A Dime a Dozen Blog

“To punish mankind for their complicity in the Holocaust.”

It’s not what you’d call a good joke.  But it’s a joke I heard at a Vancouver comedy club.  It was told by a friend of Cathy’s named Neil Hamburger.  Half of his shtick is telling Henny Youngman-style jokes and the other half is being offensive and agro to hecklers.  You can see a clip of him dealing with some hecklers in Vancouver here:

A comedian named Guy Earle has been in the news lately.  He’s being taken to the BC Human Rights Tribunal for dealing with hecklers in Vancouver, in a slightly less robust fashion than you see on the clip.

If he loses before the Tribunal he could face a fine, be forced to apologize, and could even be banned from performing.

There are a lot of reasons for opposing this type of prosecution: rights of informed consumers, the safety of patrons if the only response to hecklers is to get the bouncers, free speech, art, etc… but I think the only thing you actually need to say about this is that it’s stupid.  It’s really, really, stupid.  Everyone deserves due process for their complaints, but there are some things you shouldn’t be able to complain about and be taken seriously.

I was listening to Guy Earle on the ShireNetworkNews Podcast this morning, and the fundraiser for him was mentioned.  It’s here in Toronto on Saturday.  Ezra Levant wrote about it at length. I wasn’t going to go – because I don’t know anyone in the city, but screw it – this is just so stupid that it’s worth going there alone – social awkwardness be damned.