Quote:
Originally Posted by PsychoLoco
You may be part of the group, but your message is fail, not fair.
The U.S. believes that actions and statements, while offensive, should be protected by freedom of expression. Curtailing expression is not an appropriate or effective means of combating racism and related intolerance. Rather, it is the U.S. government's firm conviction, as reflected in the U.S. Constitution and laws of the United States, that individual freedoms of speech, expression and association should be robustly protected, even when the ideas represented by such expression are full of hatred. In a free society, hateful ideas will fail on account of their own intrinsic lack of merit. The best antidote to intolerance is not criminalizing offensive speech but rather a combination of robust legal protections against discrimination and hate crimes, proactive government outreach to minority religious groups, and the vigorous defense of both freedom of religion and freedom of expression.
|
Saying people with MS are assholes is freedom of speech and opinion. It may hurt feelings, but is also said with humor. I don't like the word retard, yet that gets thrown around all the time. There is gray area involved.
Even if you go to a funeral with a sign saying that "God killed your son on purpose", you're allowed to be there...but common decency draws the line at 1000 feet away from the actual funeral.
When you're spouting racist remarks and telling one particular type of person that they are less of a person and instingating violence, the line is drawn. Harm is happening to another human.
Freedom of speech needs to be an organic thing, and I think the basis of where the line is drawn is at actual harm to others. Where we define what actual harm is (physical vs mental) is yet another organic thing. We're people, not robots, we need to be able to think intelligently about a situation and make decisions on it based in common sense.