Political correctness means that people should not be allowed to say some things, or do some things, that interfere with, demonize, insult, or otherwise castigate other groups.

If you alter “should not be allowed” to read “should be advised not to” we’re on the same page.

However, as written, that’s censorship.

We have already come to the conclusion, as a society, that sometimes people shouldn’t be allowed to say certain things. So… why is this any different?

Well, obviously, in all your examples, the speech being used puts the target at physical or economic risk. Those are real, tangible harms.

Calling somebody a “[enter the pejorative of your choice]”, be it racial, religious, sexual/gender, whatever……does not cause physical or economic harm. Actual harm is different than hurt feelings.

Well, the short answer is that political correctness is an attempt to improve tolerance and acceptance in society.

And as long as it’s ADVICE, and an attempt to make words certain words not socially acceptable, that’s fine. When you bring the force of law into it, or make the speaker subject to physical or economic harm because of their nonPC speech…..then the cure is just as bad as the disease.

It’s also worth noting that a lot of people who rail against tolerance and acceptance because of the taint of “political correctness” haven’t internalized the idea that what helps someone else doesn’t necessarily hurt them.

Well, that’s often true, but the PC side has a talent for ignoring the often real objections the “other side” has. Keep in mind that PC is not just about speech, but policy.

I’m a liberal, but I don’t have to be to see that maintaining basic standards of tolerance is good for a large, multi-everything democracy.

Sure. But again, it’s the enforcement, not the philosophy, that sticks in their craws.

Don’t do any of those things, if you can help it.

Fair enough.

We cannot tolerate child abuse, for example, for very good reasons. We can’t tolerate hate speech. We can’t tolerate religious customs that inflict harm on innocents. And we can’t tolerate intolerance, because sooner or later if we do, we won’t have any tolerance left. And then it’s all over but for the purges.

Well, again, you’ve stuck “hurt feelings” in with examples of actual harm. Doesn’t work like that.

You don’t need any free speech laws to protect speech which is all unicorns and rainbows. The only time you need free speech laws is to protect speech that pisses somebody else off.

Then, there’s the question of how to define “hate speech”………. which certain groups want to define very literally, while others want to define more broadly…….