Of course the problem, though, is that certain folks have imagined a right “not to be offended” into existence out of thin air. Or imagined that certain speech is “literally violence”.
Although I do want push back against your "literally violence" point since we handle that differently on an individual versus group basis currently. For example, if we start with the idea that slander of an individual infringes on the rights of someone, why is slandering an entire protected class of people okay? Cohen could sue me if I called him miserly (to use one of the examples of hate from his speech), but it is fine to say all Jews are miserly including Cohen? That doesn't make much logical sense to me.
I don’t know what your example about Cohen and Jews is attempting to show. Neither example is “violence”.
Well, yeah, this is a debate about free speech so of course one side wants to redefine what is allowed to be discussed. The difference is one side says "these are the things we don't want to be acceptable anymore" the other says "any change is unacceptable". Which side do you think is more likely to compromise? And free speech absolutists definitely exist, there are plenty in the comment sections here defending Facebook and their practice of allowing nearly anything to be posted.
>I don’t know what your example about Cohen and Jews is attempting to show. Neither example is “violence”.
I was assuming your "literally violence" comment was in relation to hate speech since that is the only time I have seen that type of language used. I was pointing out that banning hate speech can basically be viewed as simply an extension of our existing laws banning speech like defamation.
An accusation of defamation can be countered by showing the statement is true. And, even still, we significantly weaken our laws against defamation when the person being defamed is a public figure, especially a politician, because the people who wrote US law have been extremely concerned about restrictions on political speech.
Hate speech is not defined in US law, and defining and banning it would not in any way be "simple".
I wasn't answering the question of if we should try, I was narrowly responding to a single claim that laws restricting hate speech would be easy to write because it would simply be a matter of applying existing laws slightly differently. That isn't the case. Irregardless of what you think of the merits, nothing analogous to a ban on hate speech is currently on the books in the US
I've gotta say, this sounds real similar to the "very fine people on both sides" type logic that tries to equate antifa to white supremacists.