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"we should not stop people from doing things that are offensive to others."

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This is the argument that I am meaning to make although I do realize that it is not especially clear in my previous posts.

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I find being stabbed in the eye offensive, and I favor preventing people from doing it.

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I'm thinking purely about things that have no physical consequences. If the kid tried to stab someone or use the noose then that is way beyond crossing the line and something absolutely needs to be done about it.

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Ok, I find somebody walking through my front door, walking over to the couch, bending over and farting in my wife's face to be offensive, and I favor preventing people from doing this.

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Just because you find something offensive and think that it should be prevented it does not mean that people should not do it. Yes, it may mean that they shouldn't but it could also still be ok. There are examples of many situations like the one you listed where someone should put and end to the action because it is offensive. There are many other, typically radical views, that find non-offensive (to the majority of the population) things to be offensive. These views should not be allowed to terminate whatever they think is offensive because oftentimes it is immoral.

In your example the offending party should be stopped. Its something done with deliberate malice and isn't based on any moral highground.

At the risk of inciting a larger backlash I'm going to go with this example. Hitler and the Nazis found Jews offensive and decided that they didn't deserve to live. Thats [censored] up. Just because this group of people found them offensive does not mean that they should be able to kill off 6 million Jews. I'm sure you will agree with that. However, there were a significant number of people who agreed with Hitler. Just because these people found it offensive does not mean that they should be allowed to execute this disgusting plan.

What I'm trying to say is that what some people find offensive there will always be others who are on the opposite side. No matter where you stand on an issue, assuming you have a strong feeling in one direction, someone will be offended by it and you will likely be offended by their stance. I'm sure that I have offended some of you in my arguments in this thread and I'm sure your counter arguments offended someone else out there. There is no solution to this, its just a circle. People will be offended by things. You can't prevent it. Many people were probably offended by the fact that this student was not allowed to wear his costume and was forced to go home and apologize formally. Many others, probably a much larger number, were offended by the costume itself.