually believe. How is it possible that informing people what some Islamic clerics and millions of their followers actually believe be considered hate speech?