I think this is spot on, because people stopped caring about someone's intention before judging them. Maybe people got so good at lying about their intention, that we don't believe them when they say "it wasn't my intention" when someone says something bad. The end result is the same, it doesn't matter what your intention was, you say something bad, you deserve bad back.
You do rightly point out the reason intent does tend to matter in reality: it's that the response to RMS' actions are punitive ("you deserve bad back"). And ideally people shouldn't be punished for unintended mistakes; they should instead be helped (sorry if that comes across condescending to the offender, but it's true).
Focusing on intent instead of outcomes is still regressive or reductive in either case though.
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Aside: this is somewhat off-topic and probably a debate for a separate comment/thread here, but I do want to note I use the term "harm" above very intentionally; I don't believe "offensive" is the correct term here at all. Being offended is not harmful. I think a lot of aspects of PC/cancel-culture focus on protecting those who are "offended", which is nonsense. If you're not offending people in this world, you're not living. But doing actual harm goes beyond that, and should be addressed. And I do believe RMS' actions were harmful.
It’s not the case that all people need to be aware of and sensitive to every possible person’s misinterpretation of their message. The inverse is closer to true, and the only viable option.
How do you expect someone to know what they don’t know?
But he didn't, he was falsely accused.
So maybe the people that accused him deserve something bad back too.
All the well meaning in the world doesn't mean shit if you're creating hostility or demeaning others (that is not commentary on RMS, just in general)
"I don't care about 'intent' as much as 'outcome'"
Clearly intent and context matters a lot.
When a cause is systemic it maybe with some natural variance and within what realistically deem acceptable, depending on where we set the bounds. While others maybe special cases and require detailed study to understand.
Blindly setting outcome goals without understanding the system is folly.
"But that's not an argument for doing nothing in response to someone who habitually offends people by accident."
If I say that your posts are constantly offending me, what do you propose we do about that?
There isn't a universally applicable rule here.
This is also where the driving analogy breaks down. It's an easy trade-off to revoke someone's license if it means we can prevent death. But taking action to prevent subjective offense enters into a much more tenuous and debatable cost-benefit trade-off. What makes sense would come down to the details of the case.
On the other hand, if a driver consistently has accidents and people end up dead, it could be that they are a bad driver and shouldn't be in a position to, you know, drive.
The parent comment was short, said "as much as", and yet people downvote it, misinterpret it.
In the case of subjective offense, it should be and usually is different.
If you're called a racial slur by someone who just started learning English and genuinely doesn't know the true meaning of the word, you should take less offense to it than if you were called the slur by someone with obvious malicious intent.
Intent and context matters both in terms of how the "accused" should be viewed as well as how the "victim" should feel.
Even used to be called the same thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Awakes
The "woke" don't actually have good intentions. There are several motivations, but good intent just seems to be an excuse for the hostility you mention.
Maybe you should limit that to "The 'woke' people I know."