andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> I am just describing what happens in practice. If you don't like it for 
> philosophical reasons, try to find another planet to live on.

  Why? The whole idea with democracy is that the people can affect the
politics of their society. If you perceive something as being wrong with
society, you don't fix it by conforming and just accepting it as something
inevitable. You fix it by voting. (Of course there has to be a few other
people who also vote like that, but that's the basic principle in democracy.)

  Your expression sounds like "this is how things are, and there's nothing
you can do to change it, so learn to live with it". No, that's not how
democracy works. We are lucky enough to live in democratic countries, and
we should use the possibilities that brings us to better the society.

  The moment when people start believing that they cannot affect their
society is the moment when the whole idea of democracy has been destroyed.
(Unfortunately this is a way too common belief.)

> >> If that minority is more vulnerable.
> >
> >    More vulnerable to what? To getting offended?

> physical violence, economic exclusion, that sort of thing.

  Basically what you are suggesting is that the solution to violence and
discrimination is censorship: Limiting people's freedom of speech when
it happens to be criticism of a minority.

  Well. I don't believe that the ultimate solution to violence and
discrimination is censorship. Double standards are not the answer. That
only fights the symptoms, not the core problem. In fact, oftentimes it
*aggravates* the symptoms rather than removing them.

> >    Why is it more permissible to offend the majority but less permissible
> > to offend a minority? What difference does it make? How is offending a
> > minority a worse crime than offending the majority? That *is* a double
> > standard.
> >
> >    (How do you even *define* the "majority" that needs less protection?

> In a democracy a majority needs no special protection, a minority does. 

  *Why* does the minority need special protection? Why are double standards
necessary?

  As I said, double standards, besides being hypocrisy, are only fighting
symptoms (sometimes even just perceived symptoms), not the core problems.
A working society should need any double standards.

  (And here when I'm talking about "a minority that requires special
protection" I'm referring to otherwise completely normal and abled
people whose only difference to the "majority" is inconsequential with
respect to their role in society, such as eg. ethnicity, background or
sexual orientation. Of course there are people who need special treatment
because of practical reasons, eg. because of being handicapped. I'm not
talking about those.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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