It is also something that seems to me to be so very, very often used to prevent discussion about ideologies per se.

Most ideologies have, shall we say, "bad parts". And they may have a history that is somewhere between sordid and outright evil.

And of course "crack down on hate speech" is these days most often levied against criticism of islam. We have yet to see even basic discussion on things like the role of islam in slavery, historically and contemporary. Additionally the blatantly racist laws of Saudi Arabia that are defended as just islam's laws, racist where it pertains to faith, sex, and the blatant exploitation/slavery imposed on Asians there, all justified through islam. But of course censorship doesn't just stop there. It is now defending things like Erdogan's support of islamic state (including the massacres), and of course the Chinese state's many sordid actions in Nepal, Xinjang, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and even just generally within China. The massive corruption.

And then of course there is the many ways in which sex, corruption, labor exploitation, criticism of power figures like Xinnie the Pooh and so on is getting censored.

We should just not do this. We should not let the idea that people might get the wrong idea, or personally care hinder criticism of ideologies, including of course in areas where there may be minorities criticized and especially not in cases where the majority or an oppressive government is getting criticized.

We should be allowed to openly discuss things like China's destruction of Nepal. We should be able to ask a muslim why they follow a prophet that, according to muslim tradition, killed over 10000 people, including having women and children massacred. We should be bringing up Erdogan's dealings every chance we get. And so on and so forth. We should be able to bring up San Francisco's treatment of the people getting forced out of that area.

> Chinese state's many sordid actions in Nepal,

> China's destruction of Nepal

Do you mean Tibet?

I don't understand this notion that because it is physically possible to hold some opinion it must be as correct as any other opinion. Somehow the postmodern straw man of everything being subjective is now trotted out to defend the rights of men to insult and threaten other people, because they argue for the revocation of humanity from people out of conviction.

And anyway, who said there are a few people insisting that racial arguments are hate speech?

"men to insult and threaten other people"

If anybody feels insulted by speech, they need to grow up, grow a thicker skin. Don't go running to governments or corporations to create laws to defend their feelings. You sneaked in "threaten" to broaden your scope for your speech argument, physical attacks are already illegal.

"because it is physically possible to hold some opinion it must be as correct as any other opinion"

Again, regarding what is "correct", just for demonstration, I might agree or not agree or don't give a flying fuck and not be interested in your discussion at all. That does not and should not take your or my right away of saying it. If your opinion stands the test of time, then evolution will eventually show you are correct, and same applies to anybody else.

"Few people in power", I was speaking relatively, compared to population of a country.

Regarding "racial arguments", you used "argument" not physical attack, in which case you don't have any right to stop them in delivering such argument.

I am so glad that I migrated to this country where freedom of speech is still defended vehemently.

Look, you can't both have a notion of "standing the test of time" and think all opinions are equal: passing a test by necessity defines a preferred opinion.

Your stated position is a logical contradiction: good job.

You've asserted several times that 'djanago' believes that "all opinions are equal" and that "all opinions are as correct as any other opinion", but I'd be willing to bet that he does not. More likely, he believes something closer to "the government should not be in the business of censoring opinions" and "people have a right to speak their opinion even if that opinion is unpopular and wrong".

If phrased this way, do you still disagree?

To my knowledge, credible threats are not allowed speech..

So you accept the notion of allowed speech, but maybe disagree on where the line goes. That's fine, and something different from the people complaining that nazis should be allowed to preach about the destruction of the negro because after all "that's just an opinion".

Credible or actual harm is useable as a legal standard. If you wanted to outlaw "hate speech" what standard could be used to do that? How could you prevent abuse of those laws in order to suppress unpopular or otherwise subversive speech?

In other words, it might sound like a good idea, but there's absolutely no way to prevent a legal standard that does not stem from actual or credible harm from being abused by the powerful to suppress the powerless.

The US government doesn’t need hate speech laws to abuse & suppress unpopular speech, the just use national security laws:

http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encycloped...

a "True Threat" is not deemed a free speech violation because one is not preventing speech, but are preventing action.

a "True Threat" is a threat of ACTION not a speech.

I.e. if a person is in their garage, they have bomb making materials all around them, and make a threat to bomb a location at a specific time, date, they have now made a threat of ACTION thus it becomes an ACTIONABLE item for law enforcement

This is often used by people that advocate for censorship as a "limit on free speech" but it is not, it is a limit on actions, we have always had limits on actions