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 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.
