I was thinking more in general terms, and I guess I made the subconscious assumption that you were as well.

When those terms are more narrowly defined, I'm in complete agreement with you.

I should have the right to eat at a restaurant without some idiot lefty blindly following orders and trying to "run me out of town", or not have hundreds or thousands of calls and/or emails, etc.

Harassed and forced to listen means personally accosted, like someone following you around yelling at you, constantly jabbering at you or trying to provoke you; or violating your privacy or property rights as in preventing you from having a private meal at a restaurant, coming onto your lawn or into your home, or physically threatening or yelling from the street to disrupt your life, or making repetitive phone calls or spamming your email, etc. Freedom of speech does not mean forcing someone to listen instead of doing whatever else he chooses.

Look at who wants to violate your freedom of speech in the name of preventing verbal "offensiveness" while openly promoting harassing their political enemies to deliberately offend them and worse..

They also lack a sense of humor. About themselves and everything else.

It doesn't. Pure and simple.

In my 75+ years of existence, I've found that persons with strong self concepts and self confidence cannot be offended. Those who are offended appear to be looking for external validation, a version of AR's "second handers."

(Note: When I use the terms "you" and "I" in my following comments, I am referring to people in general, not to you or me specifically. With one exception noted below, "You and I" simply refer to two people in general.

And this is NOT meant to be a confrontational response. Please don't take it that way.)

How do the terms "harassment" and "offensive" get defined? Who gets to define them? What offends me may not offend you; what you view as harassment, I might not see the same way. If we were in a conversation, which one of us gets to define the terms "offensive" and "harassing"? Do we use your standards or mine?

In today's hyper-sensitive snowflake society, anything anyone says can be considered harassment, and someone's personal and professional lives can be completely ruined because he/she made an innocent comment.

There are some people who laugh hysterically at--and love to share--what society in general might consider sick and twisted jokes. I had a personal tragedy 38 years ago that is the topic of one of those joke lines. (True story: my now ex-wife and I lost a full term healthy daughter during childbirth when she had a seizure on the delivery table. I almost lost my wife; we did lose our daughter.)

If I have a right to not be offended, then I also have the right to prevent anyone else from ever being able to tell one of those jokes ever again.

I can't buy that. As you said, no one has the right to muzzle someone else; if I tried to do that, it would be emotional censorship. I completely agree with that statement.

But if we have a right to not be offended, then that is the policy being advocated. If you (again, general you, not specific you) have a right to not be offended, then in essence you force your standards of offensive on everyone else, and can effectively prevent them from saying anything that might offend you.

But what about the reverse? Do you think everyone else should have a right to impose their standards of offensive on you? Should they be able to prevent you from saying something that you view as wholly innocent, just because it offends them?

To me, the term "offensive" is no different than loud, bright, hot, funny, and a whole host of other purely subjective terms. What might be too loud for you might not be too loud for me. What I might find funny, you don't.

Our individual value systems determine what is offensive to each of us. The way I see it, the only way to exercise a "right to not be offended" is for nothing to be said by anyone ever again, since anything anyone ever says could offend someone. That's the only way to truly not violate (what I consider to be an imaginary) right to not be offended.

Again, please don't take this response as being confrontational. It is not meant to be.

Everyone has a right to not be harassed and forced to "listen", no one has a right to muzzle someone else because he doesn't want him heard. Arguing from being "offended" is the pure emotional version of censorship.

An individual has no right to not be offended.
Rather, an individual can choose whatever they like to be offended by.

sticks and stones.....

These anti-free speech people would be offended by your logic :)

I am offended by your claim that I have offended you. I am offended by your edict that I may not speak freely, on the off-chance you won't like what I say. Run to its logical conclusion, I would not be allowed to utter even a single word. I am offended that you don't want to let me offend you, even if I should want to. I am offended that you want to be able to offend me without giving me the same right and opportunity. I am offended by your falling for this latest social-conflict gimmick.

Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. I remember that from when I was growing up, and it seemed OK then and OK now. All this political correctness is BS. No one has a right to be protected from their own emotions. Deal with it.

The Left believes they have a right to say offensively nasty things to anyone who opposes their views.
But say anything rough to libs and they get all snowflakey.
That reminds me, my most conservative of four brothers recently called the manager of his apartment complex a snowflake.
The man became SO offended.
Bwahaha!

Considering, the Dem and snowflakes can be offended if you use a gender term, or say hello, They believe they can say what they want, but those with other opinions do not have that freedom, as they had DECIDED to be offended. I still believe in the right to say what I think, no one has to listen, but I think ole Maxine is bordering on inciting violence, which is like yelling fire in a movie theater. Free speech to express your opinion, but not always to call for other to resort to violence for violence sake.

You have the right to be ignorant, but you don't have the right to use that ignorance to deprive me of my rights.

Easy to find,
https://youtu.be/fHMoDt3nSHs

Personal opinion only: Nobody has a right to not be offended.

If I offend you, you tell me what I said and why it offended you. It's then up to me to decide to apologize if I agree, or refuse to apologize if I don't agree.

Where the relationship goes from there will be different in each case.

My answer is "never". You do not have to listen to my speech, ever. You have the right and responsibility to choose, and own the consequences. Now, what if that speech is a jet engine your neighbor has that is so loud it comes on your property? Then you have a right to take aggressive response measures. There is a difference, and a lot of people think free speech means anything (look at SCOTUS and their "pay to play" decision, they equate money to speech, which is illogical). But speech has been a protected item since earlier than the US, look at the speakers corner in London (although they did sometimes arrest people there, so it wasn't quite fully protected).

search for Steve Hughes comedy routine on" be offended." What is the worst that happens if you are offended....NOTHING

That is the point! Even the feminist interviewer finally gets the hypocrisy of the question she just asked, while cognitive dissonance kicks in. She asks this question in the video at the 56:30 mark.

Laughing...my thoughts exactly!

Could be why some are so susceptible to idealogies that claim truth is meaningless.

Some just "can't handle the truth"...

It's not a "Right" not to be offended. That's the point! Being offended is supposed to wake one up, even if, per say, to know that the guy being offensive is an a hole...[not to be used as an excuse]

Maybe they are offended because sometimes the truth hurts.