What is, and isn't legal, often times, depends on the perspective of the locals. Opinion piece: https://www.azcentral.com/story/opi...-word-own-risk-you-could-arrested/3754631001/
it can, but not necessarily will. One can make the argument that a kid can be galvanized and become stronger through adversity so now what? The "slippery slope" of criminalizing speech we disagree with only leads to people internalizing their bias and avoiding the people that would push back against said speech. And it is a slippery slope. Today it's criminalizing n**ers, then it's criminalizing "trannies and f**ts", then it's criminalizing preferred pronouns as in Canada, then criminalizing a dog owner for teaching it how to salute like a nazi as a gag as in Britain, then Trump 2.0 takes power and he's criminalizing speaking against Christianity, or Israel (as in Texas), or against Capitalism, or cops (as in Tennessee), and unionizing, and before you know it all the lefties are in the gulag by their own making because they're the ones w/o the guns. Plenty of nations have been down this road before, the criminalization of speech a sector of the populous disagrees with is not unique to American history. And no, employers will not come down on employees who believe in the 1st amendment even if someone misconstrues their defense of the 1st amendment as somehow excusing what was said by the announcer. Most employees will not cower to such half-assed passive aggressive threats either.
Disclaimer Readers, when I debate with quality individuals like @Here4money , @Tony Stark , and @El OchoCinco , it is academic, and not adversarial. I've learned a lot from these guys over the years, and respect them; even if we sometimes agree to disagree. (Note: any agreements to disagree should only come after all reasonable arguments have been considered.) True. When we say one may be harmed, then we are essentially stating that harm is possible. In some cases, a court will decide. The point is: saying one may be harm, refutes any potential argument that no harm will come. Those that become stronger, would have no cause of action, and would not be relevant in a debate about 'what about when racial slurs cause harm?' Some people already do this. How is the racist, that is afraid to act on their racism, in some situations, worse than the racist that feels free to willy-nilly act on it? Whoa! Slow down Tonto. Why does one necessarily have to lead to the other. We went from no speed limits, progressively down to 55 mph. We had to iteratively go to 55 in steps because that's the logical progression. We weren't going lower simply and only because we previously went lower. We went lower for logical reasons, whether they were correct or not. By your 'slippery slope' logic, we'd be at a zero mph speed limit by now. I'd be interested in any real evidence that (as you suggest) one thing leads to another, so to speak. But the reality is, in the case of my example, speed limits reversed. Again, we have criminalized hate speech, if you use it while committing a crime. We've also made it a tort, which is essentially a civil 'crime.' If it's wrong while committing a crime, why is it ok while not committing a crime? It's either wrong or not. Doing it, while doing something else, doesn't change the speech. Attempting to kill someone, is criminal; even though you didn't kill someone. Now, there's another one of your slippery slopes. We have to determine what the shooter's intent was. (sarcasm). This will lead to the thought police trying to predict who intends to do harm, before they actually do harm. Well, we have that too. It's called the crime of conspiracy to commit. I'd be interested in knowing which democratic, developed, countries went down this slippery slope as you describe it.
EDIT: I've also learned a lot from @gwb-trading 's posts. But I'm not quite ready to call him a quality individual yet.
https://www.cbc.ca/cbcdocspov/features/canadas-gender-identity-rights-bill-c-16-explained If someone refused to use a preferred pronoun — and it was determined to constitute discrimination or harassment — could that potentially result in jail time? It is possible, Brown says, through a process that would start with a complaint and progress to a proceeding before a human rights tribunal. If the tribunal rules that harassment or discrimination took place, there would typically be an order for monetary and non-monetary remedies. A non-monetary remedy may include sensitivity training, issuing an apology, or even a publication ban, he says. If the person refused to comply with the tribunal's order, this would result in a contempt proceeding being sent to the Divisional or Federal Court, Brown says. The court could then potentially send a person to jail “until they purge the contempt,” he says. “It could happen,” Brown says. “Is it likely to happen? I don’t think so. But, my opinion on whether or not that's likely has a lot to do with the particular case that you're looking at.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan In April 2016, Meechan posted a video on YouTube of his girlfriend's pet pug Buddha titled "M8 Yer Dugs A Nazi".[17] At the start of the video, he says: "My girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute and adorable her wee dog is so I thought I would turn him into the least cute thing I could think of, which is a Nazi."[9] In the video, the dog, prompted by the command "Sieg Heil", raises his right paw in the manner of a Nazi salute, watches a speech by Adolf Hitler, and responds immediately when Meechan asks if he wants to "gas the Jews".[8][9] It ends with images of Hitler and Buddha depicted with a toothbrush moustache similar to Hitler's.[18][better source needed] Meechan was arrested on suspicion of breaching the Communications Act 2003.[19] On 19 March 2018, Meechan was convicted of breaching the act by Sheriff Derek O'Carroll at Airdrie Sheriff Court.[20] The court ruled that Meechan's claim that the video was a joke intended for his girlfriend "lacked credibility" as Meechan's girlfriend did not subscribe to the YouTube channel to which the video was posted.[10][20] On 23 April 2018, Meechan was sentenced to a fine of £800, with no prison sentence.[13]
Hate speech is not protected in the United States. The United States does not have hate speech laws, since the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that laws criminalizing hate speech violate the guarantee to freedom of speech contained in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In contrast, Hate speech, obscenity, and defamation are common categories of restricted speech in Canada. wrbtrader
did you mean to say hate speech is protected speech?, the monicker "hate speech" is mostly symbolic if decoupled from another crime since the law does not differentiate it from regular speech. I covered that in a previous post:
Yes...meant to say hate speech is protected in the United States. Yet, it doesn't protect someone from financial loss as a consequence due to the hate speech (e.g. being fired from a job for violation of company rules / ethics). There's been cases in which someone was fired for their hate speech at a company or on social media...the person then goes to court and files discrimination lawsuit against the company because they were fired about their hate speech. Usually they lose the court case because the firm had to right to fire the employee...this is the part I don't understand because we often hear in the media about a person posting on social media being fired from employment for their hate speech opinions. Yet, hate speech is protected in the United States. Law very different in Canada...you'll lose your job and can be convicted for the hate speech although usually just a one year prison sentence... Enough time for someone to make the hate speaker their bitch in prison. wrbtrader
Have you guys started sliding down a slippery slope whereby you feel that your free speech has been shackled and restricted simply because you banned hate speech?