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Tolerating intolerance
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Where should the line be drawn?
Where between "I wouldn't date a trans person because it is against my ideals" (personal preference in partners) and "I wouldn't socialise with a trans person because it is against my ideals" (personal preference in friends) would we draw our boundary? Would it be between these two forms of discomfort,, or would both these ideals be unacceptable, or would both be acceptable?
The issue isn't that such speech should be removed, there is broad agreement there, but where do we start trimming?
Next comes the question, in policing such discourse, what would the cost to privacy be? "Protect the children from the predators" (something everyone can agree with) is already a rallying cry leafing to the erosion of encryption and privacy, shall "stamp out the TERFs" become the next one? Who here remembers what "stopping terrorists" did to privacy?
Overall, I doubt there are many who don't feel open distaste at certain forms of speech, and would rather it not be tolerated. However, the difficulty in where to draw the line, and the fear of the cost such a line would have, is why there is likely more opposition.
This seems disingenuous. You don't have to date anyone you don't want, and you don't have to be friends with anyone you don't want. Why did you decide that was the place to draw the line? You do not have to date Bob from accounting for any reason. But you also don't deserve a job along side Bob if you go on talking about how he doesn't deserve a place in our society.
Ones rights doesn't supercede anothers. You can be a Nazi in your own home, but once you start sprewing hate publicly you are infrining the freedoms of others. This is already the law. But people want to change this law, and are using transphobia to do so, in much the same way they use fear of pedophiles to errode your rights.(trans people harm kids, we must ban trans people to protect kids, is the essential arguement.)In essence You claim that if we stop trans-hate speech, we are losing our rights, but in reality those who are sprewing trans-hate are actively trying to remove your rights and just using transphobia as a means to an end.
Hate speech is always about removing freedoms and rights. Either through violence or legislation. If you want to talk about lines drawn: should we stop Bob from screaming "gas the Jews" in his own home? What about outside a synagogue? What about on the Senate floor? Which of these seems more of an infringement of a Jewish person's rights?
I know it is some places, but in the US at least spewing hate is specifically allowed.
Your own answer offers a far better example of disingenuity, at least so I feel.
It is socially acceptable not to date someone due to a biological trait (of which being trans is a prime example) you are not attracted to (i.e. personal preference), however (I certainly believe) it isn't really socially acceptable to say "I don't want to spend time with X because of " (your action is motivated by a personal preference). One is a clear matter where personal preference trumps, but the other is one where polite society forms an interesting grey area - where between those two is your line?
I'd disagree with the statement that you can be a nazi in your own home (a good strawman there), since that just means you'll be training a nice younger crop of nazis (which is the real root of the issue), but that isn't the question at stake here. It's "why isn't everyone up in arms against transphobia", and the answer is that no-one can agree on where the line should be drawn, and most people are worries that it'll turn out like every other attempt to stamp out particular ideals. However, in the spirit of charity, my line is drawn well before the person begins to shout "gas the Jews" in their own home, because prior to that the harm was already done.
Hate speech definitely removes freedoms and rights, but it is the ears that listen that determine whose rights and freedoms are removed. Will the crowd turn upon the person spewing hate (giving in to a morally acceptable hatered, thence rises the paradox), or will it follow the voice guiding them towards hatered.