I'll not listen to it. Just because some people are crude and vulgar doesn't mean that I have to put up with it.

who gets to draw it? Censorship is a slippery slope.

And how are you defining bigotry exactly?

No one is forcing you to listen to distasteful, nasty people. But if we start censoring people we don't like, soon enough demagogues will be censoring and deciding what we say.

Dangerous stuff, censorship is.

You don’t seem to be aware of what he actually said.

I don't like him and I'm not going to listen to him.

You are advocating censorship.

fucking money where your mouth is if you feel racist jokes are ok and anyone who has a problem with that is advocating censorship.

I await your hilarious jokes about Jews and blacks

The way you are talking to JenniferJuniper right now is pretty rude.

the less i wanted to seem like i was supporting him/her.
I hope you werent pointing at my post as another example of rudeness. I was fumblingly trying to make a point that the more i tried the less i felt like i was successfully making it. So i just pulled the plug, especially when i saw the OP was shitcanned, and my post was pretty much directed at him/her anyway.

quit conflating terms

"Now Gervais says comedians can make any type of joke they want"

Of course they can. If they aren't allowed to make any type of joke they want, it's called censorship.

The OP was criticizing the offenders, not advocating government censorship.

tell me where the OP advocates outright violations of 1A rights?

It’s amazing some adults lack that basic skill

whenever these issues come up, I know the person is incapable of arguing in good faith.

like a nuanced topic, it seems pretty straightforward but apparently it’s very complicated to explain that racist jokes are legal but should be rejected by sane people, and not staunchly defended.

These people could make the same argument about Charlottesville and their free speech rights but they aren’t doing that.. why then defend Gervais when he defends disgusting hatred?

I’m a bit surprised to have to explain this on a site like this.

.... and someone who thinks they can get away with putting words in your mouth or twisting your statements is just too dumb to realize that people here are smart enough to see through that crap. Those are the type of people who will do or say anything they believe will make them look like some kind of liberal hero among the progressive community. This is what some people do when they have no rational argument against what you have stated.

Most of our fellows only have a limited belief in free speech. The line between the definition of 'that's disgusting' and 'that's hateful' blurred by so much convenient thought.

Let the free market take care of it. I doubt there will be little interest from venues or outlets to be associated with this type of humor.

From Thomas Jefferson to Justices Black and Douglas, true defenders of liberty have pointed out that there is no need to protect non-offensive speech; the test of a society's freedom of speech is found in how they protect the right to say that which is profoundly unpopular and offensive.

If you have the right to ban what these comedians want to say, then there is a religious fanatic nearby who wants to extend that ban to anything that they consider blasphemy against the one true (i.e., their) religion.

We’re talking about gervais defending racist bigoted jokes. Can you understand that?

You can say whatever you want and you will get the backlash that people will give you. And it's up to you to decide if you give a fuck. I actually agree with that 100%. I say what I want and I might say something wrong. It's up to me to deal with my actions. I personally don't go around bagging on trans folks or saying racist shit. And I would tell someone off if I hear them do it. But it isn't against the law to be an asshole in this country for good reason. I'd like to see it stay that way.

The point is SHOULD people be making racist jokes and attacking dead children?

Don’t turn this into a free speech argument. That’s lazy and everyone knows we have that right. But my racist uncle going on tv and telling his racist jokes and arguing people should be able to say whatever they want... Jokes about Jews? You cool with that? Polish people? Gays? Black people?

Is this an alt right world now?

Eddie Murphy? Hell, even Robin Williams made gay jokes.

Have you heard Chris Rock’s routine, “N—-az versus black folks” or Sarah Silverman’s routines?

I won’t listen to those I don’t like, but no thanks to censorship.

and the vulnerable since you say that sort of thing should be just fine

Please tell us what you think should be done to create this perfect world you envision?

What the OP doesn't seem to understand is a lot of humor is based on stereotypes.

Eta, like this skit:

I’d never seen that one, but it’s very clever.

into getting banned by posting racist humor. I doubt the person you are attempting to bait knows a racist joke. And for someone who says others aren't getting the point, you need to realize those who disagree with you are NOT saying it is "just fine" as you put it, just saying they have a right to say it and others have a right to say it is despicable, and then boycott them or advertirers, etc..

There's no expectation of "free speech" w/r/t you & me, or you & Louis CK, or Lois CK & Gervais.

Just like DU has no expectation of "free speech" because it's a private website, not an arm of the government.

Like I said I wouldn't make the comments and I would tell someone off if they did so in front of me. I presume you would as well. So given that what is the problem with his statements as that is what he is saying as well. Basically people are allowed to be assholes, you say something, there's backlash, and it is up to you to care or not. Other than that....... what do you propose to change this system?

but should they be saying that shit? Are you actually heartily defending racism now? Is that what you’re doing? Every idiot knows we have the right. That’s NOT the point

I mean you would feel like an absolute fool if you knew anything about me. But you don't. So you try to pin things on me that have nothing to do with what I am saying. Hoping that I will blow my top and you can press that alert button. Not going to work. The only other explanation is that you have very poor reading comprehension If that's the case I apologize. I wouldn't want to make fun of someone in your situation.

He made jokes about the Parkland survivors who have become gun control advocates.

Nevertheless, I think the free market will take care of Louis CK. He'll just have to settle for being worth ONLY $25 Million. HBO isn't going to air his specials. His most recent movie wasn't released. Unless he wants to self finance, I doubt he can book a stand up tour a fill anything more than small clubs. He's DOA.

He said one of them “pushed a fat kid” in front of a bullet to save his own life, which is a lie, and then said no one should give a shit about these dead kids because bad shit happens every day.

If you feel the need to defend that, maybe a bit of self reflection is required

and people will react however they want.

That is Gervais' point.

The right to offend IS free speech.

Were you also in favor of Lenny Bruce being shut down?

He was offensive and said the "n" word.

What about Richard Pryor or George Carlin.

I think what Louis CK said was awful and not funny, I also defend his right to say it.

It has it all that you say should not be allowed.
Jokes about race, blacks, Jews, Gays, Polish jokes every episode.

"Should" is a weak debate point to stick through in this thread.
People are going to make racists jokes and attack dead and living children too.

The marketplace will determine if this is a profitable choice or not for those that do.
I fear Louis CK will find his willing audience as did Dennis Miller.

But he will never again be the pop culture phenom he was before #MeToo.
This choice of direction for his new material has assured that.

People change.
Dennis Miller changed
Heck, Bob Hope changed.
I loved Hope as a kid and saw him live in concert in 1979.
Carter's election turned him into a bitter fucking old man.
He was attacking all the carter's in a mean unfunny way, including young Amy.
I never watched him again after that.

Should is hypothetical.
Should you keep asking the same question over and over in a thread?

Free speech is free speech is free speech. Chances are everybody's going to get offended by something...

if you feel so strongly about defending racist jokes. Please go for it and show me you’re prepared to put your money where your mouth is

NOBODY is defending racist jokes here. Nobody.

If he/she is offended, don't listen. Go ahead and start a thread in protest, like this one. But don't assert that comedians should never have the right to joke about this or that. Audiences will decide what they want to support.

Exactly.

Any idiot knows we can say what we want. Should people be going out of their way to defend horrible things? That is the point in case you were confused

The Charlottesville racists were spewing hate speech and are in favor of violence if that's what it takes to preserve their white privilege.

Louis CK, as much as his words were repugnant, wasn't advocating any physical harm.

of free speech! Bullshit

And you know it.

...I defended FREE SPEECH (surely you've heard of the First Amendment, haven't you?) but fuck it, I'll play along with your little straw-man game.

First off, what's your definition of a "racist" joke?

His The Office was unwatchable. I rented a DVD to see what all the fuss was about and barely made it through 3 episodes. Money just fell in his lap with the American version - a tremendous amount of talent in that cast. C.K. as well - he's had some funny stuff but it wasn't as great as his fellow comedians raved about. I liken him to a musician that musicians love but if I ain't tapping my toes to it I'm not buying again.

I get that comedians feel like they can't push certain envelopes but, you know what, times change. If you want to push it realize what sells. If it's ignorance (PT Barnham) okay fine but that's not going to have long legs because someone else will come up with the next stupid thing. If it's about being shocking, you are going to keep upping your shock until you run out. In the long run it's about the funny. If you hit gold once it doesn't mean it's going to keep happening.

Love your screen name - I'm guessing that a Pixies reference.

But I disagree with the notion that Gervais said anything untoward here. Regardless of whether you think he's funny (I happen to think he's pretty funny and talented overall myself, but I've seen him in a lot more than just the UK Office and heard lots of his standup), what he's saying is just ... true.

He's not saying 'racist jokes or jokes about dead kids are just fine', he's saying that nobody has actually taken away comedian's rights to joke about such things.

Point of fact: some people DO complain that there's too much of a 'PC Police attitude' when it comes to comedy.

Gervais is just saying 'maybe, but actually nothing STOPS a comedian from making the jokes they want to make, other than the 'market', which is how it should be'.

I agree with that sentiment.

I think the OP is way off base in the case of Gervais and what he meant.

As long as he, like Michael Richards, looks forward to a future of headlining the occasional Elk's Club dinner at the Schenectady Holiday Inn.

He seems to think he's back, that all is forgotten.

NOT! And Richards and Gervais as well.

completely wrong.

Just like the people at the club who he directed it at were wrong also, for
being abusive and threatening to a female comedian and racist to a
Mexican comedian.

If we are living ina world where people want Ricky Gervais to be banned, then
fuck it, we might as well just watch full house.

out here who disagrees with your ideas about censorship?

What is your purpose exactly?

And are you okay with jokes that are sexist then? You didn't mention those as something that should be banned.

why that shouldn’t be done either?

I’ll just wait here.

he wouldn't have any gigs then.

Maybe I heard incorrectly but last I knew the Holiday Inn in Schenectady had closed and the Elks have had their very own lodge for dinners, etc for decades.

That was where the Elks used to go when they wanted the really good spaghetti dinners.

I don't remember the Holiday Inn being known for their spaghetti dinners but we used to love going to eat at an amazing place just a short bit from the Italian church in Little Italy (now if I could just remember the name).

It's been around forever and is a short walk from St. Anthony's Church at the north end of Little Italy.

I grew up and lived in the area most of my life but moved up near the border almost 20 yrs ago. Other than family that's now almost all gone I miss the selection of restaurants and culture down there.

When Ice Cuce ripped into Bill Maher for saying the N word, he was of course right,
the point he made about how it pisses him off that white people in his world think
they can say it, was right.

What was wrong, was when he gave Justin Bieber a free pass for saying it.

I guess when beibs appears on one of your label mate's albums and they sell 500K more
units, you can give it a free pass if it means money for yourself.

Regarding, who gets to draw the line --- remember, Lenny Bruce was driven nuts by preservationists of the community's moral code.

Larry Flynt is in a wheel chair because of another morally upstanding citizen.

to Lenny Bruce. That in itself is offensive

used the "n" word in his act.

He also offended a lot of people.

Are you the arbitrator of what is offensive?

....but as GWB once said in regards to the Dixie Girls, free speech goes both ways. So if the humor is too crude for most...he can expect smaller crowds and smaller paychecks.

I thought George Carlin was often brilliant, but some portions of his routines could certainly offend. Once famous, he was never relegated to backwater comedy clubs. He became a huge success either because of his controversy or despite it.

....and some make a career of crossing it but they do it in a way that it offends everyone.

But there really isn't a clear cut answer, do we ban Blazing Saddles and go back to knock knock jokes?

On the flip side, if they are inciting violence and hatred...vs. making fun of stereotypes, or "too soon", etc.

No he’s going for the alt right crowd now. He’ll have a crowd like trump does

of one apparently he drops trou and masturbates.

… when Richard Pryor used it a lot - and everyone laughed. People also commonly referred to it as offensive without calling it "The N Word." They used the word. Now, most people don't even go there...

Also, comedians made cringe-worthy gay references, many were LGBT themselves… Hollywood Squares, Johnny Carson... Women, and other groups, were ridiculed in different ways... times change and people can still be funny without being offensive. So, I'm for that... find ways to be funny without being offensive!

It was commonplace 25 years back for some people to call women and LGBTQ people horrible names, or for a guy to run up against a woman and expect to get away with that. It was common for men that did such stuff to beat their wives or girlfriend. Today that behavior justifiably land a person in jail or on the unemployment line. Richard Pryor, Redd Fox, ect, what was routine for them is unacceptable in today's society. So don't say "people used to" to try to justify the unacceptable.

I don't accept the "people used to" or "it was a different time" excuse for unacceptable comedy.

it to rump like nobody else.

You going to tell a few? Because that’s exactly what gervais is advocating by staunchly defending this shit.

Wearing a KKK uniform in public is free speech too but you don’t see sane people going out of their way staunchly defend those people do you? What about those assholes in Charlottesville? You want to heartily defend their actions too?

It's called the A.C.L.U. and they defended George Lincoln Rockwell in his right to parade down the street in Illinois.

There is a difference between Rockwell and Charlottesville. Charlottesville degenerated into action. Rockwell did not.

I am free to express my disgust. Ricky Gervais is right, no subject is off limits. I can hate the jokes, and I wouldn't go to a show of a comedian I find offensive. The inability to attract enough people to a show is what will end the career of an entertainer.

The point is that Gervais is an asshole for defending racist jokes

You are misreading this situation.

It's that simple.

He's saying that people (let's call them 'right wingers', shall we?) are complaining that 'you can't joke about anything anymore!'.

He's retorting to that notion 'you're wrong, right-wingers, comedians can ACTUALLY still joke about whatever they WANT (cause free speech) ... nobody is stopping them from doing so, arresting them, etc, so your right-wing whining about the loss of free speech ... is bullshit'.

Somehow you're missing his point, not sure why.

Being ostentatiously shocking or outrageous gets them noticed and sometimes furthers their careers. Sometimes it ends their careers.

They come and go.

humour by another top English comedian, Jimmy Carr. Both are worlds beyond a POS like Louis CK.

is actually about. Happy New Year.

I still love Kathy and know that the vast majority of citizens despise 45.

Comics are always daring to go too far believing that they are playing to their audience.

I just saw a world-renowned comic live and think he's been de-fanged to the point of no longer being very funny. That's a loss, too.

Jeff Dunham made fun of terrorists with Achmed the Dead Terrorist. Some countries censor him and some don't. I think he's hilarious.

The point is, the audience deserves the right to vote with their feet or clicks, not the government.

anything they want to. They have the absolute right to free speech.

However, they must also accept that their speech may come with serious negative consequences, for example, loss of employment.

his own weird fetish for semi-public masturbation. But that's "too far" for him, while joking about dead kids isn't. He's not actually standing up even for his own supposed comedy. He's just doing the usual right-wing comedian thing of being too afraid to make jokes about the powerful because they might get mad at him, and they will reward him for making jokes about the less powerful.

No censorship-- he can go make his money off rubes and racists now. That's punishment enough for someone who used to think he was cool.

Just don’t really care what a comedian says one way or another.

Epic.

That was weird.

Here's what he said:

““Please stop saying ‘You can’t joke about anything anymore.’ You can,” Gervais wrote. “You can joke about whatever the f**k you like. And some people won’t like it and they will tell you they don’t like it. And then it’s up to you whether you give a f**k or not. And so on. It’s a good system.”

He's absolutely right.

Comedians can joke about whatever they want to. The rest of us can respond to their jokes any way we want to. That works.

I pled....NOT Guilty, and was exonerated by the testimony of an exceptional (and disposable) character witness.

The prosecutors gotcha cold!

You're as guilty as a cat in a goldfish bowl!

people are allowed to say anything they want. He is wrong that free speech protects comedians from our free speech to condemn them when they joke about dead kids because of gun violence. CK isn't the only one with free speech.

So I will use my free speech to say fuck them.

As will I.

the term >ni**er is not commonly used in the UK and does not carry the gravity it has here

That being said he should have known better

But other taboo words are used that relate to ethnicity, more often than many of us would like.

But I wouldn't agree the n-word doesn't carry the same gravity in the UK as it does in the USA. The issues behind it may be more immediately apparent in the USA, but we too consider it a taboo word.

When I was a good deal younger, I was unfortunate enough to work in a job where my driver and supervisor was a National Front thug who thought nothing of opening the van window if we passed a mixed-ethnicity couple on the street and gleefully shouting "n*****-lover" at the top of his voice. Appalling wasn't and isn't a strong enough word.

What is telling, though, is that unless I'd seen this thread, I wouldn't have a clue that Gervais had caused controversy.

...George Carlin, Redd Foxx, and Moms Mabley would have caused some of these people to have strokes...

"You with the beads, outta line. Boy, there's one in every village."

...you're gonna offend someone talking like that...

You will be Offended. The fact that you say the "Trump era" proves you have never been in one. If you want your level of "humor" to be at the Saturday Night Live standard (SNL has not bee funny since the 1980s) then that is available.