Of all the reactions I have to stories like this, the most visceral is "How ******* dare you!" That's directed at the police, not the people making jokes. Who the hell do they think they are? Take a moment to think of the arrogance involved here. "I don't like that joke, it offends me, let's use the full force of the law to shut them, and anyone who might share dark humour, up".
Where are the comedians? Where are the left wing radicals? Where are the free speech advocates? I don't know why, but I'm still shocked by these stories and I'm scared of the day I will no longer be.
The UK is no longer a free country. This is insane. Besides, it isn t clear to whom the man with the costume was "offensive." The concert victims or the terrorists?
Mine too. Given the myriad of tasteless, humourless signs attacking women who reject gender ideology that police ignore, this is doubly disturbing. Women can be offended, ridiculed, be subject to incitement to violence and nobody goes to jail. I suspect the offence was to Islam.
The scariest part is that "intention" no longer seems to be a factor in this. Wouldn't it be crucial to know or suspect what someone's intention was in the first place? And talk it over like grown ups?
That aside, feelings of being offended are hard to quantify or proof. Last week I transitioned into a F2F bio transwoman called Euphoria Boner. Some people on Twitter took offense at my name, but it's my bloody name and it's valid and very inspiring. I felt incredibly offended by that. Who would win in court?
Not to mention that some people go well out of their way to feel offended. It's impossible to legislate feelings.
ngl... I laughed out loud too - before I'd read your next sentence/ confession ! The sheer po-faced 'literalness' of people who don't get that it's clever, witty, and funny - and that he doesn't mean it literally - is quite flabbergasting. Your example from John Cleese nails it. Perhaps it's an 'age thing'; isn't that what Cleese et al brought into mainstream comedy - seeing that the innapropriate and the mundane/ ordinary can be very funny?
Consider some number, X, of British residents. If X people all agreed in advance to commit this same "crime", all on the same day, there would be some level of safety in numbers. And it would make an important point.
So how high would X need to be for me to join in? I'd certainly do it with 100,000 others. What about 5000? Probably. Maybe even just 100, or 10. I really don't know.
(Of course, everyone would have to promise in advance, on video, that they'd go ahead with it. And forfeit a deposit if they didn't. A kind of crowd-sourced civil disobedience.)
In Canada TF’s can compete in wowen’s rugby. I would love to see and find it hilarious if all the women , all 15 of them were substituted with 15 males and lined up to play a team of women.
This is all permitted, but would highlight the insanity of permitting men to compete in women’s sport.
NB. We would allow the guys to paint their nails and wear heels. Sorry, I have a warped sense of humour.
My former husband was a footballer who played on the date of the deadly Bradford stadium fire in May 1985 . 56 people died . A couple of days afterwards a well known Northern comedian on stage cracked a very tasteless joke about fire victims . Nothing happened. I believe even the comedian regretted it
On risky / risqué humour tackling dark subjects, a comment I saw just now on the exploding Hezbollah pagers, which had the most likes: 'From the Liver to the Knee.'
I'm sorry, nobody has the right to not be offended. There may be genuine and legitimate offence taken at the thought of those poor children and adults being killed in the most disgusting way, but this was clearly nothing other than a dark joke, at a private event. The law is clearly the issue, criminalising dark humour because it happens to become part of the online world is insane, how can we have it now that someone may be jailed for 2 years for a dark joke, and yet a disgusting BBC peadophile manages walks free for court with a slap on the wrist? Nah, sorry, I'm not fucking having it I'm afraid.
Of all the reactions I have to stories like this, the most visceral is "How ******* dare you!" That's directed at the police, not the people making jokes. Who the hell do they think they are? Take a moment to think of the arrogance involved here. "I don't like that joke, it offends me, let's use the full force of the law to shut them, and anyone who might share dark humour, up".
Where are the comedians? Where are the left wing radicals? Where are the free speech advocates? I don't know why, but I'm still shocked by these stories and I'm scared of the day I will no longer be.
The UK is no longer a free country. This is insane. Besides, it isn t clear to whom the man with the costume was "offensive." The concert victims or the terrorists?
My first thought, he was probably shopped by someone who believes his outfit was islamophobic.
Mine too. Given the myriad of tasteless, humourless signs attacking women who reject gender ideology that police ignore, this is doubly disturbing. Women can be offended, ridiculed, be subject to incitement to violence and nobody goes to jail. I suspect the offence was to Islam.
Given that 'He has also relocated and changed his name', your first thought seems highly probable.
The scariest part is that "intention" no longer seems to be a factor in this. Wouldn't it be crucial to know or suspect what someone's intention was in the first place? And talk it over like grown ups?
That aside, feelings of being offended are hard to quantify or proof. Last week I transitioned into a F2F bio transwoman called Euphoria Boner. Some people on Twitter took offense at my name, but it's my bloody name and it's valid and very inspiring. I felt incredibly offended by that. Who would win in court?
Not to mention that some people go well out of their way to feel offended. It's impossible to legislate feelings.
ngl... I laughed out loud too - before I'd read your next sentence/ confession ! The sheer po-faced 'literalness' of people who don't get that it's clever, witty, and funny - and that he doesn't mean it literally - is quite flabbergasting. Your example from John Cleese nails it. Perhaps it's an 'age thing'; isn't that what Cleese et al brought into mainstream comedy - seeing that the innapropriate and the mundane/ ordinary can be very funny?
Had he dressed himself in images of child pornography the potential sentence would be far lighter.
The last sentence succinctly encapsulates it all. As I assume it was intended to. Completely agree with your view.
This got me wondering how brave/selfless I am.
Consider some number, X, of British residents. If X people all agreed in advance to commit this same "crime", all on the same day, there would be some level of safety in numbers. And it would make an important point.
So how high would X need to be for me to join in? I'd certainly do it with 100,000 others. What about 5000? Probably. Maybe even just 100, or 10. I really don't know.
(Of course, everyone would have to promise in advance, on video, that they'd go ahead with it. And forfeit a deposit if they didn't. A kind of crowd-sourced civil disobedience.)
In Canada TF’s can compete in wowen’s rugby. I would love to see and find it hilarious if all the women , all 15 of them were substituted with 15 males and lined up to play a team of women.
This is all permitted, but would highlight the insanity of permitting men to compete in women’s sport.
NB. We would allow the guys to paint their nails and wear heels. Sorry, I have a warped sense of humour.
Liked. But do not like this dangerous road UK is on. 😠😠
This is why my mind is turning to moving away from the UK, so that I might mock the Government with impunity.
My former husband was a footballer who played on the date of the deadly Bradford stadium fire in May 1985 . 56 people died . A couple of days afterwards a well known Northern comedian on stage cracked a very tasteless joke about fire victims . Nothing happened. I believe even the comedian regretted it
Yes, it’s one thing to point out that a joke is tasteless, even to boycott their shows, another to criminalise them.
On risky / risqué humour tackling dark subjects, a comment I saw just now on the exploding Hezbollah pagers, which had the most likes: 'From the Liver to the Knee.'
Who created the clown?
I'm sorry, nobody has the right to not be offended. There may be genuine and legitimate offence taken at the thought of those poor children and adults being killed in the most disgusting way, but this was clearly nothing other than a dark joke, at a private event. The law is clearly the issue, criminalising dark humour because it happens to become part of the online world is insane, how can we have it now that someone may be jailed for 2 years for a dark joke, and yet a disgusting BBC peadophile manages walks free for court with a slap on the wrist? Nah, sorry, I'm not fucking having it I'm afraid.