| Torillian said: Less restrictions are put on speech because they don't have directly physically harmful effects like the actions you can't take. The idea that your right to swing your arms around stops at the other person's nose draws a very clear line of what you can and can't do, on the other hand saying that your right to speech stops at another person's feelings doesn't really draw as definitive a line. Policing what people can and can't say starts to get too close to policing what they can and can't think, which is not something I want decided by majority decision like it would be in a democracy. Because while I agree with the majority on a lot of things, like most I don't agree with the majority on every single thing. |
The problem is not people being or not being offended by what other people say. The problem is people saying things for the sake of offending, which is perfectly legal from what I understand.
You say that you wouldn't want the majority of the population to decide what you can and can't say, but at the same you pretty much assume that the majority will have a non racist/sexist/homophobic opinion to counter things like hate speech. If a great majority of the US population turned racist, wouldn't you want to have laws that tell them not to actively yell "Fuck niggers!" on the streets? Wouldn't the minority deserve the right to not have to listen to that stuff every day?
