[throwawaysugar]

What? None of those are cogent arguments.

> The value of maintaining current discrimination is high enough to motivate laws protecting racists from exposing themselves publicly.

A law that punishes racist speech doesn't protect racist people from exposing themselves. It protects their victims from dealing with that form of hate speech. You're basically arguing that making "hate speech" illegal does more harm than good, but you haven't offered proof or any logical argument why that is. I argue silencing hate speech (or attempting as much) does more good than harm because it limits the impact of such hate speech.

> Or; The value in maintain hatred within society is higher than the value of progressive discourse.

Same as the above.

> My point is that there is a few ways to interpret speech controls

Perhaps, but the ones you've provided don't really stand to scrutiny.

[cortic]

>proof or any logical argument

All of human progress has happened through open discussion; i thought this was obvious. We gain immunity to bad ideas by hearing them within public areas where people can argue for and against them honestly. This leads to people gaining/learning good ideas because they more often defeat bad ideas. Leading to a more progressive society. Ban bad ideas in public and people become vulnerable to them in private.

>The value of saying what you want is not held higher than the value of not being discriminated against.

This is not a cogent argument; The vast majority of discrimination is not verbal, in fact the verbal bit isn't generally discrimination at all but a signal that discrimination may be happening.. suppress the signal and you can generally keep the discrimination.

[throwawaysugar]

> All of human progress has happened through open discussion; i thought this was obvious. We gain immunity to bad ideas by hearing them within public areas where people can argue for and against them honestly. This leads to people gaining/learning good ideas because they more often defeat bad ideas. Leading to a more progressive society. Ban bad ideas in public and people become vulnerable to them in private.

Brazilian Law doesn't preclude you from having actual intellectual discussions about any topic. There are limits to hate speech, harassment, bullying, etc. There is no real benefit from having bigots spew hatred openly in society. In fact, giving them the opportunity to promote intolerance tends to breed more intolerance. This has been the case with nazis, QAnon, extreme right more generally in the US, Bolsominions in Brazil... We cannot be tolerant of intolerance. Curtailing speech is a "necessary harm" to prevent a bigger harm from occurring, which is the curtailment of life.

> This is not a cogent argument; The vast majority of discrimination is not verbal, in fact the verbal bit isn't generally discrimination at all but a signal that discrimination may be happening.. suppress the signal and you can generally keep the discrimination.

I appreciate the discussion but unfortunately that's not logical. Specifically, I said:

1. All forms of discrimination are harmful and should be minimized or eliminated.

2. Verbal discrimination is a form of discrimination.

3. Therefore, verbal discrimination should be minimized or eliminated.

You're saying

1. The majority of discrimination is non-verbal.

2. Verbal discrimination often signals non-verbal discrimination.

3. If a form of discrimination is less prevalent or is a signal of another form, it is less important to address.

4. Therefore, it's acceptable to allow verbal discrimination.

But that's a fallacy. Specifically "false dichotomy", in that it implies that addressing one issue (verbal discrimination) precludes or is less important than addressing another (non-verbal discrimination). In reality, both can and should be addressed concurrently.

All forms of discrimination, whether prevalent or indicative, contribute to the overall harm caused by discrimination.

Therefore, even if verbal discrimination is less prevalent or a signal of non-verbal discrimination, it should still be minimized or eliminated alongside other forms of discrimination.

You are specifically arguing that we must allow verbal discrimination because we will be able to combat non-verbal discrimination better. I think the burden of proof is on you to prove that this is the case.

Empirically, Brazil is much less racist than the U.S. for a variety of reasons. If freedom of speech was so important to prevent non-verbal discrimination, it would stand to reason that one such example of a "infinitely free speaking" and "tolerant" society would exist. I can't think of any.

Not to mention the fact that "non-verbal discrimination" is specifically harder to legislate against (or even harder to prove in a courtroom), which explains why it is not as clearly outlawed in the Brazilian constitution.