wrote:being a social libertarian means that people should be allowed to use the language they damn well please. That means hate speech regulation is out
In a zany shock twist ending that is only mildly less crazy looking than you describe your manifesto I'm going to say...
That despite saying earlier that supposedly "insulting" and "indecent" language is integral to the health of society and political discourse actual hate speech is not and should be stepped on, with the additional use of insulting and indecent dialogue while doing the stepping.
Why? Well its all a coherent whole when you think about it. I believe you should be able to throw around statements like "Everyone who supports policy X is either a murderer or a dupe" or what have you because words have real power over events and people.
Similarly though hate speech also has real power over events and people and should be watched carefully and suppressed as appropriate in case that power causes bad things to happen.
Take an example I discussed ages ago where I called the people that ran down the streets of Sydney chanting "Kill the wogs, Kill the lebs" a bunch of racist fvcks too ignorant and self important to even recognise that they were racist fvcks.
Calling them that is a weapon against that sort of behaviour and where it might take us.
But the actual chanting they did was also a weapon, which did have power over people and events and did lead to very real violence. But it was a weapon being wielded against innocent people in a purely evil cause.
On that basis saying that hate speech is OK because freedom of speech is OK is sorta like saying that anyone should be allowed to shoot anyone as long as its OK for someone to shoot someone.
Also, especially in light of confusion over what hate speech regulation is being discussed, note I mention an example with threats/incitements of violence and murder.
Most hate speech legislation I know of (well, just our local state laws we are lucky to have actually) is generally targeted specifically to that exact sort of speech. Threats and incitements to violence are in the right situations very much acts of violence both due to their own direct impact on their victims and also due to their frequent impact of succeeding to incite violence.