A harmless feature, here, is a physical or behavioral property which is not meant to affect you.
Saying "I hate doctors" is not hate speech, for instance, because doctors want to cure you. It is a case of them causing physical harm (eg. through vaccines) which is socially beneficial.
Saying "I hate disabled people" is hate speech, because they're not disabled to spite you.
Saying "I hate disabled people" is hate speech, because they're not disabled to spite you.
This is an opinion and I would be very surprised if this is illegal in any European country. It's certainly not hate speech. You may just out yourself as a complete asshole and rightfully suffer social consequences if you use such speech.
Now, saying something like "Disabled people are the scum of the earth and should be eradicated" would probably fall under hate speech laws in some jusidictions.
Note the qualitative difference of the statements.
And yet saying "I hate disabled people" does nothing to harm disabled people. I'd much rather people have the freedom to say stupid, harmless things, so everything knows they're idiots and can ignore them on things that actually matter, than be left with people who still feel that way but are simply smart enough to keep their mouth shut.
verbally attacks a person or group on the basis of harmless features of theirs...A harmless feature, here, is a physical or behavioral property which is not meant to affect you.
Ok, so we just banned discussing politics, religion and basically anything that deals with human relations because it's "hate speech".
Saying "I hate the left" is not hate speech, as politics is meant to affect you — it is meant to affect the whole world, after all.
Saying "I hate muslims" is hate speech: practicing Islam is not meant to affect you. That doesn't mean you can't discuss it however: a discussion is not a verbal attack. You can even say "I hate the Jehovah's witnesses that knock on my door", as the group you are referring to directly affects you.
In my mind it's always been the difference between saying:
<jews/muslims/immigrants> are a problem, and saying I _think_ that <jews/muslims/immigrants> are a problem.
The same goes for insulting police officers. You can report your state of mind, but you can't use a descriptive tense, you need to explicitly state that it is your opinion.
I haven't ever been in trouble of this sort of thing, and I also think that almost every human knows when real hate-speech is being bandied about. But I do know that a few years back the courts in the Netherlands ruled that if you tell a police officer: 'you're a fag' you can't defend yourself by saying it was just an opinion.
The problem with that is it supports one position over another no matter what the circumstances. What you're saying means that the only correct position is to support ever loosening restrictions on immigration. You can't ever go the other way, can't even discuss it.
That is far more worrisome then me then the supposed reincarnation of Hitler in orange form.
Christ, if Hitler isn't the new devil, capable of possessing people at random and these aren't the new Salem witch trials, I don't know what is.