Warning: This feature contains themes that some viewers may find offensive.
If you are affected by any of the content in this video please contact literally anyone
but me.
Hey Thoughty2 here.
Before I begin I would like to say that this video will be a bit different to normal because
it will contain a lot of opinion, but I feel so passionately about this topic that it needs
to be addressed.
If you're used to my usual style of fact-based videos and you aren't comfortable hearing
opinions that you may not agree with then I kindly ask that you give this video a miss.
So if you've watched the news, read the papers or used any kind of social media within
the last few years you may have noticed an unsavoury trend that has been increasing with
seemingly exponential virality.
Everyone is getting offended by everything.
Whether you have been witness to it or not there is an ever growing number of ultra-politically-correct
far-left militants that are hellbent on campaigning for a cause for people whom they've never
met and who never asked them to campaign for them in the first place.
And no, this isn't about politics, it's far more serious than that, this is about
maintaining our freedoms and rights as a human race, and no, sadly, I'm not exaggerating.
If you're not quite sure what the hell I'm going on about, let me tell you about a fairly
recent event that just goes to prove my point about how deadly political correctness can
be.
In November 2009 a psychologist working in the US army, Nidal Malik Hasan, opened fire
on the other troops in the base, whilst shouting "God is Great" in Arabic, 13 people were
killed.
It was soon discovered that the Pentagon knew all about Hasan's radical ideologies way
before this act of terrorism.
They were aware of a whole bunch of emails he had been sending to other radical Muslims.
Even his own colleagues at the army base had expressed their discomfort about him to others,
saying that he was a "ticking time bomb".
So how on Earth could the US government and the senior army management simply allow this
horrific mass murder to happen?
Because the powers that be in the US army were too afraid of being accused of racially
profiling someone to take any action.
And so because of the unyielding pressure of political correctness in the modern age,
13 people tragically had to die.
The effects of the over-offended can be seen strongly in comedy.
The sixties, seventies and eighties were full of original, geniusly witty tv comedies that
have yet to be bettered, such as Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Yes Minister and
a handful of others which I'm sure you all have fond memories of but there are too many
to name here.
But each and every one of these shows delved into the realm of what overly sensitive people
today might wrongly call sexist, homophobic or racist.
One notable example is what many people consider to be the greatest 30 minutes of TV comedy
ever written and performed, the Fawlty Towers episode "The Germans".
The whole 30 minutes is stuffed full of non-PC jokes that wouldn't dare be part of any
contemporary TV sitcom.
One particular scene shows a resident of Fawlty Towers, Major Gowen using racial slurs against
West Indians and Germans.
Sadly, due to the increasingly sensitive nature of some TV viewers today, this scene is now
cut by the BBC from the episode, whenever they air it on TV.
But what people fail to see is that the writers John Cleese and Connie Booth are by no means
supporting such racial slurs, they are in fact doing the opposite, they are making a
joke out of the Major's (a completely fictional character) ignorance and prejudice towards
other cultures and races.
And that is just totally fine.
Because racism is wrong and we should make fun of those who practice it.
So how is it that I can I so confidently say that such TV moments were categorically not
racist, well, for one simple reason, it is comedy.
Comedy should have no bounds.
When horrendous, unthinkable things happen such as war, the holocaust, slavery, disease
and oppression, it is human nature to want to make things better, unless of course you
are the one causing said suffering.
And we can often make good of any bad situation by simply having a laugh.
During the war and the great depression, comedy sitcoms and talk shows were broadcast on radio
stations all day, every day.
Such shows would often attract audiences of 30 million plus listeners.
30 million people wanted to listen to comedy in the middle of a war.
Because when the chips are down and all seems lost, it's the small things that really
matter, it might just be that moment of laughter one gets from a comedy sketch on the radio.
It might trivialise the seemingly insurmountable issues you are facing by poking fun at them,
and so making them just seem a little bit less horrible, and slightly more tolerable.
Being intentionally prejudice towards a specific group of people is a horrible thing but when
we are forced to conform to extreme political correctness it only strips away our freedom
of speech and our ability to express ourselves.
Today's stand up comedians have fallen victim to the ever tightening pc noose around their
creative necks.
More so than ever comedians are having to censor their own material, making it less
offensive and more politically correct, just to appease what many journalists are calling
the "snowflake generation".
Certain british comedians such as Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle have been reprimanded
repeatedly by British television regulators Ofcom because they have been forced to do
so after numerous complaints by over-offended tv viewers who feel that they are entitled
to restrict a comedian's freedom of speech.
The issue is intensified by the fact that the snowflake generation are using social
media such as Twitter to publicly ridicule and beat down any comedian who uses anti-PC
language in their comedy.
And so many comedians are too afraid to write the material they truly want to, they are
scared of what the public reaction may be if their content isn't entirely family friendly,
and how drastically sad is that.
But the ironic thing is, the snowflake crowd are in many ways doing the complete opposite
of what they seek to achieve.
Instead of censoring offensive comedy, some comedians are now purposely being as offensive
as possible with their material, in a backlash to the easily offended populus.
As a way to fight back against liberal oppression and say that it's okay to be a little offensive
from time to time, because we are humans, we are not perfect, and sometimes joining
in on a joke, even if it is at one's own expense, can be a most joyous thing.
But sadly there is a dark side to comedians pushing offensive humour as far as it can
go.
Because it tends to skew more towards simple-minded toilet humor, slapstick and an overwhelming
amount of forced bad-language and sex jokes, this all takes the place of what previously
could have been well-thought out, witty humour that uses offense as a natural and organic
part of the joke instead of being forced into the material in an unnatural, belligerent
and obviously artificial fashion.
But sadly, no matter how hard comedians attempt to fight back against the snowflakes, the
reality is they do wield power, because of advertisers.
Because today so many people are too quick to lodge complaints against television broadcasters,
and other companies, TV executives are too afraid to invest money into original writing
talent just because it may be too "edgy" or offensive for certain demographics of their
viewership.
And the problem is made even worse as TV broadcasters are held at the mercy of their advertisers.
Today advertisers recognise the power of the snowflake crowd and their ability to rant
and rave on social media about their brand if they are seen as being slightly offensive
or prejudice and so advertisers will point-blank refuse to advertise on shows that could be
construed as offensive, by pretty much anyone.
And if the advertising money isn't there a show will never be broadcast, no matter
how good it is.
We've all seen this exact same issue here on YouTube in recent years.
To protect advertisers and their all important revenue streams YouTube has introduced new
measures to aggressively censor any content creator that produce slightly edgy content,
by stripping away their advertising revenue.
I make a lot of videos about history and War is a prominent feature of our history that
should be openly talked about so we can learn from our mistakes.
But any video that so much mentions the word war has been entirely stripped of advertisements,
because god forbid someone out there is offended by a recount of accurate historical events.
But we can't blame YouTube or even the advertisers for this mass censorship.
It's not their fault, they are just responding to what the public wants to protect their
revenues and any business would probably do the same thing.
It is the easily-offended, the complainers, those that are quick to reprimand people who
seek to speak freely and unimpeded, that are the ones truly responsible, they are the rotten
core.
The true cause of what will inevitably be a rapid decline in creativity.
But is it really that wrong to be offended?
No, of course it's not, everyone gets offended from time to time, it is natural, it is human
nature to take a dislike to comments or actions that cause us upset.
The public have always taken offense, that's not new, what is new and what is the true
problem today is people's feeling of entitlement.
Because many millennials, especially in the West, have grown up in a time free of war,
free of oppression and poverty they have never known what it's like to not have everything,
to not get what they want.
This has instilled in many a feeling of gross entitlement, a feeling that them being offended
actually means something.
Let me tell you straight, being offended doesn't mean anything.
It's a natural human response and it's okay to be offended or even disgusted at other
people's actions but it absolutely doesn't give you the right to control how others behave
and talk.
If someone calls you stupid you rightly should be offended, but that doesn't mean you can
start a campaign to prevent people from using the word stupid, that's a little something
called oppression.
Don't get me wrong I'm not talking about every young person out there, far from it.
I'm simply referring to a small minority.
But as is often the case in life, it is the few that spoil it for the many.
But why is being so openly offended and making sure everyone possible knows how utterly offended
you are, such a bad thing?
Well there is a fundamental problem with being offended and making a big deal of it.
Offensive is subjective.
What each of us is offended by is vastly different from person to person.
What offends us depends on our social and economic background, our religious views or
lack of, the friendships you've had, how you were brought up, where you live, your
political affiliation, your ethnicity, sexuality, age, gender, even your diet.
And just because you are offended by a specific thing it does not mean that the rest of the
world should be, because we are all unique and varied, and if we weren't then we would
all be exactly the same and have the same beliefs and that doesn't sound like much
fun, does it?
My point is, where does it stop?
I'm offended by people who drink instant coffee, but am I going to protest against
it or call the police?
No because me being offended doesn't matter, it gives me no rights, and it's not my place
to tell others how to behave.
At the end of the day, no one is being harmed, no crime has been committed.
Everyone out there is offended by different things, you can guarantee that no matter what
you think of, there will be someone in the world who finds it offensive, you can never
fully police every thought, freedom of speech and people's behaviours because doing so
would be trying to police everyone and everything that they say.
The so-called snowflake generation are trying to police thought and free speech and the
totally ironic thing is that the vast majority of the millennial mind police would consider
themselves to be very liberal.
Now I don't know about you, but I would say that attempting to prevent people from
thinking a certain way, from saying what they want and stopping them from behaving in a
natural and human way is the opposite of liberal, it's actually incredibly facist.
And to make matters worse, it's not just the public that are getting offended too easily.
It's our governments too.
As was demonstrated with a very recent and shocking case in Scotland.
Scottish comedian and YouTuber Mark Meechan posted a video on YouTube in which he explained
that he is sick of his girlfriend thinking that absolutely everything her pet pug does
is adorable and cute and so he thought it would be funny to teach the pug to do the
least cute and most horrific thing he could think of, which is of course, being a Nazi.
So, upon hearing the command "gas the jews" the pug would raise he stubby little leg in
what we would infer to be a Nazi salute.
Now of course the hilarious thing about this is that this adorable little pug has no idea
what it is doing, it is completely dead pan.
And that juxtaposition between the cute and the horrific makes for a really funny video.
Is Mark Meechan supporting the views, ideologies and actions of the Nazis, no.
Does making and posting this video online make him a neo nazi or supporter of anti semitism,
absolutely not.
Because it was intended as comedy and no more than that and there categorically should be
no rules when it comes to comedy.
Sure some people may find it insensitive but I'm sorry, you either have to have free
speech or nothing at all, especially when it comes to comedy.
Because as soon as you start to draw lines between what is okay to make fun of and what
isn't you start policing people's thoughts and people's speech and that is just a slippery
slope into a war on intelligence and rational thought, two things that we must fight to
defend, no matter the cost.
After being posted on Reddit, Meechan's video went viral gathering 3 million views.
Subsequently Meechan was arrested on suspicion of hate crime.
In March 2018 he faced trial in court and in what was a very sad day for freedom of
speech, meechan was found guilty and sentenced to a fine of £800.
£800 may not seem like a heavy sentence, but the very fact that there was a trial at
all and even worse that a guilty verdict was reached is a very sad precedent for democracy,
free speech and everything that makes being a human, being free and being able to express
oneself so great and so precious.
In the words of Mark Meechan himself "when you start jailing comedians for making jokes,
you're heading down a slippery slope".
And my god he couldn't be more right.
I'm not being overly-dramatic when I say that this decision sets an incredibly dangerous
precedent that we should make all of us very worried about the future of free speech.
The judge tried to put forward the ridiculously absurd case that Meechan's video was not
intended as comedy but was instead some kind of Nazi propaganda with a goal to unite the
masses in the act of gassing jews, and the cute pug was only a way to disguise his true
evil and malicious intent.
I'm not pulling your leg, that is what the court genuinely said.
This is obviously a load of crap as it was unquestionably comedy.
But one has to ask, by sentencing Meechan for making this comedy video, aren't the
court suppressing free speech just like the Nazis did.
Didn't we fight against the Nazis to preserve our ability to speak and act freely and avoid
totalitarian oppression?
So it begs the question, who is really exercising Nazi ideals here?
The only thing that was nice to see was the overwhelming public support for Mark Meechan,
in defense of his ill treatment by the court.
Many comedians also spoke out publicly defending Meechan's actions, namely Ricky Gervais.
Providing hope that rational thought and a desire for free speech are still well and
alive within our society.
Let's just hope we can keep it that way.
So to finish up, I implore you, the next time someone gets offended and complains at you
for sitting the wrong way in public, for eating meat, for using the only two correct gender
pronouns, for openly supporting your favourite political party, for casually flirting with
a stranger, for innocently touching another human being, for praying to your chosen deity,
for earning more money than someone else, for making a simple joke or simply because
you don't identify as a non-conforming gender-fluid pansexual cabbage.
Do not stand for it, not for a moment.
Because at the end of the day, you are only being yourself, and believe me, there's
absolutely nothing wrong with that.
If simply being yourself and doing what you know and what comes natural to you offends
somebody else, then it's their problem to deal with, don't let them make it yours
or anybody else's.
Thanks for watching.
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