Just catching up. It'll be no surprise that I tend to agree with Jim on the points covered above.

Jumping back to my own last interactions - this strikes me as a fairly contradictory comment, Dave:

'No. Sorry. Pure cop out. All you have done is passed the responsibility elsewhere. I shall rephrase the question. What lyrics should cross the line to get you disciplined at work, kicked out of a political party or censured at a music venue? There are the obvious ones that have been mentioned. There are lyrics that are offensive to many other people. Should they all be banned or censored? And, yet again, who decides?'

Surely the 'cop-out' is to reject the challenge of trying to locate the line at all?

The 'lines' I refer to above aren't accidental or arbitrary. On the issue of racial hatred, we're fortunate to have laws that are broadly in alignment with prevailing public opinion and which offer a degree of protection to those most likely to be harmed - either directly by hate speech consciously targeted at them, or by the pernicious environment that casual racism allows to flourish.

Feeding into the law - but going further - are a set of social norms that form a part of the same consensus. Of course, we use these to relate to each other (but they can slip their moorings on the internet between strangers; though of course I can't be certain, I'm cautiously confident that Steve *wouldn't* be boldly writing the n-word in letters to his doctor or dentist). Basically, they help to establish what sort of speech is unacceptable or unreasonable in our interactions, beyond what is not actually illegal.

It's also according to these norms that things like the disciplinary processes of the workplace and mainstream membership bodies are oriented.

These norms undergo a certain degree of flux, but over time (and barring major sudden realignments in either direction) they tend to incrementally shift towards greater protections for groups that might be subject to prejudice. Likewise, this social contract often shifts towards increasing empathy for those same groups, and appreciation of the reasons to not flaunt words that - whatever the intention - can cause real hurt.

So - when tackling the vexed question of, 'where is the line to be drawn?' - pointing to these sorts of procedures isn't 'copping out', it's navigating by way-markers established by a social consensus that we all play a part in.

Some may wish to go further (and may get there over time, as sensibilities are continuously recalibrated); some may reject this line. But, in the absence of universal agreement between individuals (which, as we see here, is difficult!), the social consensus in as far as it can be discerned - ie, in the policies of the organisations that we all help to shape the culture of - seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable guide.