The problem with Hate-Speech and the "Good People" argument

The problem with aggressive "Hate Speech" enforcement is that it removes one of the exit-ramps for problem resolution.

Many people respond to a calm "You are standing on my foot. Please move." Some do not.

Some respond to a louder "Hey, you flipping idiot, you are standing on my foot. Get off of it." A few do not.

Of the few who do not respond to the louder "...flipping idiot...", they need some additional words to grab their attention "....@#$%^& *&^%!!! Get off my foot or I will knock your block off!!!!" delivered at much higher volume.

Dumb-azzes are notoriously hard of hearing and the "@#$%^&" gets their attention.

Exercising that last exit-ramp before initiating physical violence will get you tossed into gaol in Great Britain and might get you fired.

The fans of the Nanny-State observe that violence is often preceded by @#$%^& and in their feeble-minds think it CAUSES violence. They think that by eliminating "Hate Speech" they will will "break the chain" that leads to violence.

This "Words are violence" trope ensures that escalations will be shorter and many more of them will end violently.

"Good people"

Another trope I am tired of is the entire "My friend is a good person and did such-and-so. That means that such-and-so behavior is OK."

I am very deliberately NOT listing any "such-and-so" behaviors because it would polarize and antagonize readers.

My beef with the trope is three-fold.

My first beef is "define what a good-person is". The Bible tells us that all good comes from God and standard Christian theology states that all mankind* are sullied by Original Sin.

Most people seem to define a "good-person" as somebody who consistently claims that their actions are based on a sense of altruism and empathy. That leaves a lot of wiggle-room. People are delusional and often very out-of-touch for WHY they do things. It is easy to rationalize actions after-the-fact by simply forgetting facts that contradict your personal narrative.

Another issue I have with "good-person" is that many actions revolve around allocating resources of some kind of zero-sum-game. If somebody gains, who loses? Are the losers considered in the altruistic-narrative? How many criminals have been shown "mercy" at the expense of their future victims? The dopamine rush of exercising altruism sees the plusses but rarely comprehends the minuses of their actions. The plusses are immediate. The minuses are in the future.

My second beef is the assumption of a transitive (if-then) property between "good-person" and "every action is morally pure/desirable".

Even if I accepted that somebody is a "good-person" (whose actions are informed by the Bible and by God's will), there will be times when they make poor, morally indefensible decisions.

Maybe they were tired, or hungry. Maybe they just had a fight with their wife or their boss. Maybe they had a couple of beers or are stressed for time. Maybe they were preparing a defense for their Doctoral dissertation or some other once-in-a-lifetime event and acting in the most moral way would pose an inconvenience.

Everybody is faced with hard-decisions as we navigate through life. Sometimes we make the wrong call.

My third beef is that one of the underlying drivers is the belief "It is more important that we have solidarity than that we be right"

I thought the other person was kidding me when they laid that line on me. They weren't. It was only later that I realized that I should have challenged them with "Since I am not changing my opinion, then you HAVE to change yours...because it is more important that we have solidarity than that you be right..."

I get that humans are social animals. But we don't have to be stupid.

*With the exception of Jesus and possibly his mother Mary. Some branches of Christianity believe that Mary was conceived without Original Sin.