You actually do, if by respect you mean that you are obligated to not engage in violent activities against someone for speech.
If you are going around doing that, then hopefully, other people will engage in their fully legal rights to self defense against you for such actions, or use the legal use of government force against to, to segregate you from society.
You don't have to respect what I say. You have to respect my right to say it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
First sentence clearly states that to adhere to the principle, retaliation is not to be feared or people will not speak up. This threat of violence is prevalent in dictatorships all around the world.
But for any intellectual dialogue the adherence to freedom of speech is a minimal requirement.
There is a difference of principle and requirements de jure.
If you go up to someone and call them a slur, then you have committed verbal assault:
"the use of offensive language directed at a person, where such language is likely to provoke a reasonable person to physical violence."
Also, that has nothing to do with making that response with physical violence legal. You can still only use violence when you are defending yourself against physical injury. Sure, provocation might be mitigating, or get you to a lower level of assault or murder (as the case may be), but it’s not a full defense.
No it can't.
Sorry. This is completely wrong. The GOVERNMENT must respect speech that people find offensive. And I will defend to the death the right of free speech to not be oppressed by the government.
I, as an individual, do NOT have to respect your offensive speech. It is, in fact, my DUTY to oppose your offensive speech, and I'm tired of people forgetting this. And, yeah, some of those reponses will be "against the law". Lots of people have been arrested for sit ins, protests, chaining themselves to fences, violent labor strikes, etc.
> if you did, you would and should be jailed for battery. Physical violence is NEVER an acceptable response to speech.
Sorry, my experience says you are wrong.
Racial slurs, for example, tamp down real fast after the first time someone gets a punch in the nose for slinging one. Been there. Seen that.
Might you be going to jail for battery? Maybe. But that's the risk you take. Might you take real damage getting your ass kicked? Maybe. That's the risk on the other side.
Far too many people are willing to say and do odious things simply because they never get any actual punishment for them. See: the disbelief of all the Jan 6 mob. A couple of those people having gotten their asses kicked might have caused their brains to process that what they were doing was wrong before it escalated to people getting shot.