Man who jokingly taught dog Nazi salute found guilty
 

"It's a joke" is one of the most overused defenses out there, probably tied with "First Amendment" rights. Saying something was a joke does nothing to affect it offensiveness, it just attempts to blame those hurt by it for not having a "good" sense of humor. IMO it is the verbal equivalent to "Yes, I punched that guy in the back of the head, but it was a prank, so it isn't assault."

What do you think of it?

Jusenkyo no Pikachu, if you think that's a joke, I don't think I'd enjoy your sense of humor.

In this case, the “joke” was about conditioning a dog to respond to Nazi references. With the right amount of context, we could in fact see that as a joke.

Yes we could. Which makes absolutely no difference into how offensive it is. It might even make it worse as it takes a horrible event in human history and turns into into the equivalent of a whoopee cushion.

I was wondering how it was decided if something said was "grossly offensive", which apparently is enough to send someone to jail, and I found this http://merlin.obs.coe.int/iris/2006/...cle101.en.html about the law.

It refers to another case where a man was found not guilty. He apparently called MPs and left anti-immigration messages using racial slurs. But some of the points in the article make it hard to see why Meechan was found guilty: Yeah, I'm not a lawyer so I'm sure there's a lot I'm missing but why would clicking on a Reddit link really count as "receipt of [an] unsolicited message"?

Other articles, like this one, just leave me confused. If a court case ruled that people have the right to say things that offend, shock or disturb, wouldn't that mean the law against saying grossly offensive things is invalid?

I never said I found it funny.

You might not find this funny, but it’s still a decently constructed joke.

I don't get the impression from the linked story that there's any evidence the guy is a Nazi, apart from this "joke". And for people feeling sorry for the dog, there's no evidence given that he trained the dog to respond to Nazi references. That would be quite hard. (He trained the dog to respond to something, but not that). If there is any evidence for these things, it's not given in the story.

It's also not obvious what his sentence for being "found guilty" is. I get the impression that this is an example case, though, to try to quell certain kinds of speech. ("Hate speech", the advocates would say, but irony and satire are also potentially included here if you paint it with too broad a brush).

And for what it's worth, I can entirely see how his joke might have been a joke to him. These things are - thankfully - detached from reality for most of us. But making an ironic joke about something doesn't mean that you're advocating that thing. This is often what people mean when they say "it was a joke" - not that they were threatening you but you took it the wrong way, but that they were being ironic in the first place and their comments were meant to be read in the opposite way to the literal meaning.

I have no idea whether this guy was trying to be ironic, or just (as he says) winding up his girlfriend. Either way, I can't see any evidence in the story as written that he's actually a Nazi.

No, it isn't.

There's no twist, no punch line. And nothing funny about it. It's only and purely intended to offend; and that's not a joke.

-- wait a minute, I thought you were referring to the original story; I didn't see the link there. The link goes to a video, however, and I don't feel like watching a video; especially one I'm apparently expected to find offensive.

That is very often not at all what people mean when they say something was just a joke. What they very often mean is that their comments were meant to be read in exactly the way of the literal meaning, but that everyone is supposed to find the literal meaning funny: because attacking whoever is being attacked is supposed to be thought of as funny.

For context: the video is the one aired episode of Heil, Honey, I’m Home!, a British TV series that parodied 1950s dom coms by having Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun living next door to a Jewish couple.

No, I agree with TL. And even if I didn't, how "decently" (what an odd choice of word) it was "constructed" would be irrelevant.

Ok, then let me illustrate with a video I don’t understand, because surprisingly enough I think I can do that.

In 2015, Paul Joseph Watson released this video. Now, I know you’re going to either just avoid it because of who he is or click it and hate me forever, but let me explain: It’s a video he claims is satire. And, while I think he misses the mark and fails so badly that he attacks a group that could not possibly exist (cisgender transgender transracial otherkin furries who also identify as trans-hippo. I don’t get it either), I’m not inclined to disagree. It’s mean spirited and idiotic and not something I laugh at unironically (because unlike Paul, I don’t balance out soy with more soy. See the Science section for that to make sense), but it is an attempt at satire.

It might be funny if the words used to make the dog salute weren't offensive. Say it he had said something like this is what a real SOB does.

You're right, I'm not going to watch it. But, going by your description: sounds to me as if he's attacking a whole batch of people who actually do exist: people who are transgender and/or otherkin/furries. (Cisgender people also certainly exist; but that would be punching up, so depending on the rest of context I might give it a pass.)

He's attacking the whole idea that people might identify as anything other than what they physically on the surface appear to him to be. He may be doing this by exaggerating the phenomenon into satire; but that doesn't change the fact of the attack.

Would it be funny if he trained the dog to do it when playing "Hail to the Chief" or saying President Trump? Would it be funny if he trained it to do so at a mention of Obama?

Is it surprising that depending on one's politics one scenario would be funny and another offensive? Humour, especially if someone aspires to be edgy and controversial is going to do exactly that. Or at least it should according to everything I've read about comics.

He actually plays it as someone who identifies as trans-whatever only on certain days (using masks and padding). The whole idea is to make the trans* phenomenon look silly, but in my opinion he misses it by a parsec. I can’t even be mad at it due to that, and I’m fully aware of how nasty it actually is. But yeah, I’m still inclined to claim it as intentional (as well as unintentional) satire.

Oh, I wasn't saying it's not satire; I was saying that it is a genuine attack on people who actually exist.

Satire's a legitimate technique for political discourse, if used properly. IMO it should be used to punch up; and not at straw men.