Can we please have a ruling on a particular word. I think it counts as hate speech.
The word is *woo-woo *(or woowoo, or just simply woo) as used twice in the OP of this thread.
It’s a pretty vile term, in my opinion, and obviously designed to cause offense. I think that there is as much hatred packed into that word as there is in *faggot *or kike. It is used by the OP to denigrate anyone who doesn’t have the exact same set of beliefs that he has.
In my opinion anyone using that term should get a warning from the mods.
I agree with Colibri. Hate speech has a specific meaning and we pretty much stick to the legal definition where that’s concerned. “Woo” is not even a hateful word, it’s just derisive. People who believe in the stuff that gets called woo - call them believers, spiritualists, whatever you like - are also not a race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, or gender. That also goes for conspiracy theorist, CTer, Truther/Twoofer, birther, etc.
Hate speech? Seriously? I didn’t even know what “woo-woo” referred to until I followed the link (I thought maybe it referred to a female body part :)). I’ve been called worse things than that since lunch.
It’s dismissive and derisive - but really you need thicker skin.
That does happen, and no, it’s not hate speech. It’s childish, and if it got out of hand in Great Debates I might advise people to stop it, but it’s allowed in general. You’re not allowed to insult SDMB users, but you’re allowed to say negative things about groups that some Dopers belong to. Referring to political parties by names like “Repugs” is allowed under that rule.
Ah, well, there’s the thing. It seems to me that **woowoo **and **sKKKeptic ** are pretty much opposite sides of the same coin. I can’t see any difference between them. If one is allowed, so should the other be. And if one is forbidden, the other should be as well.
Insults and hate speech aren’t the same thing. Calling someone a “woo woo” maybe considered an insult. But hate speech? If you honestly consider it on the same level as “kike” or “faggot”, you really, really have issues.
The KKK is an organization that has been involved in the violent repression of black people and other minorities, including murder, beatings, firebombings, and other crimes.
I’m not really seeing a close similarity in the level of insult to the use of “woowoo.”
That’s not what “woo” means. It’s a catchall term for New Agey spiritual-type stuff. (Cite from www.skepdic.com.) And making fun of people for what they believe is not necessarily hate speech. Diogenes the Cynic was talking about people who believe in ghosts, not religionists or theists. And actually he used the word in an unusual way. Usually it’s the ideas that are described as “woo,” not the people who believe in them.
Like Bosstone says, you used one as a hypothetical insult of one person. Diogenes made a general statement.
Dio made a personal attack on several people at once. He comment was directed at a small group of specific individuals who had posted in a particular thread. So, he was insulting several people at once rather than one person at a time.
Would I be permitted to say something like “The people in this thread who disagree with me are obviously a bunch of morons” thus insulting a group without identifying any individual? It’s the same thing as Dio did.