Do you think Nazis should also be allowed to say anything they want without restriction?
The only answer to this can only ever be a complete and utter, yes. It’s that or we need to stop pretending that free speech is actually a thing. Either speech is free for every single person, no exceptions, ever, or it is NOT free. The reciprocal of that is (and absolutely should be) that anyone can simply choose not to listen and tell them to shut the fuck up, something for which you are trying to take full advantage of right now I’m sure
Language should NEVER have even the slightest hint of a restriction placed upon it, that is always a slippery and dangerous slope that has historically led to people losing their social autonomy and civil rights. The ONLY exception to this is if the language is used to directly harm, then it is no longer language, it is a weapon and should definitely be restricted. I am completely fine with being beholden to those restrictions, when they are applied properly.
Free speech is not what you think it is. Free speech means the government won’t stop you from speaking. It doesn’t mean you are allowed to say anything you want. You need to go back to middle school civics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
If there is no limit to tolerance, the intolerant will abuse that and we end up with an intolerant society. Tolerance is a social contract. If you break it, you are no longer tolerated.
The ONLY exception to this is if the language is used to directly harm, then it is no longer language, it is a weapon and should definitely be restricted.
Cool. Then stop using that word. It is directly harmful to some people.
Free speech does actually mean anyone can “articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction.” Look I can post Wikipedia links too, yay! Only the last bit pertains exclusively to governments. I am not advocating for universal tolerance and you do not have to tolerate anything anyone says, ever. But, that doesn’t also mean you or anyone else gets to have any say in the language that any other person uses to communicate their ideas or feelings. If that were not true then free speech would simply not exist.
Then stop using that word. It is directly harmful to some people.
No one is being directly harmed because no one can be directly harmed as the word has never once been directed at anyone (except deer) in this entire thread. Something which could be easily known if the comments still existed to give context to this whole situation. Words and language are not like physical objects in that they can not cause harm via accident. They can only ever have the meaning we give them and the impact that we choose to allow them to have on us, never anything more. Absolutely no one has been harmed here that did not, themselves, choose to be harmed.
Do you not agree that using a word that refers to some people’s mental abilities to refer to a deer’s mental abilities implies those people have the mental abilities of those deer? How are you so incapable of seeing how your language applies beyond it’s intent? I think you may need to take an IQ test yourself.
