| forest-spirit said: Hm, a law that punishes stupidity. I'm fine with that. Seriously, just don't be a worthless idiot and you'll be fine. |
If stupidity and saying or DOING stupid things were a punishable crime, MOST human beings on the planet, including I'd wager many on these very forums, would be "criminals". The issue here is the precedent that it will help set. It is one thing to say that you can get fined or arrested for even so much as "talking back" to a police officer. That in and of itself isn't right, but it is something that can happen pretty much at the officer in question's discretion, even here in the US.
But if it is a "crime" to be sexist, racist, or "homophobic/transphobic/whatever", that opens up an entire other Pandora's Box that will absolutely devolve society: Personal Discretion. Meaning, that it is completely up to the "offended" or "oppressed" party, to decide whether or not they FEEL that they were harassed, or that a specific given remark or action was in fact "Sexist", and thus reportable and punishable to the law.
It is no different than the growing "Me Too/Time's Up" climate on social media, etc. It is 100% up to, for example, a given woman, to decide whether or not she FEELS as if she was harassed, assaulted, etc. She gets to decide how she interprets a man's actions, and if she reports it as such, how he will be "punished" for it, whether by an actual court of law, or simply having his reputation and life destroyed by the social media "court of public opinion". We've already seen this at work in multiple cases.
If there are actual LAWS on the books in countries, saying that it is illegal to say or do things that can be TAKEN as "sexist", that is a horrible precedent to establish. In the case of, say, a theft, or a murder, it is pretty clear cut, usually, whether there actually WAS a murder or a theft, or not. But THIS kind of shit, is totally up to individual interpretation. Punishing someone for, at its most base level, equates to "Being a Jerk", is some scary, dangerous dystopian type stuff.
Yes, ideally, no one should BE "stupid" or BE a "jerk". But those things aren't crimes, and shouldn't be. If you're not LITERALLY harming another person, then you have a right to say or act however you want. THIS case is a cop. But how many future cases are going to be just some girl or LGBTQ etc., deciding that they were "oppressed" by the way someone spoke, acted, worded an article, etc. etc. etc.? Yeah....that's a pretty big problem.
