The curtailment of speech has pretty well been with us forever. A century ago vulgarity was punished. Holocaust denial was punished since the war ended. Hate speech and “a bad word is as harmful as a punch in the nose” bring us to today. Until we are able to see that offensive speech is inside the mind of the interpreter it will be a challenge to keep the offended from pressing charges.
The curtailment of speech has pretty well been with us forever. A century ago vulgarity was punished. Holocaust denial was punished since the war ended. Hate speech and “a bad word is as harmful as a punch in the nose” bring us to today. Until we are able to see that offensive speech is inside the mind of the interpreter it will be a challenge to keep the offended from pressing charges.
I fully agree. Real physical harm should be the standard we judge by though I have no answer as to how we can easily move today's fragile culture to become immune to insults and walk away indifferently from offending speech.
The curtailment of speech has pretty well been with us forever. A century ago vulgarity was punished. Holocaust denial was punished since the war ended. Hate speech and “a bad word is as harmful as a punch in the nose” bring us to today. Until we are able to see that offensive speech is inside the mind of the interpreter it will be a challenge to keep the offended from pressing charges.
The very notion of "hate" crimes is offensive to lawful due process. We punish actions, not thought.
I fully agree. Real physical harm should be the standard we judge by though I have no answer as to how we can easily move today's fragile culture to become immune to insults and walk away indifferently from offending speech.