It’s the slipperiest slope of all. Thousands of people have been arrested for causing offence in the UK after they introduced their absurd laws. Police have recently been threatening to arrest people for mocking them online. In the US we’re very lucky to have the first amendment to protect our speech no matter who deems it hateful or offensive.
There are middle grounds that also work well, like what Canada has.
It's got entrenched constitutional protections for freedom of expression which courts are willing to use to invalidate laws, but the same constitution explicitly allows certain limits on that freedom.
The balance isn't perfect, especially not as applied to most Canadian defamation laws (Quebec is a bit friendlier to defendants here). But it's pretty good and way better than the UK's lack of any restraint on Parliament's surveillance state tendencies.
Canada is a terrible example, they have compelled speech in their laws. Referring to somebody by the wrong pronoun is a criminal offence in Canada. The right to free speech is intrinsically the right to be offensive, for the very simple reason that any statement at all could be taken as offensive by somebody. As soon as you criminalise being offensive, any speech becomes fair game for government censorship. It is the very definition of a slippery slope.
> Referring to somebody by the wrong pronoun is a criminal offence in Canada.
Please cite the text of a law which actually says this or any case where someone has been convicted for this under a law which does not explicitly say it.
I find that definition is typically only used by people who are more interested in “offence” than “freedom of speech”.
We should obviously all have the freedoms to be offensive, because like you say, offence is essentially arbitrary. But we draw limits on that freedom all the time - for safety, libel, or public order reasons, for example. The real argument should be about where that line is drawn, and not those silly straw men about “they are going to arrest me for calling a man a man”
It’s not silly at all, because that is literally a law in Canada.
There are also 0 restrictions on offensiveness in the US. Any restrictions on speech are restrictions on other crimes. You can’t incite violence for example. If your straw man of what free speech means we’re true, then a gang leader could freely sit behind a desk and direct others to commit crime on his behalf all day because all he’s doing is speaking, right?...
If an employer* in NYC or Seattle tolerates one employee persistently and intentionally referring to another employee by the wrong pronoun, it violates their local discrimination laws just as much as in Quebec, with enforceable penalties to boot.
No, it's not criminal in either place, if it's not coupled with more. Another poster replied with a link debunking this myth as applied to Canada.
And yes, laws aimed at preventing a hostile work environment, even speech-based ones, have been held to be constitutional in the US.
For a US federal example, repeatedly targeting someone with racial slurs within a workplace* will also get you into punishable trouble.
*Yes, I know certain employers, like 2-person companies, are excluded from these laws. Doesn't change the general point.
2. The restrictions on speech in the US mostly relate to other crimes, like inciting violence. You can’t be arrested in the US for saying something that’s too offensive (like they do in the UK every day).
Section 127 prohibits "sending by public communication network an offensive / indecent / obscene / menacing message / matter". It's unspecified in that article how many were arrested specifically for offensive messages (as opposed, say, to menacing ones).
Menacing like... mocking the police? Threatening behaviour is already a crime in the UK. Section 127 ONLY serves to criminalize any behaviour deemed offensive by the state.
> You can’t be arrested in the US for saying something that’s too offensive
You clearly are unfamiliar with the entire domain of obscenity law not in the US, which is exactly about defining what is so offensive as to be outside the scope of First Amendment protection.
