> I don’t know you or your values, often racists disguise their views as some form of freedom and conflate concepts. I have no strong urge to watch comedies poking fun at other people’s sensitive topics perhaps you should consider why you want to

Well, I for one certainly want to see more comedies poking fun at people's sensitive topics - most of all, my own. If I can't enjoy a well crafted joke about views or subjects I hold dear, I cannot examine them seriously either, at which point I'm just holding on to a dogma. That to me seems far more tragic than feeling offense at the occasional crass or tasteless joke.

Furthermore, on the broader point about comedy and offense, if you hold freedom of speech in any regard at all, you should fight the most for the right to express the views you find most offensive [1]. Anything less is not a defense of freedom of speech, it's simply defending your preference to be pandered to.

[1] Yes, there are obvious caveats with actionable incitement to violence. Those are well covered by existing legislation in every developed country and have nothing to do with offending people.

Actually you can sometimes convince people their ideas are wrong by laughing at their ideas. I'll never forget my Dad's reaction when I bought a magazine about flying saucers.

Whether or not we can change each others views by laughing at them, it shouldn't be forbidden. In fact it's healthy. All religions, and atheists too, have ideas that should be subjected to the scrutiny of laughter.

Don't confuse hatred of people with laughing at ridiculous ideas. I 100% support everyone's right to hold ridiculous ideas (as long as they don't impact the rest of us).

Laugh at the ties people wear to the office, or the suits with tails that people wear to prestigious events; but laugh as well at pompous religious robes.

Laugh at the belief that flying saucers exist, the belief that fairies exist, the belief that god X Y or Z exists, or at the idea that the universe is just a soup of particles and radiation that cares nothing about us.

Any worthwhile idea or belief can withstand laughter, and probably did when it was young. The fact that some people cannot, means it's not reasonable to take the piss out of the shy kid in class. Laughing at a vulnerable person or group of people is wrong. But for ideas - especially for ideas that claim justification in mystical personal experience rather than rationality - laughter can be the best argument.

I'm not sure what it is that you're arguing against, where did I advocate shouting abuse outside a school as a productive way of doing anything? Perhaps you could clarify your argument somewhat.

Civil debates are great, I'm happy to have more of them. At the same time, works like the Life of Brian (and many others over the years) sometimes manage to convey more thought-provoking critique per unit time than any civil debate I've ever seen. Having to tune out a measure of tasteless humor is the price we pay for enjoying these brilliant works because there is no more a way of legislating good humor than there is of enforcing quality journalism, good music or any other creative human endeavour.

> Well, I for one certainly want to see more comedies poking fun at people's sensitive topics

What stops you from doing that in front of your home or office ? Why don’t you act on your beliefs?

Why do you equate comedy production with obnoxious shouting in public? It doesn't even make sense as a strawman. I don't produce comedies because I'm not a filmmaker. I don't shout random insulting things in public because that's just dumb. Neither fact contradicts any of the views and beliefs I've expressed in this thread in any way.

Maybe because atheists like me are beheaded in certain countries. Why would you shut down criticism of the ideology that does that?

Freedom of speech wasn't granted to us to talk about weather while drinking coffee. Freedom of speech was granted to us to talk about difficult topics quite often when we don't like discussing it in the first place.

This paraphrase of a quote is often attributed to both Churchill and Jefferson.

The whole idea is that people who you are uncomfortable listening to have the right to speech right in your face even when it makes you extremely uncomfortable. The whole current political system is morally bankrupt when some of us are granted this freedom (radical immams) while others aren't (i.e. racists). Because then regular people on the street stop believing and voting for liberal democrats. Liberal democrats criticizing freedom of speech (not granted to racists would seem to make you happy) and democratic process (i.e. electoral college, brexit) -- they start looking like they don't care about their own values (like freedom of speech and democracy). You can't call yourself liberal and then be anti-free speech to this or another group or perceived group. This makes you look as if you don't understand the words you use to describe ideas you believe in it. You are not liberal if you ban freedom of speech to racist. Period, and of story. Look up liberal in dictionary.

This is one of the reasons why people vote Trump or AfD or Social Democrats in Sweden. They recognize mainstream political parties as anti-democratic (ignoring EU referendums) and anti-liberal (opposition to freedom of speech). So if all the political spectrum in anti-liberal and anti-democratic why not to vote for a party that at least isn't hypocritical about it?

No, for the same reason I wouldn't go there and say priests are wrong in the middle-ages. I would be be killed by the mob. Burnt like a witch.

You can't create social environment, like in middle-ages, where discussing certain topis, like racial differences at universities, results in loosing employment, getting "killed by the mob", and then demand I come out. This is crazy! You mr. inquisition are not going to set me up into this trap.

And, yes, I know you would love to see me burnt at the stake because of my love of science and my scientific believe that there are differences between sexes and there are differences between races. But I will not give you the pleasure mr. grand inquisitor.

Human genome has been decoded since 2003. This is science. If your ideology destroys it, then you are inquisition. And we are living in new middle-ages. Not to believe in sex differences? Not to believe in race differences? 16 years after the genome has been decoded? Why? Because you have your ideology like some 600 years ago had their religion? And what do I care?