Mick Golden Blood said:
FitScotGaymer said:
The whole "freedom of speech" thing is a fallacious arguement.
Your Right to Freedom of Speech does not override my Right to Live Free from Harrassment and Prejudice.
Sorry guys n girls but it doesn't.
The way it works in the UK is you can say and do whatever the crap you like, as long as you aren't bothering or upsetting anyone else. The moment you do, bam, the law will drop on you like a ton of bricks.
Oh.
So, if I asked for a turkey sandwich from a women cashier at a restaurant, and she screams "SEXIST OMG" and starts fake crying(or even real crying) I can be arrested because I "upset" someone?
-snip-
I'll be sure to become a citizen of the UK and say the president upset me so I can have him arrested just for the hell of it.
I don't know if it's the same in the states tho...
Nope. Thank god.
There was no homophobic message in this anyways.
It was just a really dark joke.
For fuck's sake.
I don't know why I am responding to you because you are patently being obtuse, difficult, and ridiculous.
Clearly I was simplifying the law.
Of course that wouldn't happen because if she was working and you asked her for a sandwich and she started shrieking about nothing of course you wouldnt be arrested.
Why? Because as contrary to what she is saying you aren't actually bothering her; and she would likely be arrested for Breach of the Peace.
If you are done perhaps we can have an actual and serious debate?
EDIT:
There is a fine line between funny and offensive.
If you guys are familiar with british comedians, then Jimmy Carr is someone who is often irreverent and "rude" but without crossing the line into actually outright offensive. And if you compare him with another irreverent comedian, Frankie Boyle, who IMO often DOES cross the line and say stuff that is just plain offensive rather than funny.
It's a hard act to balance, and obviously this cartoonist crossed the line so much with this comic that the line is a dot to him.
For me the problem is less that it was offensive, because as I said the aforementioned comedian Frankie Boyle often says just outright offensive shit, the problem was more that he and the paper didn't put their hands up to it and say "we are very sorry. we were aiming for irreverent unpolitically correct humour, and clearly got it wrong."
If they had done that, I'd totally be like "yeh guys get over it."
Unfortunately they haven't. They have released like 3 "apology" articles where they don't actually apologise or take any responsibility for their cock up.
We have all had moments where we said something that in our head was funny but when it came out was just stupidly rude or offensive. Everyone has done it. To me this comic was one of these moments for the cartoonist and the editing staff.
The key is owning up to it which they did not do.
Was the comic offensive? Yeh it was.
Was it a sackable offense? No I really don't agree that it was. That is had they apologised and took responsibility for their moment of stupid.
Not taking responsibility shows a lack of maturity and professionalism; and shows that these folk don't have what it takes to work in the field of journalism. And that is why the cartoonist and the editors deserve to be sacked IMO.
Not because of what they did (which was just stupid) but because of their poor handling of the situation and their blatant refusal to accept responsibility for, or learn anything from the whole thing. And that's why this whole situation is so offensive to me, and why I think that the cartoonist and editos of that paper have to go.