Nearly three months in prison for telling a joke in UK

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And why is Facebook so behind the times? Shouldn't they have an "Indignantly Offended" button, alongside the "Like" button?

No, it's God's fault for creating the universe, Earth, and humanity, and then giving humanity a sense of humor.

Never blame the joke-teller, when you can trace the fault back to its true origins.

What's your solution then? Forced genocide of the human race?

No, we just need to up the concentration of Prozac in the chemtrails.

I thought something similar to this in the Kate Moss cocaine scandal the daily Mirror in Britain published. A reporter from the paper photographed Kate in a private club snorting cocaine and then they reported it to the world. People were then saying Kate was irresponsible because lots of teenage girls think of her as a role model.

I thought: hang on, Kate is not really the irresponsible one here, it is the daily Mirror for telling all the teenage girls what Kate was up to!

Its a strange social contract, and its strange the responsibilities that society outsources to the state. In America a young teenager who was bullying a 5yr old by taunting and ultimately cutting off a chunk of her hair was ordered by a judge to have her sentence lightened (perhaps even removed) if she had her hair removed. It was brilliant, but it didn't go over well with anyone. Why is it the state's position to discipline distasteful and even disturbing humor? And if it is its duty to society to discipline innapprorpiate behavior, why don't they punish the kid in a constructive way that will at least teach him something meaningful... all this will teach him is to be careful about his brand of humor, and where he posts it.

Wow. I kind of like things the way they are on this side of the Atlantic, freedom of speech and the press and all. Of course, it doesn't extend to public schools. Try correcting a teacher when they're wrong, and you may find that out.

Who are you to impute that this means to me? That is presumption of the most odious kind.

From my perspective, the Jyllands-posten cartoons could not properly be constrained because first, I do not see that there is a direct causal link between the cartoons and the violence that resulted. The initial reaction to publication was debate, and (unsuccessful) attempts on the part of the Danish muslim community to use legal means to penalize the publication. It was not until 4 months later that protests arose in the Middle East, caused not by the publication of the cartoons, but rather by individuals exhorting violence after the fact. So, no, I do not believe that the publication of cartoons (by twelve different cartoonists, not one) in Jyllands-posten falls within this rubric, since publication did not lead to violence.

The makers of Innocence of Muslims on the other hand, are in a much more precarious position, because it may well be that their intent was to provoke. I don't have enough evidence to state this conclusively, but I do see that they--and the Quran burning Terry Jones--are acting with a deliberate intention to spark violence as a means of furthering their own anti-islamic political agenda.

As for your last five examples, they are utterly stupid.

Lincoln, the Founding Fathers and Joan of Arc were all involved in wars, of which each had its proper casus belli quite independent of the statements of these individuals.

Galileo did nothing to provoke violence. He provoked a committee. I see nothing in my statements that would justify suppression of Galileo's statements.

As for Mandela, for all that his cause was supremely just, let us not forget that it was not his words that provoked violence. Rather, it was his leadership of MK, the armed wing of the ANC. He didn't make statements that provoked the violent reaction of the RSA, he initiated and led violence against the RSA. That is a very different case than that of a the person who makes a statement knowing that it will provoke a violent reaction.

No, it's reductio ad absurdum, I.E. taking your argument, taking it to the most extreme, then criticizing the result. It's a very nice tool considering that most people fail to take into account the full ramifications of their arguments. In essence, this is exactly what you argued.

Except it isn't because, as demonstrated, each case is different.

In which case its utterly meaningless because you cannot make a rule based on it. He's doing what a few other people were doing and assuming they had good enough judgment subjective to decide when they are cool with free speech and when they are not.

But you must make a rule on it. Free speech is not--and cannot be--absolute. So we must have rules about what kinds of speech are restricted.

And since we cannot predict every kind of statement that a person might make, we have to entrust this kind of decision making to the courts.

It's very simple, some expressions (threats etc) can be established fairly objectively, "grossely offensive" cannot. For instance, I find most posts by our resident feminist leftists to be a lot more offensive than any of the jokes the guy in the OP posted.

Well yes, because they're saying mean things about you.

Good grief. Nice shark jumping.

My theory is that you shall have the right to the freedom of speech, once that speech is not used to harass, threaten or lie about others.
Simple and effective.

In Ireland blasphemy is ilegal (without real definition of what blasphemy is) and the government considered taking a comedian to court for a skit about Jesus. Now I do not agree with this at all for very obvious reasons. They have yet to enforce the law to my knowledge but in a country where the catholic church rules and there is yet to be seperation between church and state the law is a very dangerous one.

Something tells me we had similar childhoods...