Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - Buzzfeed： The Joke Police

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May 4, 2019 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

15:11

Buzzfeed： The Joke Police

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	So when I was in Gibraltar, I was recording a video for my channel and myself and Callum decided to do some outtakes because well hell, we're not going to let the establishment tell us that we can't make jokes.
	So I said this, obvious jokes.
	Now I would say that that was an obvious joke made at the expense of the media who keep going on about the fact that I wouldn't even rape Jess Phillips.
	This came from a video entitled British Politics in 2019 because apparently this is the only thing we can talk about at this point.
	It has 238,438 views at time of recording with 29,000 upvotes and 457 down votes.
	The description reads, I disavow my own jokes.
	Listen, BuzzFeed, it's a roast, not a dick.
	Don't take it so hard.
	Category of comedy.
	And the top pinned comment is by Mike Ash.
	Obvious bait.
	I can't wait to see them fall over each other to take it.
	Well, Mike, it only took one week.
	UKIP candidate Carl Benjamin has talked again about raping Labour MP Jess Phillips and now she wants action.
	You mean made a joke?
	I made a joke in a comedic video, a video that was obvious satire, it's full of other satirical jokes with the description of, I disavow this joke, this is a joke BuzzFeed.
	It's listed in the category of comedy and BuzzFeed frame it as talked again.
	No Mark DiStefano and Hannah Al-Othman.
	You habitual and congenital liars.
	It was a joke and I am not going to stop telling jokes.
	I am not going to let you be the joke police and prevent myself and other people from enjoying some humor.
	Labour MP Jess Phillips has questioned whether UKIP star candidate blindly calm down BuzzFeed.
	I think I might just be an edgy boy on the internet.
	I think I might just be a YouTube entertainer, which is what I keep telling people, but they don't seem to want to listen.
	No non-Youtuber Sagan of a Cat should be allowed to run in this month's European elections after new footage has emerged in which he talks again about raping her.
	You are really grasping for straws here, aren't you?
	I mean, honestly, this is a video that is obviously comedy that I put on my YouTube channel.
	The footage didn't just emerge.
	It wasn't secretly taken at a meeting or something like this.
	No, this was a comedy video I posted to my channel deliberately to wind you up.
	On Monday, Batten, who has previously called the remark satire, which it was, again defended Benjamin's tweet during an appearance on BBC Politics Live programme, claiming it was fine because the candidate said he wouldn't rape the MP.
	Well, what do you want me to do?
	Vow the opposite?
	This is what I'm talking about, about the constant media pressure.
	You can keep trying to get me to, but I'm never going to do it.
	But the thing is, he said again, again, he said, again, stop it.
	Just let it go.
	Why don't you actually care about what we will do politically?
	Why don't you actually care about any of our actual manifesto pledges?
	Any of the principles by which we operate?
	UKIP is the last party that is actually going to defend free speech and comedy.
	They are the only people who are prepared to do it.
	Everyone else is far too afraid, including comedians themselves.
	Batten said he wasn't making a joke about rape.
	He was making a remark of non-intent because he knew that would go to someone complaining.
	And here we are again.
	The joke I made was at the expense of the media and all of their pressure to seemingly reverse my stance on not even raping Jess Phillips.
	I mean, they can't even frame it in a way that makes it sound like it's not a joke.
	They print the literal text and honestly, it's obviously comedy.
	I mean, BuzzFeed, you can't continue to lie about people.
	You can't continue to decontextualize things and make it seem...
	I mean, no one thinks that that's a serious statement.
	No one thinks that.
	On Friday morning, Phillips told BuzzFeed News that the new footage raises the question about the role of the Electoral Commission in dealing with violent comments made about an MP.
	What, violent jokes?
	Obvious jokes at your expense?
	Is that really, really what the Electoral Commission are going to be concerned with, is it?
	She said, I really don't know what to say.
	As someone who works still every day with victims of rape, the idea that it's funny or a joke to hear someone saying that if forced they would rape me, there's a childish misunderstanding that rape is about sex rather than power and violence.
	Well listen, Jess, that's an entirely separate conversation.
	And what I'm willing to have with you, if you actually want to have that discussion, if you can put your man hatred aside for five minutes and maybe accept that perhaps you don't actually know everything about this subject, but I don't really want to because I'll just get quoted out of context, obviously, as I am with absolutely everything I'm saying, because not like the media are honest, and weirdly they're on your side.
	What does it mean when you have the dishonest media on your side, Jess Phillips?
	The implications are staggering, aren't they?
	But the problem is, Jess, we can joke about anything, and that is an important thing that we are able to do.
	As I said in my statement to BuzzFeed.
	In a statement to BuzzFeed News, Benjamin wrote, Once again, BuzzFeed position themselves as the progressive joke police.
	I stand behind David Bediel's justification about why any subject can be the subject of a joke.
	The alternative is a world devoid of humor, the essential tool we use to reduce the horror of events that are beyond our control.
	And I really mean it.
	Humour normalizes horrible events, because horrible events are inevitable.
	They happen to everyone.
	And we have two options.
	We can either run and hide and never speak of such a thing and pretend that it'll never happen to us up until the day that it does, or we can stare it in the face and say, we are not afraid of you.
	In fact, we are so not afraid of you, we are going to laugh at you.
	This will not break us.
	Buzzfeed want you to be afraid.
	They want you to run and hide.
	So does Jess Phillips.
	I want you to stand up and stare these things in the face and say, not today.
	These are the choices you have.
	Choose wisely.
	Of course, David Badiel, the man who originally defended making rape jokes, has decided, oh no, actually, he doesn't defend making rape jokes.
	This is what he said on Twitter.
	Interesting.
	I wonder what justification that might be.
	If it's this one, he hasn't read it very closely.
	This is what he previously said.
	Of course, we're also dealing with another issue here, which is the category error that people who wish to be outraged on social media make around comedy and subject matter.
	That's where people go with jokes.
	Is it acceptable, it is asked in hushed tones, to tell a joke about dementia or cancer or rape or race or the holocaust?
	But you can always, because the subject isn't key.
	You certainly can tell a hateful, mean joke about all of these subjects, or you can tell one which satirizes attitudes to that subject, or one which makes the victims feel less alone, or one which can be interpreted in any number of other ways.
	But what it means depending on the telling, which means the context, the delivery, the stories told, the words themselves, even the word order.
	I totally agree with you, David.
	I was not actually making a joke about Jess Phillips.
	I was making a joke about the media obsessing over a four-year-old tweet.
	This is not about Jess Phillips at all.
	Why the media keep running this in her face is beyond me.
	Jess, I'm sorry they keep bringing this up, love.
	I don't want to talk about that old tweet either, as much as I'm sure you don't.
	We are supposed to be able to joke about dark things.
	Don't bulk when this conviction is put to the test.
	We have to be free to make these kinds of jokes.
	It might seem easy or sensible or safe or gratifying when, in the eye of the storm, when in the teeth of the gale of the media shitstorm that they like to drum up to whip you all back into line to say, well, okay, yeah, no, I disavow my own statements about defending rape jokes.
	I, David Bediel, am never going to make these kind of jokes again.
	And so on, and so on, and so on, until your career is fucking over, David.
	We must be free to make jokes.
	I don't know how much more clear I can make that.
	And no amount of pathetic, limp-breasted virtue signaling on your part is going to change the fact that I'm using your defense by which to do it.
	Man up and own what you believe, you bloody coward.
	And just in case you're thinking, well, maybe David Bedial's defense just isn't strong enough, well, I'll go for Ricky Gervais's defense, shall I?
	Ricky Gervais said, Is there any subject you shouldn't joke about?
	Is no less ridiculous a question than, is there any subject you shouldn't talk about?
	Offense often occurs when people mistake the subject of a joke with the actual target.
	They're not always the same.
	And in this case, they're certainly not.
	Just Phillips is totally ancillary to this joke.
	He ends with, all jokes should be banned in case anyone is offended.
	Discuss.
	And that's where we'll end up.
	That is where we will end up.
	Now, if you guys want to stop being such clowns in the media and actually, oh, I don't know, talk to me.
	Actually, talk to me about my ideas.
	Why I am running, what I am trying to achieve, the conversations that we are trying to mainstream here that actually need to be spoken about regarding free speech and the defense of comedy, then maybe we can have that conversation.
	But not until you get past the fact that I make jokes about things I find dark and comical, and I am free to do that.
	It is not against YouTube's terms of service, it's not against Facebook's terms of service or any of their other terms of service.
	It's not hate speech, it's not illegal.
	I am allowed to make jokes, just like Ricky Gervais, just like David Bedial, just like Frankie Boyle, just like Jimmy Carr, just like all of these other offensive comedians.
	Just because my medium is social media and theirs happens to be on TV does not give them some kind of special license that I'm not entitled to as well.
	This is something that we should all be free to do.
	Now, you can say, well, hey, there's a time and place, there's a context.
	I agree.
	I didn't go up to a face and say it to her, did I?
	I didn't even go up to BuzzFeed's face and say it to them, even though that would have been a lot funnier.
	I did it on my channel, which has got the tone and tenor of a late-night comedy show.
	Quite edgy, quite spicy, interesting, and fun.
	And we talk about politics, we make jokes about the things that are going on to save ourselves from crying at the absolute state that the current political environment is in.
	Because my God, have we not seen how much of a state it is?
	Honestly, it really is all I can do to make jokes than prevent myself from absolutely breaking down in tears at the way the world is going at the moment.
	So, anyway, I will be in Bridgewater tomorrow from midday to talk to people on the street.
	Anyone who wishes to have a conversation with me about any subject, you're free to come down and I will be happily engaging with absolutely anyone who wants to talk about any subject at all.
	And of course, if you're in the United Kingdom, please do register to vote on the 23rd of May.
	Naturally, I'd like you to vote UKIP.
	We are the only party who is actually fighting for Brexit, individual rights, free speech, neutral and accountable institutions, and a digital bill of rights.
	We are the only party who opposes censorship.
	We are the only party who has the fortitude to stand up to the dirty, dirty smear merchants in the mainstream media.
	Speaking of dirty, dirty smear merchants, after many, many, many requests, I got a t-shirt done.
	And I'm really, really, really happy with this design.
	So if you would like to get a dirty, dirty smear merchant's t-shirt, please feel free to visit the Teespring link in the description or linked in the comments where you can get one until Tuesday.
	I like to give them a kind of like prestige because there's a time and a place to buy these t-shirts and you won't be able to just buy them anywhere else anytime else.
	And I don't tend to do repeat runs or anything like that because I'm not really looking for the money here.
	I think it's nice to own a little piece of what we're doing, isn't it?
	I'll probably have to get one of these myself because I really like this design.
	And it would be really good if I ever doing any more interviews to be able to have that on my t-shirt.
	But right, so yeah, links in the description.
	And thank you, BuzzFeed, for being such predictable goons.
	You can keep going on about the fact that I tell jokes if you like, and I warn you now, I'm probably going to tell jokes in the future.
	Although the law under discussion has been on the statute book for over 25 years, it is indicative of a culture that has taken hold of the programs of successive governments that, with the reasonable and well-intentioned ambition to contain obnoxious elements in society, has created a society of an extraordinarily authoritarian and controlling nature.
	That is what you might call the new intolerance, a new but intense desire to gag uncomfortable voices of dissent.
	I am not intolerant, say many people, say many softly spoken, highly educated, liberal-minded people.
	I'm only intolerant of intolerance.
	And people tend to nod sagely and say, oh, yes, wise words, wise words.
	And yet, if you think about this supposedly inarguable statement for longer than five seconds, you realize that all it is advocating is the replacement of one kind of intolerance with another, which to me doesn't represent any kind of progress at all.
	Underlying prejudices, injustices, or resentments are not addressed by arresting people.
	They are addressed by the issues being aired, argued, and dealt with, preferably outside the legal process.
	For me, the best way to increase society's resistance to insulting or offensive speech is to allow a lot more of it.
	As with childhood diseases, you can better resist those germs to which you have been exposed.
	We need to build our immunity to taking offence so that we can deal with the issues that perfectly justified criticism can raise.
	Our priority should be to deal with the message, not the messenger.
	As President Obama said in an address to the United Nations only a month or so ago, laudable efforts to restrict speech can become a tool to silence critics or oppress minorities.
	The strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression, it is more speech.
	And that's the essence of my thesis: more speech.
	If we want a robust society, we need more robust dialogue, and that must include the right to insult or to offend.

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