
Canadian Comedian Fined $42,000 for Telling a Joke - Jerry2
http://heatst.com/culture-wars/comedian-fined-42000-for-telling-a-joke/
======
RodericDay
This headline is very editorialized.

This comedian Mike Ward has made this kid the centerpiece of his repertoire
for years now, and the ruling has to do with harassment more along the lines
of the "Star Wars Kid" variety, where the consistent abuse heaped on him was
making him hard to live his life.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/montreal/comments/4wod9b/david_mitc...](https://www.reddit.com/r/montreal/comments/4wod9b/david_mitchell_on_the_mike_ward_imbroglio/)

 _\---

> In context of Jeremy signing for the pope and along Celine Dion. Lets just
> say it; A kid sang a song, was not much of a performance and was looking
> kinda funny at the time no one knew about him. It was something that Ward
> refered to in once, twice...Again and again. Mike ward's bashings can be
> ruthless and he somehow though that this gag was shocking enough that he
> made it it his signature basically.

>> Have any people commenting on this ever listened to the entire bit? The
only bit that people talk about and seems to get translated is the first part
where he makes fun of his appearance. Nobody seems to talk about the second
half of the bit where he launches into "Fuck, he's still not dead! The little
fucker just won't die! [...] I defended you, you need to die now! Fucking
heartless asshole, die already[...]"

[https://youtu.be/zYrsECWQuM8?t=1m40s](https://youtu.be/zYrsECWQuM8?t=1m40s)

I am in no way for this kind of ruling. Nobody has a right to not be offended.
But, is someone repeatedly calling for the death of a child acceptable
satire/humour?

\---_

Also worth reading:

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mike-ward-comedian-
hu...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mike-ward-comedian-human-rights-
tribunal-1.3689465)

It's yet another fairly complex ruling being coopted into the "omg the PC
police are after us" boogeyman.

~~~
aaron695
No 'star wars' kid had his video stolen.

Then treated like shit over the internet on mass.

Given he didn't ever opt in, pretty awful.

The joke here is in the establishment loving him. Not the kid.

Its hard. No kid can sign off on what happens to them.

But if society is wrong and idolised a kid, can you not fight back, else you
hurt the kid?

~~~
pklausler
"en masse"

------
leaveyou
In a way, a society is like a living organism. If it's not confronted with
enough real problems and threats, its "immune system" finds something anyway
and attacks the normal cells. If some people can't find anything sufficiently
outrageous recently, then some idiotic jokes will do.

------
fluxquanta
I'm a big comedy fan and found this whole case to be pretty disturbing. It
validates the idea that a comedian should be punished, legally, for doing
their job and telling a joke. It's not a particularly good joke in this case,
but a joke nonetheless. It gives fuel to the social media lynch mobs who take
every tweet or comment as an excuse to get comedians (and really, anybody)
fired from their jobs (which seems to be happening with increasing frequency
-- look no further than the Kurt Metzger mess from this week).

~~~
meira
To make a profit bullying people that aren't public should not be considered a
job.

~~~
antisthenes
The fact that you so casually dismiss the comedian's right to free speech and
his way to make a living simultaneously in one sentence is a little
frightening.

I'd wager you would have a different perspective if someone came along and
prohibited you from making software unless you met someone's asinine set of
arbitrary criteria.

~~~
meira
You can say the same about drug dealers and buglars, but it would make "less"
sense.

------
bcruddy
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to
say it"

~~~
masterjack
Which is an American philosophy. Most countries, including Canada, do not
treat free speech quite as highly, but instead find it more important to
control hate speech (eg: banning Money for Nothing, by Dire Straits)

~~~
bcruddy
Voltaire was French. Evelyn Beatrice Hall used the quote to sum up his beliefs
in the biography she wrote about him. She was English.

~~~
joncrocks
Indeed, what I think he means is that the US has a constitutional amendment
that explicitly addresses the right to free speech, something that other
countries may not explicitly codify.

------
shenanigoat
Why is this flagged? HN doesn't like free speech issues? The number of
comments tells a different story.

------
teh_klev
[http://www.frankieboyle.com/frankie/free-
speech.html](http://www.frankieboyle.com/frankie/free-speech.html)

------
DanBC
> “If I lose that I’ll just move to Syria or Saudi Arabia, or some other
> country that respects free speech as much as Canada does,” he said.

I would pay to a crow-funding campaign to send him to Syria or Saudi Arabia
for a month.

------
greyman
Free speech must be protected, and it is certainly legal to tell a joke about
non-identified disabled child. But he was targeting one specific kid, so I am
not sure if he didn't infringe upon his human rights. Maybe he really did.

~~~
elthran
Which human right would that be? The right not to be made fun of?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
The right to dignity, presumably?

------
TazeTSchnitzel
A “joke” which consisted of insulting their disability, I take it?

It's hard to have sympathy for such “comedy”.

~~~
gremlinsinc
Hard to have sympathy yes-- but freedom of speech/expression is still freedom
of speech. Regardless of how tasteless it is, and should be protected..

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
No country in the world has absolute freedom of speech, and with good reason:
speech can be harmful. Indeed it is precisely because speech can be powerful
that it is protected in the first place.

Is this where to draw the line? I'm not sure, but it is not the case that
absolutely any “joke” is costitutionally protected free speech.

~~~
function_seven
The fundamental problem with the government drawing _any_ line is that you
can't have free speech under those circumstances. Is advocating for Communism
harmful to Capitalism? Is advocating for the rights of women to abort their
babies harmful to the fetuses? What about touting the benefits of Schedule I
drugs? Surely that can be seen as harmful to the public health.

It doesn't matter what you or I think about the examples I gave above. It only
matters what the government thinks. And if they think any or all of those are
harmful concepts, then by using your reasoning any speech invoking those
concepts would be controlled by the government.

That's simply untenable as far as I'm concerned. The only way to ensure the
government doesn't have that kind of power over words, is to allow any and all
ideas to be expressed. It's impossible to draw lines on which ideas are
allowed to be expressed and those that aren't, without running into this
hazard.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
> The fundamental problem with the government drawing any line is that you
> can't have free speech under those circumstances. Is advocating for
> Communism harmful to Capitalism? Is advocating for the rights of women to
> abort their babies harmful to the fetuses? What about touting the benefits
> of Schedule I drugs? Surely that can be seen as harmful to the public
> health.

These are complicated questions. But this is what case law exists for. The US,
for example, allows one to speak of revolutions “in broad terms”.

> That's simply untenable as far as I'm concerned. The only way to ensure the
> government doesn't have that kind of power over words, is to allow any and
> all ideas to be expressed.

Allowing absolute freedom of speech is self-defeating. Yes, now the
_government_ can't hurt you, but your opponents can use their “free speech” to
silence you. It's not healthy for a democracy, and this is why no country on
earth has absolute freedom of speech.

~~~
function_seven
> Yes, now the government can't hurt you, but your opponents can use their
> “free speech” to silence you.

I'm interested in some examples of this. At first blush this statement reads
to me as a "marketplace of ideas", which is a feature in my opinion. But I
could be interpreting your statement wrong.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
They can publish your location and tell vigilantes to go to your house and
beat you up.

That's speech.

------
jellicle
Urgh. What Hacker News doesn't need is more right-wing misogyny cluttering it
up. Has nothing to do with technology whatsoever. Flagged.

If you are curious about this decision, the CBC has an excellent explanation
of it. Read this, and then decide if what happened is a travesty or not.

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mike-ward-comedian-
hu...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mike-ward-comedian-human-rights-
tribunal-1.3689465)

~~~
phonon
Yeah, it's a travesty. I can't make a joke about you "if it offends your
dignity"?

That's even more overreaching than when Thailand sends you to prison for
"insulting the king". There at least it only prevents you about joking about
one person! (OK, and his family...and pets...)
[http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2016/08/08/dont-dare-
speak...](http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2016/08/08/dont-dare-speak-ill-
thailands-king/ideas/nexus/)

