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Comment by dominotw | Hacker News Reader

hate cannot be precisely defined though. Thats the crux of the argument.

Plenty of countries have legal definitions which are well enforced (1) and which often rely on internationally agreed upon standards (2).

Slippery slopes is usually a fallacious argument, decidedly so in this case where plenty of successful examples exists.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Keegstra

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civi...

Sure it can.

It means "intense dislike". If that is directed at an intrinsic property of a group of people, that's hate speech.

Example: black people as opposed to smokers.

Very soon that leads to any speech criticizing, say, the capitalists or the politicians in power.

> Very soon that leads to any speech criticizing, say, the capitalists or the politicians in power.

No, because that's not an intrinsic property.

Hating people who take too long at the register isn't the same as viewing all redheads as inferior.

What is intrinsic? Is being poor intrinsic? Can I spew hate against the poor and the homeless then? The problem is these definitions are unclear, and policing hate against black people obliges you to police hate against the homeless, and pretty soon everything else. I have seen far more examples of slippery slopes happening than not, so forgive me if I'm skeptical.

The whole point is that lines are not easy to draw. Religion is a belief system and is not an intrinsic property either. Are you going to allow speech like "Kill all muslims" which is not very different from "Kill all capitalists".

Free speech is so critical to a functioning free society that I'd rather err on the side of allowing bad speech rather than banning not-bad speech by mistake.

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