Jimmy Carr....A joke too far?

[Thomas]

That is indeed so. I remember growing up to Englishman, Scotsman, Irishman jokes when younger, where the Irishman always ended up being a bit of a div. Of course what lay behind such humour originally was racist attitudes towards the Irish expressed humorously, but by the time I was coming of age the racist sentiment behind it had largely vanished, and it waas just traditional himour. It would no longer have mattered which nationality had ended up being the div. If it had been the Englishman being the bit of a div I would have still laughed if the joke itself was funny. None of us meant anything by it, we never really paid it much thought. The Irish themselves might well have objected to such humour because they might well have been aware that back in, for example, the 19th century, such humour would have been intended as racist mockery. Times move on, perceptions change, and sometimes things once regarded as acceptable cease to be.

I think there is always a line that should not be crossed, but where that line is is highly subjective and varies from person to person, so a one size fits all moral code of acceptability is pretty much impossible. Personally, I think that calling the gassing to death of thousands of innocent people as a positive just to get a laugh is crossing the line for most of us, hence the widespread furore, far from all of which hails from what some might call the wokish left (though in fact there are none more woke than centrist liberal Blairite types, who are not really left in most other senses at all).

It is impossible to find such a joke funny unless the person laughing himself harbours a degree of malice or hatred towards the target group which allows him to psychologically connect with the notion of their deaths being a positive, at least for the purposes of humour. And therefore find it funny. Most of us would just find it wholly unfunny if not offensive.

But the reaction of the crowd was more worrying than the joke itself in this instance. Because whilst quite a few laughed, many others clapped. Now if you laugh at something it is because you find it funny. But if you clap it is often because you are in agreement with the sentiments or opinions just expressed. In essence those who clapped, and there were quite a few of them, agreed with the notion that gassing to death thousands of gypsies was a positive.

We sometimes struggle to understand how millions of ordinary Germans could do what they did between 1933 and 1945. But listening to that crowd is a window into why and how it could happen anywhere. You just need enough ordinary people to hate a target group enough, and the wrong type of murderous regime in power to allow it to happen. Once they already view the target groups's gassing to death not merely as funny but as an actual good thing, then we already have people who'd do what millions of Germans did if ever there were to be similar circumstances here. Fortunately, I still believe the latter to be unlikely, but the potentially murderous underlings are out there amongst us living ordinary lives right now if ever we were to find ourselves under such a regime.

the point is neither the irish scottish english or events like the holocaust are off limits to comedy and the butt end of jokes.

I dont have time to go in depth and reply to your post , but while some of what you say is undoubtedly true , much of it is just the usual left wing thinking steve i have come to detest. Its where the left and society tend to vere off from each other at a tangent.

Theres nothing wrong with disliking people. We all carry a bit of dislike and prejudice in our soul , its human nature. What not ok is to go out and do what the germans did to the jews , or the british did to the irish , not to mention many many more acts by other nations and peoples.

You have taken the piss out the welsh. I sarcastically said to you on here , are you being racist? Cant you see the hypocrisy of many on the left when for example they are blind to clear acts of anti semitism in the holier than thou labour party , call the welsh sheep shaggers , but then start virtue signalling about racism against black people or whatever minority is in vogue.?

Its the hypocrisy of the left that sticks in people craw , and time and again they make themselves look utterly foolish over it.

Nothing wrong with carrs joke , apart from i didnt find it funny , and if he cant take the piss out of what he sees fit then we may as well pack up comedy as someone somewhere will take offence at whatever victim group has found it insensitve.

No cant on this earth is going to tell me what i should and shouldnt laugh about. Especially not shouty outrage mobs.

[Thomas]

I dont think anything is off limits Thomas , people who think they are comedians can say what ever they like . We in turn can choose if its funny or not .
I think we all know where the line is though when it comes to micky taking becoming offensive  . Im not saying it should be censored  we do that ourselves by turning off ,walking out or by not laughing .

I hear what you are saying streetwalker , but i think we are talking about three different things. You appear to be talking about insensitive jokes, and a time and a place to tell them , while im talking about the wider attacks on freedom of speech.

I just watched borkies video of carrs joke. Before i heard carr tell the joke , the impression i was getting from the outrage mob was that somehow he had made racist remarks about roma gypsies , and some sort of anti semitic reference to the holocaust.

Having heard the joke , the butt of the joke was jehovahs witnesses , germans and gypsies , and the holocaust was the background to the joke , not the joke itself. Personally i cant see anything wrong with his joke , and if these outrage mobs are finding a wet blanket like jimmy carr offensive , and the guy is about as offensive as a wet teabag , then they need to get a fackin life in my opinion.

Was carrs joke insensitive? Absolutely , there isnt a joke thats been told that isnt insensitive . Was it the time and place to tell the joke? Without a doubt. If a comedian cant tell a joke in a comedy show , then when can a joke be told?

As i said mate , we have an outrage mob  , many of them loony lefties but not exclusively , running around attacking free speech and telling us what we should think and who we can and cant laugh at.

I see one of the outrage voices at carr was that T@@@ david baddiel. As someone pointed out , baddiel was getting arsey with carr for daring to mention the holier than thou holocuast , which apparently is off limits according to baddiel in terms of comedy , while baddiel himself made a joke about anne diamonds baby dying of cot death.

Do you see what im getting at streetwalker?

Its a slippery slope. Once one group demands someone  is off limits , then it goes to the next and so on until the polis are knockng at your door for taking the piss out the french.

I see what you mean in your example about time and place taking piss out japanese. I have joked about the ibrox disaster to family and friends and down pubs , i wouldnt do it in a rangers bar if i wanted out alive.

...but thats down to personal discretion. You shouldnt have shouty mobs demanding things are off limits and calling for "de facto " censorship and apologies.

I mind rangers fans years ago mocking celtic fans over bobby sands death , talling jokes like whats bobby sands phone number? eight nothing eight nothing.

Jokes are cruel they are sick , insensitive and all the rest. Its a balancing act between common sense and discretion , not having shouty mobs screaming perpetrators should be burned at the stake for heresy.

As i said mate , what a sad fackin world we are living in. Seems to be worst in europe , north america and oz and new zealand.

[johnofgwent]

Well JOG I'e known you some years,your opinion you are entitled to but not one I'd ever share looking at this thread.

Whatever lawlessness might occur does not entitle mass murder,medical experiments such as those have no merit.

I understand your view. You have not had the "fun" we have had these last five years. Travellers have invaded the land around this end of the town and basically run riot. I would say they behave like animals, but that would be to degrade animals. 

It is I suppose the same problem as Boris and his number ten parties. They behave as they do because the law will not touch them and assholes with views similar to some on here say they need their lifestyle to be protected and to curtail their lawlessness is a hate crime.

Twice now the council had squandwr d a third of a million cleaning up their shit. Literally. They emptied their shit on the hill running down to the river. Not while they were packing up to.keave, but routinely while they were living there.

In other threads I have publicly espoused my understanding of those who feel my former medical research deserved a firebombing or nailbombing, but my contempt for those of that persuasion who do not have the courage of their beliefs to let their children, wives, husband's, parents, grandparents etc die from refusal of the treatments, surgeries and drugs discovered in that research.

At least if they stood firm and watched them die I would respect their wish to.murder me to end my work. That the craven scum choose to tearfully plead for their loved ones and themselves to receiving be the benefit of what they choose to stop with terrorist violence shoes magnificently what sort of scum they are.

Perhaps if our local police had acted against the county lines off road bikers BEFORE I received massive applause for telling the poor bloody copper sent to pacify our residents meeting that as THEY chose NOT to protect my grand daughter, I would have to, I might think differently.

But the fact is the police only took action against the county lines scum AFTER I told that meeting it took all my driving skill to avoid running one of the bastards over when he wheelied straight at me on the wrong side of the road and then lost it, and that as he nearly mowed down three primary school kids the next day, I would not take that action that quickly next time he pulled that stunt and let him end up under my car's wheels as a service to the wider community, 

The police went from a laissez faire attitude of "we can't chase them they don't wear helmets" to using drones to watch where they went and busting them at home the weekend after my little speech was reported in the papers by a "shocked" lib dem councillor. 

It is clear the police do nothing until the community threatens to, and the traveller scum need to look vevin fear.

[cromwell]

Well JOG I'e known you some years,your opinion you are entitled to but not one I'd ever share looking at this thread.

Whatever lawlessness might occur does not entitle mass murder,medical experiments such as those have no merit.

[srb7677]

And who was it telling those lies ?

Well it wasn't me. The truth is readily available and has been for as far back as I can remember.

I knew for example that whilst millions of Jews were murdered simply for being Jewish, the death camp victims also included homosexuals and gypsies. Millions of Russian POWs also died, albeit mostly through deliberate starvation, though the first victims of the gas chambers at Auschwitz were actually also Russian POWs who were simply murdered as a test of the process.

But whilst Gypsies and others were deliberately gassed to death, the Jews of Europe were murdered in much larger numbers because there were so many available. 6 million Jews murdered just for being Jews is the widely accepted figure, contested only by holocaust denyers and nazi sympathisers.

[srb7677]

The killing of disabled people is never mentioned either, they were the first targets of the Nazis.

Indeed. It was the T4 euthenasia program that began on the same day as Germany invaded Poland on September 1st 1939. The victims were physically and mentally disabled Germans in asylums. This was the first time that the Nazis systematically began murdering people with gas in purpose built gas chambers. Many of those involved, due to the "expertise" acquired in gassing people to death, were later employed in the mass murder of millions by gassing.

[srb7677]

Oh I don't know, rather a lot of very useful medical information came from those scientists.

So that makes it ok then does it? I suppose you'd condone doing the same thing to gypsies today? They are after all mere subhumans, in your own words. We have heard language like that before and seen where it leads. 

[srb7677]

The "target group" have polluted our playing fields and beauty spots with their raw sewage poured into straight onto our fields and into our rivers with the arrogance of those who know that nothing will be done to them

What, every single one of them? Do you know them all personally? And is that supposed to make gassing them to death acceptable? You do after all describe them as subhuman. Suddenly I find it easier to understand how you could have felt at home in a neo nazi party like the BNP.

[papasmurf]

Oh I don't know, rather a lot of very useful medical information came from those scientists.

The problem with most of that, it was not used for many decades after the war. 

[johnofgwent]

Don't forget the dreadful experiments they carried out too on all sorts of people. It truly was a dreadful regime and perhaps too sensitive for any sort of joke for a cheap laugh.

Oh I don't know, rather a lot of very useful medical information came from those scientists.

[T00ts]

Don't forget the dreadful experiments they carried out too on all sorts of people. It truly was a dreadful regime and perhaps too sensitive for any sort of joke for a cheap laugh.

[johnofgwent]

But it is impossible to find Carr's joke funny without ourselves having a substanstial degree of malice towards the target group.

I see no problem. 

The "target group" have polluted our playing fields and beauty spots with their raw sewage poured into straight onto our fields and into our rivers with the arrogance of those who know that nothing will be done to them

There is YouTube footage of them riding their Pony and Trap vehicles at high speed through pedestrianised areas of Newport. They race them recklessly at high speed at men, women and children who dive for cover. Nothing is done.

They steal digs for fighting and other pets for god knows what. Nothing is done.

They enslave men of low intellect and force them to work for them. Nothing is done, for decades.


These subhuman animals need to live cowering in utter terror of reprisal for their actions.

The police do F@@@ all.

That is a problem.

[papasmurf]

The real reason the Jews hate this particular "joke" is, I suspect, and suspect very strongly, what Carr says about a minute after the punchline

He makes the very valid point that people are not told the Nazis used the camps to slaughter political opponents, homosexuals and what we now refer to as travellers. Thousands of travellers. Yes it's not six million but as a young man I was led to believe only Jews were murdered because it was necessary for the hard luck sob story that I be left to think no one else was there. And who was it telling those lies ?

The killing of disabled people is never mentioned either, they were the first targets of the Nazis.

[johnofgwent]

But it is impossible to find Carr's joke funny without ourselves having a substanstial degree of malice towards the target group. Because it requires that to regard the notion of their mass murder as any kind of positive on any level, even for humorous effect. Anyone without such malice could never find a joke about their murder funny.

So the obnoxiousness of Carr is not so much in uttering a joke which many were always going to find offensive, and which gypsies themselves were bound to find offensive, especllialy the surviving relatives of those the Nazis murdered. Though that is itself obnoxious enough. It is the fact that he expressed humour that can only be seen as such by haters and bigots, and gambled that there were enough of these in the audience.

The fact that no one on this forum thus far found the joke the least bit funny is to everyone's credit here.

The real reason the Jews hate this particular "joke" is, I suspect, and suspect very strongly, what Carr says about a minute after the punchline

He makes the very valid point that people are not told the Nazis used the camps to slaughter political opponents, homosexuals and what we now refer to as travellers. Thousands of travellers. Yes it's not six million but as a young man I was led to believe only Jews were murdered because it was necessary for the hard luck sob story that I be left to think no one else was there. And who was it telling those lies ?

[Borchester]

I have had to report that comment to moderation as I am not allowed to respond to it.

I would like to report Pappy for being a dreary bastard.