> The article is titled Why are Millennials wary of freedom. That's the problem I'm talking about.

Ah, ok. Since you were always pointing to insults and demagoguing and such as things that must be legally silenced, I thought you were placing the content of the discourse as the problem.

> newer generations seem to devalue the merits of free speech and democracy. Now why is that?

The simplest reasonable answer is just that they're distanced further from the solved problems of the past, and from the solutions deemed necessary to counteract or prevent those problems. And thus, history begins to repeat itself.

I hope you're not excluding yourself from the label of devaluing the merits of free speech, because obviously you're promoting a reduction of free speech as well, for reasons you still haven't made clear.

> I'm saying I think a bill to restrict certain nefarious speeches

Again, who defines the "certain nefarious" categories?

We already have a term that acts a barrier that when crossed triggers the law: Damages. Your rights end where my nose starts. But as long as you're not that far, you're within your rights. I think that's the cleanest boundary to draw.

> And now, that to me, would help freedom and the safeguard of the free society.

"Hate" and "insulting" speech doesn't harm anything, except maybe blood pressure temporarily. It's damaging actions that do, and that's completely irrespective of whether they're driven by this ill-defined usage of "hate" or not. So leave the thoughtcrime alone, and police the actual crime. The only "hate" you actually need to worry about is that which manifests into action, which would be policed anyway.

> Now, I think there's a certain amount of speech right now, which is hateful and insulting, and some of it could be demonstrated to be hurtful to a free and democratic society.

I'll bite. Name one common case, where legal speech and not action is the problem. "Hurtful" as in feelings is a nonstarter as a literally anti-American concept: Diversity itself hurts feelings and offends beliefs, and we are an intentionally diverse nation.

> Well, it seems that some other countries have managed to find a better balance and contradict that statememt, yet remained very free and democratic.

I'd posit it has nothing to do with the laws, and more to do with having a more unified cultural identity than the USA. There are also tons of other factors which show you can't simply translate the effectiveness & outcome of a law across borders, especially when they're at the core of particular social unrest.

> I think you just don't believe that this level of precision is possible.

It's not the precision of censorship that's a problem, it's that you feel some sort of (what I would personally call tyrannical) passion to punish these targeted people in this way. Remember, you're talking about social media and such, where people socialize and banter with their friends, where people get into arguments over disagreements just like in real life, and where everybody overpublishes flippant reactionary stuff that would previously have been private. That's a lot of very new & very raw human interaction and personal expression going on there. Let it settle.

> And examples of recent corporations taking actions against employees debating hot topics and getting fired over it is irrelevant, as that's more of a debate about corporate power, and the bounds of a contract.

I agree. That's angry mob stuff, not legal stuff, and has its own problems.

> But, I have to say, you're making me think twice. I don't believe in the outrageous dangers of such restrictions, but you've made me think that maybe there's also little gain, and so the whole exercise might be a bit of a waste of time and effort.

Thank you. Yes, that's a lot of what I was pointing at.

But in places like Germany, the speech legislation has galvanized underground Nazi movements which keep popping up and growing. In the long view, it's probably better for the speech itself to be free and deposed, than for it to be illegal and foment in private as secret underdogs and martyrs. So it's not just for little gain, it's easily damaging (because it will be applied "legally" aka by the letter of the law) and counterproductive by galvanizing counter elements.

> I don't believe in the outrageous dangers of such restrictions

How different is this from the dangers of drug laws? Exposure laws as I brought up before? Laws around suspicion of terror? These have already destroyed tons of lives beyond their intended targets. There's a lot of danger in vague ideas gaining a specific legal wording, and having a police & court system bound to enforcing those words. It's best to only legislate the subset that has can be more objectively tested in court.

If you search around, you'll also see plenty of cases of hate speech laws being overapplied in the countries you venerate here as well. Laws are dangerous things (and moreso in the USA than most smaller 1st world countries), and we should not be passing permanent law to deal with temporary flare-up problems.

BTW, go read some legal stories from this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15492907

> Maybe I worry about hateful and insulting speech too much, and its harmless

It's certainly not harmful enough to summon Justice to bring wrath down on people's personal interactions (ie, social media interactions) through the letter of the law.

> or maybe you're right, preventing that kind of speech is just covering up the inevitable, if people chose to hate and insult, society might be going that way no matter what restrictions are put in place.

You can't control what others believe & say, society-wide. This is especially true if you're using a stick instead of a carrot. It's simply out of your hands. Just focus on your actions, and your own sphere of influence. You will be subjected to people who find you just as disagreeable as they are to you. That's life, and it's a two-way street. You don't get to destroy them, just as you wouldn't want them destroying you; you get to coexist with them in this big ol' melting pot of diversity.

But I'm still left questioning why "hate" and "insult", when it's just bloviating words in an impersonal setting such as broad internet discussions, need to be punished.

Surely your own words are formally "hating" and "insulting" what you disagree with, in calling someone's earnest words "worse speech" than others, labeling people as "demagogues", openly advocating to suppress & punish other people's words & expressions via new laws. Even the notion of labeling "hate" is basically prejudiced hate & insult if the only thing it's based on is a shallow disagreement. It doesn't matter how rational it's dressed up.

The KKK has engineered very specific rationalizations and tempered sounding non-prosecutable speech over the years, for instance. That doesn't make it any less "hate", does it? So shouting/insulting/etc is orthogonal to all of this, and shouldn't be a basis for your punishment proposals either.