@CogWeaver  
More or less my point, save for the subsequent one about how a lot of people are far too sensitive to “offensive” material.
 
Part of growing as person is forcing yourself to confront ideas and practices that you are uncomfortable with and then examining your own reaction and culture that bans the offensive loses that.
 
This does not necessarily mean your opinions will change, and in fact opinions and ideas that stand up to such testing will only become stronger, it merely means that some amount of tolerance for material one finds offensive should be practiced.
 
Where the line is drawn depends on the person providing the venue of expression really.

@CogWeaver  
it’s about part of ‘polite culture’ (my personal title for violence culture). “If you allowed me to act it means that you agreed to accept and take all responsibilities for all consequences of my action”.

@gasmaskangel  
@Starswirl  
I feel like this: http://xkcd.com/1357/ might be relevant to your conversation, possibly.

@gasmaskangel  
Oh, I do live in a nation without full Freedom of Speech. Swastikas are forbidden, except for educational purposes.
 
But I do get you.

@Starswirl  
That sort of behavior is not, from my perspective, exercising free speech, rather it is an act of malice intended to cause deliberate harm. Its murder, or at least aggravated assault with an unusual weapon.
 
I think the best way I can sum up my view is with an apocryphal quote from Lenny Bruce, one of my heroes: “If you can’t say ‘fuck’, you can’t say ‘fuck the government.’”
 
People these days don’t really appreciate free speech. They’re too comfortable to do so because they don’t live in era of open government sanctioned censorship. All of our witch hunts these days tend to be civil in nature, which is admittedly preferable to them being official.

@gasmaskangel  
Yes, I agree. Freedom of Speech tops under most circumstances.*
 
*’yelling “fire!” in a crowded theatre and all that…

@ushiki  
I completely understand what you mean, people can’t figure out the thesis of an artistic statement.

@Starswirl  
@Background Pony #CE23  
Obviously anyone who seeks out victims to laugh in their faces is a fucking asshole and a half. Its the sort of thing the internet thrives on because in real life doing so would likely result in a well deserved beating, and subsequent beating from the cops when they found out what happened.
 
However, that specific circumstance aside freedom of speech trumps all. However, freedom of speech is a two way street.
 
Lets use a couple of hypothetical examples.
 
The first is a comedy club where we go to see some comic or other, and they tell a joke that offends us. For me this is any form of a race humor or casual sexist jokes, and it doesn’t matter which way they are aimed, I just don’t find “women be shopping, white people walk like this!” humor funny. The comedian has every right to tell his or her stupid fucking jokes, but I have every right not to laugh, to walk out of the club and tell everyone I meet “X isn’t fucking funny, I wouldn’t piss on X if they were on fire.” Similarly the management has every right to not hire that asshole again if he seriously pissed people off. This is the marketplace of ideas regulating itself, and believe, just not laughing is frequently enough of a punishment for the person telling the jokes.
 
My second example is about how people need to know what sets them off, to know their biases.
 
Lets say that I’m a shark attack survivor, and that as a result I’ve got serious fucking issues with sharks, the ocean, boats and just anything maritime related in general. Knowing this would you not say that I’m a fucking asshole if I went to see a screening of Jaws and then got whiny and pissy at the film makers for creating a movie that “trivialized my trauma”?
 
I mean I know I’m a fucking asshole anyways, but you get my point right?

@ushiki  
this, here

@Starswirl  
This (is what i tried to say)

About the joke thing itself: There are no ‘wrong’ jokes, but there is something like tact. If one seeks out victims and laughs in their faces to be an asshole then people are going to call it out.

That sounds a bit harsh, miss Whinny.

@gasmaskangel  
PPL who are against rape jokes usually can’t see the difference of ‘victim’ jokes, ‘rapist’ jokes and ‘antirape’ jokes.

I can see this one being used a lot.

@gasmaskangel  
It’s all about timing IMO.I think it’s very offensive when,just mere minutes or hour after a tragedy,you have clowns making light of the situation for grabing attention at how offensive and edgy they are (and if you disagree with them,“ur a nazi against frispich1111”.Internet made everything faster and sometime i think people dont realize there is a time and a place for things like this.Things like memorial pages “trawlling” is awful.People like this think they can say everything forever without consequences

Either everything is ok to joke about, or nothing is. People argue that you shouldn’t make rape jokes because it belittles the suffering of women (consciously excluding male rape victims because they obviously don’t matter).
 
Well if that’s your issue then I hope you don’t like comedy because so much of it can be construed as belittling someones suffering.

I think it is really funny when people say “rape jokes are never funny” comedy is the great equalizer, it’s how people make light of heavy things and can transcend things like gender expectations and social norms. It’s how people open their minds to new ideas, so say “omg rape is never funny don’t you dare make fun of teh sufring of millons ov wymen pthrbthrtbthtbrtpthhhthhhhhhh” that’s how you push people away from your cause not educate them about it.