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When someone would scream into your face "Animals like you should be shot!", wouldn't it hurt you?
If someone spread lies about you or your family or your business if you had one, wouldn't it do damage?
If someone spread the word that people of color or other minorities would do this or that (wasn't it "Haitians eating dogs" or something recently?) and it led to people attacking this minority, wouldn't it be dangerous?
Remember January 6th, where Trump whipped up the stupid to storm the Capitol? He did not use a cattle prod or stick, he only used words, and see what has happened.
And look closely at what the GOP is doing. They are spreading lies, and repeat them, until they fester and replace the truth in the hearts of the listeners.
And now tell me again that words can do no harm.
I mean I kind of see what you're saying but it doesn't really pass the smell test.
Yelling in someone's face is assault. Spreading harmful lies about specific individuals or businesses is lible. Speech that incites violence is not protected by the first amendment. And the rest: January 6th and the misinformation machine aren't something that can really be legislated. Lies unfortunately are protected speech unless they incite imminent violence. As much as I would like to hang the raid on the capital on Trump I watched his speech (and Bannon's) and he only ever implies violence. The crowd whipped themselves up into the violence frenzy we saw that day.
Words absolutely can cause harm in the right conditions, but the ones that do the most damage would definitely not be hate speech. Fox News ran a segment last year where one of the hosts said homeless people should be killed and within a few days there were three separate incidents where armed men walked into homeless encampments and opened fire. I think the death toll was 9 people across the three events. But fox news spreading lies about ivermectin and masking during covid killed potentially tens of thousands. In the case of the homeless what the host did was already illegal, but the lies can't be legislated.
The more I think about it the less I'm concerned about hate speech. The things that need to be illegal, inciting violence, already are, and the things that aren't are murky at best and a slippery slope at worst. Especially when you consider who would be determining what is or isn't hate speech. Right now the powers that be would label your comment as hate speech because it's critical of the gop.
If you think it is ok to spread hate, you'll have to live with the consequences. I don't think the world needs more hate.
And, btw, hate is what brought the GOP to power. Think about it.
I will restate what I mentioned in a previous comment:
Offense (or being offended) is simply not a valid criterion for determining what constitutes hate or violent speech.
Because at least one thing will always offend at least one person, if we attempt to regulate offenses, we will have to choose between regulating only some of them — thus becoming arbitrary — or regulating all offenses, which would kill not only speech, but also expression and, furthermore, existence itself, as the mere existence of certain people might be offensive to others.
When LGBTQ+ people fought for their rights, when Black people did the same, or when abolitionists fought against slavery, all of these individuals were viewed as "hate groups" (in the terms of their respective eras), "violent groups," or "dangerous groups" because they were challenging the status quo and the power structures that oppressed them.
I understand that you have been shaped by a violent and hateful society. You don't really seem to notice all the hate that is currently spread by your politicians and your media anymore. Yes, personal offense cannot be the line as it is arbitrary, but you've raised the bar so high in the US, it is frightening. Have you really listened to your politicians or your media talking recently?
Let's see, I'm not from the United States so I don't know their situation well (although I must say that I HATE Trump anyway), but I'm from Venezuela, which is really much, MUCH worse; Nicolás Maduro was literally a fucking dictator who killed anyone who dared to mock him (if you've never heard of Helicoide, I recommend looking it up), and now that they took Maduro they left us with Delcys Rodríguez, who is another fucking harpy. I really cannot understand how someone who has not experienced a true dictatorship and who has not faced offense and repression for ideological reasons can say so calmly that freedom of expression should be limited; What blissful ignorance of yours to live in a bubble like that, you make me sick (with every intention to offend :3). It really seems absurd to me how you think that "emotional harm" is a valid criterion or is in any way different from offense; No, they can apply in different areas, but epistemically and ontologically they are the same: pure subjective whim, and an ideology that the world revolves around you and your problems.
I'll put it to you this other way:
Strict logic is the only reasonable law, and your ideology falls under the above reductio ad absurdum.