Funniest thing on this whole page!

You’re welcome, though.

On the other hand, Stephen King said that he would rather make someone vomit because of something he wrote than to have no reaction at all. So? I guess, in its own twisted way, it’s good writing. Offensive to some, but it generated reactions left and right, did it not? I woke up from this dream rather impressed-freaked out, but impressed. Call me crazy.

If you’re going to start trying to drop that rights trump card you might want to figure out what the hell you’re talking about—you’ve got a fundamental misunderstanding of the balance of rights. The harm principal isn’t used to determine the limits of freedom of speech, and harm does not equal hate speech (plus hate speech requires intent, so you’re way off in your definition). I have the right to harm people with words all I want as long as what I say is true, or is satirical, or is anything outside of the very narrow limits put on speech by the Canadian government (limits that sync up very closely with global human rights regimes). I won’t bother listing all those limits or going into the case law, but you can trust me when I say no court or human rights tribunal in the country would even think about considering that statement or my article to be hate speech. Plus, a tyrannical limiting of free speech for the sake of avoiding hurting people’s feelings is a much greater threat to rights then an internet columnist making a few off-colour jokes.

I also don’t need you to explain why you think the statement is misogynistic. Obviously using women as an insult insults women, I assumed that’s what you meant from the start. But I’m not using women as an insult—just because I said the word vagina doesn’t mean I’m making a blanket statement about women. I’m comparing Beck’s emotional stability to a teenage girl hitting puberty, that’s only insulting because he’s a grown man and shouldn’t blubber on live TV,not because there’s something inherently wrong with a little princess starting to get mother nature’s monthly gift. It’s not like calling him a pile of shit, that’s a bad simile. It’s more like saying that a bad figure skater has the grace of an o-lineman. O-lineman aren’t supposed to be graceful, so it’s only an insult to the figure skater.

Now for the sake of the editors I’m going to restrain myself and not balance out the boring part of this post with jokes about your wang and mild threats of sexual abuse, but I want everyone to know that I really, really want to.

One last thing. Don’t tell me when my argument is over. Jesus it’s arrogant to assume you’ve said all that can be said about an issue.

I am frustrated in two points. First that John is unwilling to admit that what he said was wrong and insensitive.

Most importantly I am frustrated that “free speech” is again being used as a safety valve to allow people to say whatever they want and never be in the wrong. That’s not what it is for.

Of course the joke/insult was directed at Glenn Beck, however it can only be considered insulting or funny if we consider the thing Mr Beck is compared to to be a bad thing. If I call Glenn Beck a steaming pile of excrement we all get the joke because we all consider that to be a bad thing. The joke is therefore double pronged.

The idea that Carlin and Hicks never said anything wrong is so preposterous I don’t even know how to address it really. As much as I love and respect their comedy they crossed lines on many occasions.

Freedom of speech is necessary, nobody would argue that here. But it isn’t and hasn’t ever been unlimited. Unfortunately many people use the concept of freedom of speech to justify saying whatever they want. Freedom of speech ends when it is used to harm others (hate speech). Hate speech does not need to cause physical violence to harm others, it can intentionally or unintentionally aim at degrading their very dingity as a person or as a group of people.

There is also a particular hypocrisy here as well. Condeming homophobics and then uttering misogynistic statements incompatible because both are symptoms of heterosexual patriarchy that demands adherence to its narrow forms of masculinity and femininity with dire consequences for straying outside those boundaries. Second, to ridicule homophobes for uttering insensitive statements and then call out for freedom of speech when one has made insensitive statements is a hypocrisy. Again, you admittedly wished to humiliate Beck, easy enough to do, and to do that you at the same time humiliated women. Regardless of whether or not your aim was to be insensitive to women you made the comment.