>So what's to be done about the actual, real harm being done, while also protecting free speech? I don't want to assume that assaulting people is just the cost of free speech. That just seems so wrong to me.
Free speech has reasonable limits. Slander/Libel is necessary. Death threats, bomb threats, incitement to suicide or genocide. All completely reasonable exceptions nobody will argue against. All of these are IRL physical damages or at least threat of.
So do you go further to amoleriate or prevent psychological damage? This is really the biggest part of the controversy.
So what happens when you create hate speech laws? If you define what isn't allowed to be said. For example N-word isn't allowed tobe said. You actually are going to receive the opposite effect. In order to hurt, people now know what to say; if they don't want to break the law but still hurt you invent new words.
Civilized people who aren't looking to hurt don't care, they simply avoid those words without the law. So you end up with a cat and mouse game where you say you cant use the N word but I sure can invent the same destructive word which isn't the n word. The law is utterly pointless.
So you don't define the words. You just say 'anything that offends' or "anything which incites hatred"
But now even the civilized people are at a loss here. What the law ends up being is a direct method to silence your political opponents. E-word used to be the term for the inuit up in the north. It's now considered a slur. Why? Because it is similar to words that mean snow in other languages that dont matter? But what happened was the inuit used this 'slur' to silence their political opponents. It was orchestrated by the same people who wrote this: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/dear-qallunaat-white-pe...
To anyone you can see the problem with hate speech but better yet that isnt the whole story. We now have compelled speech. Hate speech avoids words, but compelled speech... that's next level. The government under force of law are telling you what you must say. This is to avoid offending people. It's remarkable how bad this has been.
The primary battlefield has been a bunch of overworked doctors have been getting fired from our public healthcare and going into private clinics for more money and less work. All because they were accused of not using the right pronoun. No wonder they don't really try to defend themselves. So what happened? You break your arm or whatever emergency. You'll be in the ER for >15 hours and very likely not be able to see a doctor.
The real argument for free speech is that policing speech is not practical.
Free speech has reasonable limits. Slander/Libel is necessary. Death threats, bomb threats, incitement to suicide or genocide. All completely reasonable exceptions nobody will argue against. All of these are IRL physical damages or at least threat of.
So do you go further to amoleriate or prevent psychological damage? This is really the biggest part of the controversy.
So what happens when you create hate speech laws? If you define what isn't allowed to be said. For example N-word isn't allowed tobe said. You actually are going to receive the opposite effect. In order to hurt, people now know what to say; if they don't want to break the law but still hurt you invent new words.
Civilized people who aren't looking to hurt don't care, they simply avoid those words without the law. So you end up with a cat and mouse game where you say you cant use the N word but I sure can invent the same destructive word which isn't the n word. The law is utterly pointless.
So you don't define the words. You just say 'anything that offends' or "anything which incites hatred"
But now even the civilized people are at a loss here. What the law ends up being is a direct method to silence your political opponents. E-word used to be the term for the inuit up in the north. It's now considered a slur. Why? Because it is similar to words that mean snow in other languages that dont matter? But what happened was the inuit used this 'slur' to silence their political opponents. It was orchestrated by the same people who wrote this: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/dear-qallunaat-white-pe...
To anyone you can see the problem with hate speech but better yet that isnt the whole story. We now have compelled speech. Hate speech avoids words, but compelled speech... that's next level. The government under force of law are telling you what you must say. This is to avoid offending people. It's remarkable how bad this has been.
The primary battlefield has been a bunch of overworked doctors have been getting fired from our public healthcare and going into private clinics for more money and less work. All because they were accused of not using the right pronoun. No wonder they don't really try to defend themselves. So what happened? You break your arm or whatever emergency. You'll be in the ER for >15 hours and very likely not be able to see a doctor.
The real argument for free speech is that policing speech is not practical.