I am not well versed on Canadian law in that regard, but I know the UK has very strict libel laws. Our views on free speech are much more expansive than the rest of the world. Most other countries have tighter rules around privacy and attacking individuals.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

This seems just as bad as the jackhole fascist despot in Turkey locking up people for saying mean things about him on facebook. The extreme left and extreme right are so much closer than they realize.

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I thought London tabloids were renowned for their crazy headlines. Although I suppose it's not libel if it's true...

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“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”- JD Vance
“My god, what an !diot.”- JD Vance tweet on Trump
“I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy”- JD Vance

Terrible guy, but this shit scares me.

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Exactly. I might not think he's funny but, as you said, this shit scares me.

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Isn't that amazing, Denis? I had no idea about this until a few years ago at a teaching in-service. The person leading the in-service was British and said that in the bleedin' UK you can get in legal trouble (fines, prison, only 71 virgins as opposed to the 72) for insulting someone or their religion (or being understood to have insulted them). It strikes me as Orwellian.

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I read the Economist front to back each week. And from the European perspective, they are amazed at our attitudes toward free speech. They just can't grasp at how liberally we allow free speech in terms of how we attack public figures.

But America is quite unique in many respects including the separation of religion from government and gun ownership.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Because it rightly fucking should.

If this story came out of China or Best Korea, the reaction would be something like 'well, obviously those weirdo fucks would do something like that'.

This is from fucking Canada though ... that's the worst part of it for me. The reasoning being that some jerkoff's shit joke caused damage to this other guy to be a violation of his dignity is physically sickening.

I'd suggest that having some nominal tribunal decide that you're so fucking feeble that a joke has caused you so much pain that the government is going to levy a $42,000 fine in your favor should probably a bigger blow to your so-called dignity than some shitty bit about how he thought you were dying but it turned out you're just weird looking could ever be ... and then they say this kid gets bullied now b/c some unknown comic (literally) does a 4-minute hunk about the kid? Right, right. I'm sure the kid was the toast of the hallways prior to that, but once that joke was out there, well, shit, now it's 'Open Season' on Toucan Sam or whatever his name is.

Plus, there's nothing too terribly Orwellian about having to stand for trial in front of something called a "Human Rights Tribunal".

Maybe the whole continent needs a good plague, not just this frigging country.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Terrible guy?

It was a solid joke. People suck.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Maybe Kevin James could go up there.