No, of course not. Why should I be disposed to take an accusation of hate speech at face value? I certainly don't have any hate in my heart for people. If I say something, it's because I think it is (or at least may be) true. Whether that might potentially in some abstract way cause others to feel hate is frankly not my business.
Now, if I'm wrong about some point of fact, I am more than willing to be corrected. And that's all it should take.
If someone feels the need to go beyond merely arguing my claim is false and use the accusation of hate speech, I'm going to seriously doubt that person is intellectually serious or acting in good faith.
Nobody is accusing you of hate speech. The downvotes are accusing you of being wrong, though. You might question your position, not because it might be hateful, but because it might be wrong.
Give me some good reasons for believing that a "slightly bad opinion" and "hate speech" can be easily confused and I'll be ready to rethink my position.
Questioning our own positions is the opposite of bigotry, after all.
Your claim was that even the simple accusation of "hate speech" should be taken at face value and be cause for introspection, seemingly regardless of the circumstances.
Now here you are asking for reasons before you reevaluate your own position when we claim you are in error. Do you not see the hypocrisy?
You are welcome to expect arguments before you change your mind. You can be "innocent until proven guilty". That's all the rest of us ask. Telling others to assume fault when you yourself do not is a rather poor way to argue.
The opinion of an independent adjudicator like the platform you're on with hopefully unbiased hate speech rules should be considered evidence in a way that the bad faith arguments of the person you're arguing with is not.
That is, I should not necessarily take your accusation of hate speech at face value, because you've proven to be willing to try and use it to win an argument. But if dang said that I was doing something that broke the rules, I would be more introspective. This is, yes, technically an argument from authority, but so is basically everything in the world of social dynamics.
So the burden of proof for you and the burden of proof for hacker news as a platform may be different, but that has nothing to do with me vs. you.
So I'll repeat what the other user said: if dang@ came along and asked you to stop engaging in hateful rhetoric, would you take a moment to introspect on that, or would you first reaction be to argue and demand proof?
Mine would be to try and figure out what he was referring to, and then probably to do less of it. And indeed, when chastised by him, that's more or less what I've done.
If there was a clear accusation of hate speech on my behalf I would certainly do.
Would you?