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.)
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?
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?'
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.