If I call you a retard it's probably not that insulting to you. But it does cause offence in a large group of other people. And those people were not my target. So the word retard is a suboptimal choice for those two reasons.
The other way to use retard as an insult is to use it against people with a learning disability. I don't think that's what you're defending -- verbal aggression by mostly rich programmers of mostly poor vulnerable people.
> I believe in freedom of speech above all.
Not right to life?
Re:GNU Mailman is now hosted on GitLab
by Tenhundfeld on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @01:55PM
(#10005048)
Well said.
I am not advocating of getting rid of kindness, and I think that preventing racism is a noble idea. And I'm not obviating a responsibility to avoid offending people by commenters who want to be taken seriously. But in the end, it is nearly impossible to entirely rid yourself of offense. Freedom of speech is necessary for productive environments, and it's been proven that people behave differently and speak differently when they know they're being watched.
There's a difference between attempting to be taken seriously and being disingenuous about who you are and they way you think. I believe in freedom of speech above all.