A very serious, politically correct, comedian.

I disagree.

This was in England, but (from HERE):
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“I tried to write the shortest joke possible,” he (Jimmy Carr) said. “So, I wrote a two-word joke which was: ‘Dwarf shortage’. It’s just so I could pack more jokes into the show.”

Carr added: “If you’re a dwarf and you’re offended by that, grow up.”

Ofcom has received two complaints about the incident, which aired on 4 November, and has decided it warrants a formal investigation to see if there has been a breach of the broadcasting code.
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That wasn't people telling Jimmy Carr that the joke "wasn't funny". They specifically were suggesting that he shouldn't / couldn't say it, and he might have to pay a fine or face other actual legal consequences for it.

Saying "that comedian's joke offended me, so I am never going to pay to see one of his shows ever again" is a perfectly acceptable decision.

Adding "and I will encourage my friends and acquaintances to do the same" is also basically OK, as long as you accept that they don't have to listen to you.

...But calling up Momthe Government and saying "that comedian made an offensive joke, I demand that you fine (/incarcerate, /torture, /summarily execute) him!" is just insane.

i think he makes a great point in regards to jokes being well thought out in regards to controversial or potentially offensive joke material.

the really good comedians are the ones who can take a sensitive subject and portray it in a way that makes us reflect on the absurdity of our lives.holding a mirror up so we can all have a good laugh at our own contradictory nature.

carlin was a master at making us laugh at our own self-absorbtion.
bill burr has some his best material about domestic violence.
patrive o'neal makes misogyny hilarious.
doug stanhope revealing the absurdity of nationalism and pride in things we never had a part in.

a good comedian makes us laugh with jokes.
a great comedian makes us laugh at ourselves.

Except that is not what happened.

The complaint was that Carr (and by extension the One Show) had breached broadcasting standards. Ofcom felt that he did and gave a lengthy explanation of why they felt that way.

You are entitled to disagree, but let's be clear here: he is not being incarcerated or tortured.

He made a tasteless (and not particularly funny) joke. People called him on it.

Let's compare that to Louis CKs bit on pedophiles. His joke was definitely uncomfortable, but it had an interesting point: before you condemn someone as a monster, maybe try to understand why they do such awful things.

Whereas Carr just said "hah! dwarfs are short, geddit?!". It's exactly as Tompkins described... it's lazy and unfunny.

It kind of is. Incarceration, torture, and execution are not on the table, true (although in the UK it sounds like incarceration for making remarks deemed to be "offensive" due to racism, discrimination, etc. isn't ALL that far-fetched).

You can think that Carr's joke was lazy and unfunny -- that's fine. Personally I like it, and find it at least mildly clever in that he said it was trying to come up with the "shortest" joke possible. But anyway, some/many people in the UK agreed with you and made complaints to the station. The station/broadcaster came back with that statement you linked to, in my opinion mainly just to cover their own asses in the event of Government intervention (which I am led to believe by several news stories was / still is a real possibility).

The idea that there is any possibility of the Government intervention being required to punish Carr or the station -- purely because some people took offense to some nonsense that he said -- is what I find to be ridiculous.

Where 'called him on it' is taken to mean 'assailed him with the force of the state'.

I'm sorry to say that I find your commentary lazy and unfunny, so now you owe me tens of thousands of pounds. If you don't pay then I'll employ some thugs to drag you to a cage and lock you in it for a few years.

I hope you understand that this is a legitimate way of expressing my feelings and respect my right to only ever hear things that conform to my arbitrary code of correct speech. Please remember in the future that you're only allowed to speak with my permission.

@gorillaman @MilkmanDan

Please explain to me exactly what horrible consequences Jimmy Carr suffered.

Ofcom upheld a complaint against him. That's it.

How was he "assailed with the force of the state"? They didn't even fine him.

There's a big fucking difference between saying "you can't say that" and saying "you're kind of a dick for saying that".

Freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences.

Ofcom's statutory responsibility is not to say "you're kind of a dick for saying that": it's to order you not to say that or face punishment.

Punishment means fines. Fines means the threat of force. Force means abduction and false imprisonment. For the crime of sitting on a couch and having a conversation.

Just what the hell is freedom of speech if it isn't freedom from these kinds of 'consequences'?

Well, I made a genuine effort to find out exactly what Ofcom did and all I could find was a ruling that said he breached broadcasting standards. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'll happily read it. For reference, here is a list of sanction decisions made by ofcom: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/enforcement/content-sanctions-adjudications/

"Punishment means fines. Fines means the threat of force. Force means abduction and false imprisonment. For the crime of sitting on a couch and having a conversation."

That slippery slope looks awesome fun! Does it go the other way too? If you can't joke about dwarfs, then pretty soon you won't be able to advocate giving those queers the beating they deserve or tell those darkies to fuck off back to africa! It's PC gone mad!

The claim that government fines are backed with the threat of imprisonment is a slippery slope argument? Do get your act together, mate.

It is literally the case that in the UK the apparatus of state violence is brought to bear on those who dare to broadcast speech that stupid people find offensive.

Which part of "he wasn't fined" did you not understand?

Presumably you are able to recognise that Ofcom's pronouncements carry the weight of statutory force.

It is impossible to conceive of a free-speech doctrine that includes government agencies issuing rulings on whether a comedian's jokes are funny or not.

The BBC is obliged to take account of Ofcom's broadcasting code, including its worthless stipulations on supposed offensive material, or suffer sanctions which include fines; they have indeed been fined for violations of the very section upon which Carr is accused of trespassing, in the trivial Andrew Sachs answerphone affair for example.

Frankly I would prefer Jimmy Carr skin a dwarf and wear its shrunken hide as a scarf in his next appearance on The One Show than have our treasured public service broadcaster at the mercy of PC crybullies and the government guns that back them.

Wait, how is the combination of words "Dwarf shortage" uttered within the bounds of a comedy show offensive to anyone? Why? Wtf?

Its not a joke that carries much meaning, besides the fact that it might be mocking the political correctness brigade a bit.

The second sentence might be the one that breaks the broadcast code, because basically anything you might happen to say to a dwarf can be theoretically deemed to be insulting.

Dwarves are fierce warriors, so I would definitely err on the side of caution there and cross the road if I see a dwarf coming.

It is as easy to claim being offended as it is for a soccer player to fall. How many of those offended were even real dwarves?

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.