I did.

I think the only way to disagree with Oliver is that you think Barnaby acted like a professional politician in this case. He completely didn't.

This is pretty much a no-brainer to handle politically. PR rule #1 is don't say in a public interview, "We're gonna kill/euthanize/terminate/murder/wax/put down/exterminate/execute/massacre/slay his dogs."

I'm not a politician, and even I know that. Even when he got his way, go on twitter like a vindictive prick? Really, what is he, a 5 year old?!

Dude, did you watch the video?

"*He's not wrong to be angry*, but the problem is he began to lose the moral high ground."

He even explained why you can't just smuggle your pets in.

He was pretty clear Depp shouldn't have done what he did. He was just making fun of someone handling the other side in what can only be described as a politically piss poor way.

If you want to get harsh public opposition for doing the right thing, the list for ways to do that would have to include killing defenseless puppies who did nothing wrong (in this case their owner did), saying publicly the puppies in what would be our equivalent in the US should "fuck off", personally attack an interviewer who was confronting him about how much of a douche he was being, and thin glibly celebrating his win on twitter like a complete prick.

If he was trying to piss off as many people as possible for doing the right thing, he should have just asked, "WWHD - What would Hitler do?"

With all that said, this wasn't Oliver's "serious" part of the show. This was for entertainment purposes mainly, you glassy eyed muppet donkey!

I guess he's also slightly child molest-y?

We do disagree. I would suggest you're confusing racist humor with racial humor.

Racist humor means you are attempting to convey an idea about one race's superiority over another. Racial humor is topical humor that concerns race, which includes mocking racism. There's a difference.

Another example of racial humor that's not racist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF1NUposXVQ

He's expressing his opinion that it's BS to tip toe around the "N-word" by using that phrase instead or others that are similar, just say it and be done with it, and that words don't mean what they traditionally mean depending on the context. He never expresses any idea that one race is better than another despite basing a bit around a racial slur.

Another favorite of mine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWdVwt2deY4

The whole bit centered around Randal, the village idiot, not realizing a term was a racial slur, and suddenly realizes his grandmother was actually pretty racist. There's a litany of racial slurs in that bit, but never once was the bit expressing the idea that one race is superior to another. It even has Randal accusing Dante of being racist because Dante told him not to attempt to reclaim the racial slur against black people because he's white.

It's hilarious, racial, but NOT racist.

One last tip, if I'm frustrated, and I hyperbolically saying I'm going to kill someone, and you correct me, don't be surprised if it changes to literal*.

* That's a joke.

I'm not thinking in binary. There's gray area.

There's no debate about the fact that virtually everyone is somewhat racist. This isn't a debate about that.

I'm saying making any joke that is related to race isn't racist every single time, just as avoiding saying anything that could be construed as racist doesn't mean you're absolved of being a racist.

A joke that is actually racist is expressing an idea or feeling of one race's superiority over another directly or indirectly through humor.

Ironically making racial statements that I absolutely don't believe is NOT racist because I'm not expressing racial superiority. I'm pointing out the idiocy of racism and poking fun at racists.

About the random black person overhearing my joking, yeah, they'd be offended. Thank you for making my point. They'd be offended precisely because they heard those words out of context.

If you saw a grown man say this to a little girl sternly:

"...go cry me a river..."

You might be inclined to think he was acting like a jerk to her. But what if you had heard....

"It's a figure of speech. If you ever for example hear someone say 'go cry me a river', they don't actually mean one person's tears can be that much water."

It's the SAME THING. That man did nothing wrong, but you heard him say 'go cry me a river' to a little girl without context, it may look bad, when it's not.

Just because someone may get offended by hearing something out of context, it is not automatically something wrong with what that person said.

Even the dreaded N-word... Are you telling me that it was wrong and racist for Mark Twain to use it in The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin?

The one thing I would agree with you is that you also have to be mindful of context before saying the joke. Those racial jokes I make? I'm not going to say those in situations where there's a high likelihood that those statements could be overheard and misinterpreted. If I wanted to tell those to a black person, I'd make REALLY sure they knew I didn't actually believe the racial statement.

And you know what? Usually, it turns out fine. I've played that Louis CK thing for a black friend of mine, but I laid down the context first that it's Patrice O'Neal, etc. And they laughed hysterically at it.

Richard Pryor is considered by most comics as being a pioneer in using comedy to shed light and provide insights into racial tensions, etc., and actually is credited by many people far beyond just comedians to have helped further the cause of fighting against racism.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5048430

His use of the N-word wasn't racist. The use of the word was communicating that he was not Bill Cosby, not that there was anything wrong with Cosby's comedy, but it was to signal that he was talking more about reality, including the rough edges especially about racial topics, and there wasn't anything wrong with that either.

The kill somebody thing. You ever seen someone say something like, "My roommate AGAIN left all the lights on! I'm gonna kill him!"? My point there is you shouldn't call the cops because you think he's homicidal.

You tell me how this is racist...

Actual racist: "Black people can't be leaders."
Obama overhears it and responds: "Yeah, f'ing Obama!"

I'm pretty sure that despite Obama "playing around with" language that could be construed as racist, what he said would not be considered racist by pretty much anyone. It would be pretty damn funny actually because clearly Obama wouldn't sincerely say that about himself, nor black people, and it also pokes fun at that racist statement by pointing out there's a black person who is President of the United States, so clearly black people can be leaders.

Change Obama to David Duke, and yeah, it's now probably racist, and it's not funny at all.

Or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gHz-l40FNQ

Louis CK is saying that in response to Patrice O'Neal's factual account for the origin of a racial slur against Jewish people. Louis CK was very good friends with the late O'Neal, and he's not racist. O'Neal knew that. If you listen to the video, as soon as Louis CK starts his bit before anything that's faux-racist comes out, everyone is immediately laughing, including O'Neal, because they know he's about to insincerely say something horrifically racist to the face of a black person that had he been sincere, it would have been absolutely horrifying, but that's the point - he's absolutely not sincere. That's why it's absolutely hilarious and not racist because everybody knows Louis CK doesn't actually mean that at all.

Intent and context means a lot. When you take that context away, (other things said in that conversation, who is saying it, your knowledge about what they believe, previous conversations that might be references, etc.), the words can appear to be extremely racist, even when they're not.

How do I react when someone jokes about something that involves race? It completely depends on the context, and what I interpret the intent of it is. If I'm joking around generally with my friends like the above, and they say something like, "You know why black people smell? So blind people can hate them, too." We're in a situation we're joking, we already have had actual sincere conversations about race, I know he isn't racist, I know he actually believes that's 100% not true. How do I react? If I found the joke funny, I'd laugh because I'm taking it to mean he's making fun of what some racists believe because I know for a fact he doesn't believe that.

My father-in-law is a different story, because I know the guy, I know he's like a 5-6 on the racist scale, so I don't know if he actually believes black people generally stink or not, and generally inclined to believe he actually believes most or all black people smell. At the very least, I'm uneasy. I'm certainly not going to laugh at it. I'd probably show some kind of disapproval at the least. Completely different context because now, and here's the key, that may have been intended as an actual racist statement about black people. Once you go there, that's not funny.

So, if you consider me slightly racist because I make ironic racist statements as jokes, which I mean as mocking towards racists themselves, rock on. But you better be consistent in your outrage when someone exaggerates they're gonna kill someone when they get frustrated over something insignificant as an example. After all, that's playing around with words that are murderous and violent, so they must be a psychopath or homicidal!

Please note, that was sarcasm.

I waited tables while in college. At least half the servers were racist against black people and any other racial group that stereotypically tipped poorly, including black servers.

And I absolutely never avoided a table or gave someone poorer service because of their race, and I never had "racist banter" with people as a means to complain about them. If I ever did make any racist joke about that, it was in mocking fashion against anyone who actually acted in a racist manner.

There's no justification for racism, period. And yet, you just tried to make one.

The only thing I will say is just because blatantly racist jokes are said, that doesn't automatically mean someone is racist.

A friend and I will literally try to say the most god awful racist crap to each other about black people partly to make fun of racism and to just be so shockingly horrifying that it's funny. We also make horrifyingly sexist jokes, I make jokes about Canada (he lives there), and he makes 'Murica jokes. We even make horrifyingly awful "yo mamma" jokes. But the key is we absolutely positively know for a fact that neither of us believe any of it. If our chat logs only were cataloged and examined, we'd appear to be members of the KKK who regularly fornicated with each other's mothers while repeatedly demanding women make us sandwiches.

I don't know enough about the specifics of this incident if this notion is applicable or not. However, with everything going on with racial issues and policing, it's certainly amazingly tone deaf at best.

My oldest brother fancies himself as a guitar player, and EVERYTIME he covers something, this is one of the three songs he plays, and wants someone to sing with him. It's basically the same as me picking up a bass guitar and playing Tom Sawyer, except I stopped doing that 30 years ago because nobody wants to hear you play the same thing everytime you play.

Now everytime he does it, people loudly groan in disgust. lol

He got me lol

Where do you come up with this crap?

Democrats did not denounce God. WTF lol

You also don't unilaterally decide what is and isn't constitutional, nor do you get to claim your side has exclusive rights as the constitution defenders. You get that, right? Of course not.

Neither the Democrats nor Republicans stand for murder, perversion, and debauchery. Wow!

There are corrupt politicians in both parties. There is also systemic corruption within our political system that should be addressed. There's no question about that.

But wow, are you sure the tin foil you're putting around your head isn't laced with lead?!

You make words like caveman!

YOU are the one being asinineningly stupid with ideologically rigid statements that simply do not match historical fact. I don't consider governmental involvement in society inherently good or bad. It can hurt; it can help. I never claimed any utopia whenever government gets involved. There are no easy answers. You said the private sector is ALWAYS better. That is absolutely ridiculous, and easily refutable.

You just said before that if you are dependent on government, than you have no self pride, and weren't brought up well. So I blew that idiotic argument out of the water by simply proving how you are dependent on government. Now you change your thesis to this chestnut - it's only good for government to do anything if it corrects a horrific problem within the private sector.

And this is also total utter complete bullcrap.

Tell me - what change in the last 150 years made the biggest change in literacy rates in the US? Compulsory education laws in conjunction with the formation of the public school system. Absolutely, without question, this is the case. You can complain all you want about the public school system today, but there is no denying the impact they had on making society more skilled and knowledgeable, and they were governmental institutions by enlarge, and still are today. This came about during the banning of child labor, but it goes well beyond outlawing gross negligence in the private sector, yet, it was absolutely a big net positive for society.

See? It's really not hard to find examples to kill delusions formed by ideological rigidness. You just have to not be so insanely blind, that you miss obvious historical examples of these kinds of things.

And once again, I NEVER said governmental intervention is always good. You however DID say that private sector solutions are always better, when they clearly aren't always better, and that anyone who depends on the government for anything lacks self pride.

And you're dead wrong. Even your analysis of the ACA is idiotic. If Obamacare is government overreach, and government overreach is what causes prices to go up, why then did cost increases slow as ACA came online? Why do so many countries with larger government overreach in the form of universal single payer health care have lower costs than we do? Mind you that I am NOT saying their health systems are better, but it's an absolute fact they cost less than ours.

You're full of crap!

You rely on the government for national defense, you idiot. You know why? Because in the real world you can't defend yourself from foreign armies and terrorists. You depend upon the police for protection no matter how many guns you might have.

Where the disconnect here is the idiotic notion that we don't need government for things like health care regulation. The reality is ACA didn't just come out of the blue. It came from an obvious systemic problem within the overwhelmingly market controlled system.

You can keep mindlessly babbling all you want that government intervention is always bad, but that is turning an idiotically blind eye to basic US history, where there are ridiculous number of examples the government getting involved to effectively regulate industries are undeniably good, like the Meat Inspection Act, Food and Drug Administration, making it illegal to put lead in paint, regulations for car safety, regulations on buildings so you can't for example put asbestos in the walls, requiring labels on food so you know what ingredients are in them, so you could avoid nuts if you have a deadly nut allergy.

You know why? Because, despite your delusions, you can't inspect all your food, wear a mask when you walk into every building you go into to protect from asbestos, know that the tires you are buying don't have an excessively high chance of blowing off your car and killing you, ensure the air you breathe doesn't have too much lead in it, etc. etc. etc.

You're dependent on the government for all that, and it has massively improved your quality of life, and it has nothing to do with your self pride or dignity, so cut the utter bullcrap.