@enoch
I admit I totally dont get the performance itself and dont understand the context, but then freedom of speech and whatever makes anyone happy and so on. The thought that this might be some sort of stand up humor did enter my mind, but I was not sure when to laugh.

What I find entertaining is the juxtaposition of right wing agenda and a guy dressed up and acting like that.

I totally dont know what the recipe is for dealing with muslim bigots who feel the need to be insulted every time someone criticises or makes fun of them. They have a weird way of having their misplaced pride cloud their reasoning. Religion.

So really it's more "You either allow ALMOST every type of speech (with some very narrow exceptions) or you give up ALMOST every type of speech (with some very narrow exceptions)".

Excellent, we have agreed that freedom of speech (like everything in the grown-up world) is not absolute.

Now we're just arguing over WHAT the exceptions should be.

Personally, I have no problem with adding things like inciting violence against minorities (aka hate speech) to that list.

It's very important to distinguish between criticism of ideologies and attacking members of said ideology.

Saying "I think the westboro baptist church is a disgusting organisation" is not the same as saying "you should punch WBC members in the face".

Mhm, would have been awesome with a person like Clinton as president who bullied Bernie out of the race and then Bernie kissed her ass, as if nothing happened, pretty much selling his soul to the devil. Much better than Trump. Mhm. For sure.

Not to mention Trump isnt even president yet.

What really makes me angry, is seeing such MASSIVE and unbelievably disgusting hypocrisy from the "good guys". In the last few months you guys completely changed my opinion about humanity and the world that we are living in. Congratulations.

Yeah, I know how allergic you guys react to un-PC stuff and people who try to make reality clear to you. So, you can save your replies.

But I agree. Grow the fuck up and fix your system, dont allow corrupt... individuals and whole god damn parties to speak for you, dont vote for them, dont support them in any way, speak up against lying media campaigns, even if they are against someone you dont like or for someone you support, and then maybe we can talk about real freedom of speech, democracy and human rights. Until then NOBODY, N O B O D Y with at least half a brain will take you seriously and will only see you as what you really are.

I've been watching a lot of anti-SJW stuff lately, mostly because I am a rabid supporter of freedom of speech and I don't like the authoritarian direction a lot of the most vocal (and yes, it's a minority) of SJW's seem to be calling for.

And you know the really hilarious thing? Gays like Milo Yiannopoulous (who has to be the most conflicted gay guy on the planet), or trans like Blaire White? They are accepted. Milo drinks the kool aid a little (okay, he bought the company and consumes their entire output), but Blaire seems fairly centered, and they are accepted by fucking right wing college guys who you would think would be the first ones to yell "OMG get away faggot" or some such shit.

People are still bigoted and I have a sneaking suspicion they always will be in certain aspects, but sometimes tolerance comes from the most unlikely of places. Maybe it's acceptance due to ideological alignment, or perhaps the current generation has the exposure such that gay/trans etc isn't really that big a thing anymore, I don't know.

ps. I think Trump cashed in on riding the Bernie wave of discontent with the establishment, mostly tantrums just make you look like a dumb cunt. ; )

pps. I think my greatest disappointment with the post Trump tantrums is that the total electoral turnout is somewhere around 30-40% of eligible voters in the US? So it's not even a quorum picking the leader of what is still pretty much the biggest and most dangerous nation in the world. There's tonnes of blame to go around here unfortunately, and part of that goes to people who don't give a shit either way, something the DNC really has to own. I think Bernie would have seen record voter turnouts, whereas Clint-bot... /facepalm

Yep, keep throwing tantrums. Yelling insults and stomping around like a 2 year old worked for Trump, why shouldn't it work for the left..? X D

And as for "Most of me just thinks that liberals or SJWs or whatever you want to call them, just need to stop being so fucking meek and apologising for being right.", give me a fucking break...

You mean those same meek people featured in thousands of hours of documented video assaulting people, screaming at people, demanding that people lose their rights to, oh I don't know, little things like the freedom of speech, expression, scientific inquiry etc...

I disagree with Trump and his hardcore supporters 100%, but they not only have the right to say whatever they want, they have the right to believe in whatever they want, and I'll defend those rights. You (and the rest of the SJW twats) want to set aside those rights? You don't even get that you're cutting off your nose to spite your face...

Seriously, you even read that post back before you hit submit? How fucking entitled do you need to be that you think democracy should be thrown out just because you don't like the result?

I agree with Oliver here, but I think he sorta missed an opportunity to talk about confirming exactly who our US Constitutional protections should apply to.

It has been all-to-common in the past decade-plus for people / bodies in our government to "justify" questionable actions by saying that they were performed on people who aren't US citizens. Detain and torture suspected (or *known*) terrorists indefinitely without trial? That's fine, they aren't citizens. Send drone strikes against people outside of US borders that we suspect may be aiding terrorists, even though collateral damage is likely? Meh, they aren't Americans. Spy on people, record and intercept their communications to the greatest extent possible without a warrant or probable cause? Never mind -- we're not doing it to our own citizens (even though we now know that even that justification is an outright lie).

It would be nice for the government to take a stand and state that ALL of the protections that are granted by our constitution and have made our country what it is should actually be considered universal and binding in terms of how our government interacts with ALL people, not just US citizens.

Freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, fair trial, no unreasonable searches and seizures, etc. etc. Consistently and universally applied whenever the government has any interaction with any human being on the planet -- inside or outside of US soil, and whether that person is a US Citizen or not.

I suppose it would take a constitutional amendment to codify that. That would require 2/3 support in congress -- so I won't hold my breath. But here is where a president with true leadership could step up and say that whether there is an official amendment codifying that or not, every government office under his (or her) command should behave as though that was law. All the 3-letter agencies, the military, etc. I think that would get the ball rolling and make an amendment possible on down the line.

Our constitutional protections are arguably what made our country great. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by proving that to the rest of the world by actually standing by the courage of our own convictions.

People like Joe Walsh seem to be the worst possible scenario for examples of freedom of speech.

Damn I hate when people think that freedom of speech means you can't be moderated.

Fer fucks sake. Freedom of speech means the GOVERNMENT can't enact LAWS that stop you from saying whatever you want. I can erase whatever you say on my forum and you have no recourse. Why? because THAT would tread on MY Freedom of Speech.

/rant

Consider then that there ARE actually exceptions to total 'freedom of speech'. You cannot, for instance, yell "fire" in a crowded theater if there's no fire, or incite a riot. Speech that is clearly dangerous with no other purpose is not protected.

The crux of the matter is 'shall not infringe' vs shall not infringe - unless <name exception>'.

If you obey that law literally (constitution is law after all), then most prerequisites to gun ownership are non-starters.

Historically, legislators break that [constitutional] law here and there, but the absoluteness of the statement makes it hard to put up much in the way of hurdles.

As an aside, statements in the bill of rights are terse and without exception for a reason. When you enshrine exceptions, you allow for recategorization of legal constructs as subsets of those exceptions. Which in effect neutralizes the protection, and makes it meaningless.

So, if there was "freedom of speech - unless it causes distress" : then anything that people want to silence would simply be judged as distressing, and that would be the end of freedom of speech (you'd only need people hearing the case to consider it distressing in their opinion). The lack of exceptions empowers people to more easily argue against laws that infringe on those rights - given that there is no real 'easy-out' for infringing laws.

The NRA is the force that guards the 2nd amendment, backed by the people that want it protected (gun owners and gun industry alike). It's their place to push for the strongest 2nd amendment possible. That's their rightful purpose. Other entities can argue against them. We have an adversarial legal system, and that's the nature of the beast.

I'm confident that if there was an amendment protecting the right to drive a car on public roads, then driver's ed requirements would be under legal challenge, too.

-scheherazade

You spent that entire dialogue pretending he said everyone and all behavior is equally preferable / moral, when he was actually saying that fundamental human rights are fundamental - we don't have freedom of speech because all speech is fantastic, we don't have freedom of religion because all religion is fantastic - we have those rights in spite of shitty speech like yours and in spite of shitty religion. Then you declared victory because you were victorious in not listening to him.

Why do you think that makes anyone the least bit interested in being 'next' to engage you?

@ChaosEngine

i think we agree more than we disagree.

example:
me:
"freedom of speech is the right to speak freely.
to espouse our opinions,philosophy and yes,our bigotry and prejudice,with legal immunity,but NOT social impunity."

you:
"As I've said before, the "dangers of PC" are vastly outweighed by the dangers of people using the so-called dangers of PC as an excuse for racist, sexist bullshit. This is how it works. They get to say their shit and we get to call them on it."

i was not accusing you of holding an extreme left ideology.i was simply pointing to the dangers of controlling speech.

in fact,just so you know i was paying attention,one of my favorite lines from you in regards to PC is "don't be a dick".

short and to the point.

the fault in our exchange may reside with me.
i am not "anti PC".
i am against those who hold a far more radical view than you do in regards to language,words,safe spaces,trigger warnings etc etc.who seek to demand,through political machinations,the legal impositions of certain words having legal consequences.

which is censorship.

i realize you are not part of this small (but growing) radical band of merry offendees,and you have stated so publicly and often.

my guilt lies in the fact that i will tag you to make a larger point.i basically used your comment to expand on the growing dangers of a small cadre of radical lefties who seek to control how we interact.

the reason i did this,and have in the past,is due to my perceptions of you being far more thicker skinned than most.when we are talking about people being offended easily,i need someone with a thicker skin to interact with to further my point.

that and i think you are decent dude.who is reasonable and rational.so even if there is a bit of assumption and presumption,you wont go full blown rage machine on me,and allow for a decent conversation.

so my apologies my man.
i tend to use your comments on PC to expand on a point that i find concerning.

@ChaosEngine

i do not see anyone here defending anything.

now maybe we can view stephen's commentary "dismissive and belittling" as @entr0py pointed out,but i think the deeper issue was prefaced quite succinctly by stephen in his characterization of american,and western societies,as being "infantilized".

where words have become the final bastion of totality in communication and are judged strictly on a word by word basis.so much so that some on the left have been pushing harder and harder to have certain words removed from our lexicon,because they represent negative thoughts/feelings/actions or they may represent a trauma,or horrific violent memory for some people.

but this is the wrong approach.
excising words will not erase those feelings/thoughts/emotions.this will just force people to come up or use different terminology to express those feelings/thoughts.actions that once had words to at least to attempt to express those horrors and/or offenses.

which will just equate to a whole new slew of verbiage being found offensive and in dire need of being castrated from our collective vocabulary.

yet the left (extreme left i grant) appears hell bent on not only attempting to control speech but to also judge those who DO use speech that they find offensive.

this is censorship with prejudice and to claim otherwise is the lie.

just look at your first comment.
you "used" to like stephen fry's opinion,until he became callous and dismissive with what?

words.

but do you REALLY think his attitude and compassion towards those who have suffered emotional trauma is truly dismissive?

well..i do not think so.i have spoken to you enough times to have a modicum of understandings in regards to you,as a person,that you have far more depth of character.

yet it is the WORDS that have hung you up.

look man,words are inert.they are things that are only given life,meaning and context when we add our own subjectivity to them.

words are inadequate.they will ALWAYS be inadequate.
which is why we admire and praise those of us who have a command of words that can reach into our own understandings and extract meaning in a way that blossoms like a spring flower and can create worlds in which we can play,and even share with other people.

i am intimately aware of this deficiency.i do not have an economy of words,and only on rare occasions can i relay,convey and express with ANY form of reductionism.

i struggle to express not only my opinion,but the intent,humanity and compassion of my opinion.

if the extreme left gets their way,the tools we have to express ourselves becomes lesser.

and in the process,WE become lesser.because the tools for dissent,debate,discussion and even..ironically..to expose the more venal and bigoted of our society,will have been reduced to words that offend nobody.

there is danger here,and no good will come from it.no matter if the intent sounds just and the goal compassionate.

freedom of speech is the right to speak freely.
to espouse our opinions,philosophy and yes,our bigotry and prejudice,with legal immunity,but NOT social impunity.

so while we have a right to free speech.
we do not have a right to not be offended,and maybe we need to be offended sometimes.to shake us from our own self-induced apathy and our adoration of digital hallucinations.

so when the westboro baptist church says the most hateful,vitriolic and disgusting admonishments,all in the name of god.
we can be offended by them,and then ridicule them relentlessly.

would stripping words from the english language prevent this group from espousing their own brand of hate?

of course not.they would just find new words.

so what do we do then?
make words illegal?
criminally libel?

so don't judge mr fry too harshly.
he is just pointing to the dangers of controlling speech and the new trend of the perpetually offended.

the extreme right attempts to control morality,and there is serious danger in that practice.
the extreme left attempts to control how we communicate,and hence how we interact,and there is great danger in that as well.

Ah the good old days... Like the great depression, two world wars, TV dinners, women's right to vote, racism, the cold war, disco, perms, MTV's The Real World.

What about freedom of speech? That would make for a pretty good day.

I believe that you are correct, and Carr was not actually fined or otherwise legally penalized for his remarks.

However, it *was* a possibility that he would be, according to the first line in the article I linked to in my first post in this thread:
"Jimmy Carr could face sanctions for making a joke about dwarves during an appearance on BBC1’s The One Show."

I believe that I read other news articles that suggested that was a possibility at the time it happened, but I can't find anything with a real quick search now.

Going outside of the scope of that single incident, I definitely have seen quite a few reports of things that I would consider to be fairly trivial incidents like this being looked at by the UK government as "hate speech" and therefore potentially subject to "fines, imprisonment, or both" (according to that wikipedia article).

Samples from a quick search include a politician being arrested for quoting a passage about Islam from a book by Winston Churchill, a young man who was jailed for 12 weeks because of "some offensive Facebook posts making derogatory comments about a missing child" (it doesn't say what the posts were exactly; I am not saying I would defend his posts but I don't think anyone should go to jail for being an idiot and running their mouth on the internet), and another young man who was fined for saying that "all soldiers should die and go to hell". Plenty more incidents beyond those as well, it seems.

So while Jimmy Carr didn't end up actually facing any legal repercussions for his joke, I think it is not far fetched at all to suggest that he might have (and there seems to be some evidence that legal repercussions enacted by the government were being considered in that particular incident).

That is what seems crazy / wrong to me. That is NOT freedom of speech; it is freedom of benign speech, with an increasingly narrow view of what speech is benign.

I'm 100% OK with their being "consequences" for Jimmy Carr for his joke. But the government shouldn't be involved in that (and again, to be fair they DID end up staying out of it in that case). The consequences that I think are fine include:

* Ofcom or the BBC passing on some/all of any fines that the government levels against them on to Carr (ie., IF they get fined for breaking broadcast decency standards, make Carr foot the some or all of the bill for that).

* Ofcom or the BBC electing not to invite Carr to appear on any more programs if they are concerned about preventing fines / protecting their image / whatever. They are a business, they gotta look out for themselves.

* Individual people who were offended by Carr's joke boycotting programs that he appears on, refusing to pay to attend his live performances, etc. Obviously. If you don't like what he has to say, you are are of course not obliged to continue to listen to him.

Anything beyond those consequences is going too far in a society that claims it is democratic and free, in my opinion.