I fell victim to this phenomenon yesterday. Check out my reputation score. People saw that I'm a Christian conservative and proceeded to downvote a bunch of my contributions that have absolutely nothing to do with religion or politics, which previously had zero downvotes.
I like the idea of making downvotes from the profile page not count.
I have no doubt most of the heathens in this thread would say "yes, it is". For anyone who believes it is, that should be your indication that your definition of "hate speech" needs severe adjustment.
I appreciate that you point out you're not in the US, because our various cultural perspectives and expectations certainly do inform our opinions. (Although there's quite a range of variance within the US too.)
While I believe my self-designation as "conservative" is quite accurate, at least in an American context, my personal rearrangement of your lists would be far more liberal. The only items I'd put under "not okay" are porn for kids and instigating violence. (Thankfully we don't need to deal with literal violence on an online platform.) It's interesting how ideas can get categorized as left or right depending on the context and viewpoint.
If we were to survey the greater federated community here, I'm sure we'd get a variety of answers as to what's okay, questionable, and not okay. My position is that's a good thing, as our diversity of ideas enriches the community, and we can all learn from each other.
TBH, I also grew up when bullying was considered a normal part of childhood, and I was ruthlessly bullied. The result was it toughened me up. Back then it was extremely rare to hear of bullying leading to suicide, as you hear now. Bullying was just completely normal, and I can attest there are definite benefits from having lived with it.
Now don't get me wrong: I do understand your concern that online animosity can become a real-world attack, and I don't want anyone to get assaulted. But I also think the concern is grossly overblown, amplified by a culture of emotionally delicate individuals who were never toughened up as kids. In practice, this sort of IRL attack is extraordinarily rare.
And besides, if the solution to preventing assault is to shut down free speech, then frankly I'd rather live in a world of rampant assault. Not that I want assault for myself or anyone else, but weighing the options, a firm stance supporting free speech should not be negotiable.
I'm sorry that you kinda lost me after that. Please forgive me if I misunderstand, but you seem to be calling normal conservatives "fascists", and as a result I struggle to see your point. The vast majority of normal people are fed up with wokeness, which is the topic of the magazine in dispute. I don't say that to pick a fight, just to acknowledge that I find your usage of "fascist" confusing to the point that I struggle to interpret your last few paragraphs.
You seem to be out of the loop on the whole Texit movement. If you really are Texan, I find that surprising. It's been building momentum for years, and we're now collecting the legally required signatures with the expectation it'll be on the upcoming ballot later this year.
I love Amerca, and there's nothing treasonous about Texit, as I've explained elsewhere in this thread. I don't care to repeat myself, but I'm happy to clarify in case anything I wrote wasn't communicated well.
When you say "Radical Republicans" I have to wonder if you're actually Texan. Our government does a fine job of representing our values, and if you disagree — which you're certainly free to do, and I respect that — then you really ought to move out of Texas ASAP. When you use the word "neofascists" to describe your neighbors, you don't sound like much of a Texan. I bet you'd be happy on the West Coast.
When you say "settled law", again, that only applies to the jurisdiction of these United States. The building's no-smoking policy doesn't apply to you once you step out of the building.
As for your threatening last sentence, that's a sick authoritarian pipe dream which has been dispelled at length in publications describing Texit elsewhere. You can seek them out if you wish, and if you don't I don't really care. Suffice it to say, the threat is absurd.
God does not make mistakes. That principle was widely accepted as indisputable until recent times. Say it with me now, God does not make mistakes. It's not something we're allowed to doubt or question.
I care because this is spiritual warfare. Everyone who rejects God is choosing to follow Satan, whether or not they understand that. It is our moral duty to love one another as Jesus has loved us, which means to make our best effort to lead each other to God.
Please read your Bible. I want to point you to a single verse or two, but so much of the whole book deals with these topics that I find it overwhelming to think I could choose just one or two verses. We're discussing what God has repeatedly warned us against. If you care about humanity at all, you have a moral duty to make your best effort to stop this madness.
That's why.
I absolutely do not want anyone's freedom of choice taken away. That's one of my core principles. God gives us free will so that we may choose. Without the ability to choose, we cannot be saved. So you are grossly misinterpreting me.
TBH, I'd love to hear Daryl Davis's perspective on this discussion. I strongly suspect he'd write compelling sage advice, and then receive a hundred downvotes and replies calling him a nazi.
I'm probably older than most of the people here. When I grew up, a commonly repeated phrase we all learned was "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." I'm sure you'd be shocked and offended if I were to type out the names we used to call each other. The result was that it toughened us up, which is one of the most important lessons of childhood. My point is that I respectfully disagree with you that open dialog could possibly "cause real harm", ever, under any circumstances. You would need to be emotionally fragile to think getting your "feelings hurt" is real harm, and honestly I never encountered such people until the last few decades. I hope it's a short-lived phase.
It's so easy to shut down what you perceive as "toxicity in public" when it doesn't impact you. But that's a mighty subjective phrase, and you can very easily find yourself getting shut down. I understand that you're thinking about this in terms of instances, but we're in public here, and all instances with open signups are public. It's crucially important to always allow anyone to say anything in public, because as soon as we silence a person, we are likely to find ourselves silenced. The result would be an oppressive authoritarian society, which has happened repeatedly throughout history when people didn't stand up for free speech.
Agreed, though that's not a common term, and the non-authoritarian left is approximately center-left. The center-left is opposed to wokeism, like Bill Maher. The center-left is pro-free-speech. All of the desire to ban speech that you see throughout this thread is extreme AuthLeft, to use that terminology.
There are already many observable instances (pardon the pun) of confusion, even among us early adopters. Time will tell if you're right or if I am.
If nothing else, I ask that you please accept my word that I'm not trolling.
What I believe in is the truth. I respect that you disagree with me, and that I seem naive to you. Yet I also believe you'll eventually realize my beliefs are true, after all. Whether that happens before or after you pass from this world is in your hands.
You absolutely don't have to. But when you're a Christian, you love God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul; and you love your neighbor as yourself. The result is that you do good works by virtue of doing God's will. Good works are a result of salvation.