> A single instance of hate speech can hurt many people
Would you Naomo Wu an "agitator, racist and asshole"?
Would you call Matt Christiansen an "agitator, racist and asshole"?
Or is this how you arrived at your "time and time again" claim, because you simply ignore what doesn't fit that? Oh yeah, what part about "most" don't I understand, right? Well, none, I understand that you don't understand that "most" isn't good enough.
So people as a vague group "mostly" deserve something, or you consider it possible that someone somewhere used hate speech, but how Naomi Wu or others would fit into that, who cares? You're not Naomi, so you don't seem to. That's just collateral damage. But as a result of what, a careful approach to avoid collateral damage? Nope, far from it. Anything but. If anything, it's the attempt to lift hatred to the status of an argument in social and political discourse, while claiming to be against "hate speech". The actions speak louder than the phrases used to excuse them.
Even when black people were lynched, the talk of those doing the lynching was always about self-defense, and the harm the lynched people caused, etc. etc. etc. You cannot find a group helpless enough, treated brutally enough, for their tormentors to not call them the aggressors. Not just are there endless examples, I'm not even sure there's any cases where that isn't the case. I mean, racists also say they're not hating on others, they just "defend themselves" against everybody hating whites and not wanting them to be pure, or whatever. It's a constant.
In final analysis, as the best we have: Sure, labeling wishing someone a nice day as hate speech may be subjective, "but so is not labeling it so", so who cares?
> here may be some undeserved damage among people labeled as "assholes", but there is A LOT of undeserved damage among the innocent victims of hate speech. It seems that you consider the former group more deserving of protection
No. Just like you didn't say "just like there can be some undeserved damage among people by an agitator", but called them "victims", individuals are getting hurt here, too, by mobs that follow them around, and agitate to destroy their livelihoods.
I actually believe in the principles that allow a person to see why hate speech is bad. I believe in due process, I don't believe in the framing in a false dichotomy, and I think people who do everything to not have due process, are the last people to educate me about "hate speech". I know all of these arguments, though I read most instances of them in German before they first appeared on the web. The greater good, they "mostly deseserve it", they're "mostly guilty", no real examination takes place, and of course, nobody who nods off others being treated that way would to be treated in the way they declare good enough for others.
That's the thing, really. I don't argue against censorship because I'm a racist, but because I'm so much more than just "not being a racist". And what I criticize, I wouldn't want to be doing either, and what I want for others, I would want for myself.
Can you say the same?
> (due to number, value, or something else?)
No, I don't believe that numbers make right, or might makes right. But said how "most" affected people are just "assholes and racists and agitators", which you find "time and time" again (and from which you can of course conclude that it will always be those who will get affected). I simply pointed out that even in the argument you subscribe to, you might be off the mark by multiple orders of magnitude.
I say "might" because I don't exactly have the numbers right here either. But if you actually talk with normal people, totally randomly selected, there's probably not many who never said anything racist or sexist in their life, or spouted bigotry about religious people. You simply dismiss people in the millions and billions in the abstract. Are you even considering due process has value in its own right? This isn't something where you get to move fast and break things.
And if you look at the people hounding other for "hate speech", you will sometimes find no hate speech in their targets, and with most you find hate speech "time and time again" on either their own or liked tweets. But since you already flat out said what is called hate speech is subjective, that's no bother. Technically, it should be possible to say "kill all men" isn't hate speech, "women aren't funny" is. It's all subjective, but of course not when it comes to people seeking out what offends them. That harm is real, always, and the destroyed livelihoods don't count.
Just leave it up to the law. Even bad judges take this stuff more seriously than the internet crowd that wants take the law into their own hands.