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[sebastian_dangerfield]

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by free speech. Your consistent take seems to be that people should be able to say whatever they want without consequences.

Two responses:

1. If done for comedic or non-nefarious reasons, yes. As Carlin said, there are no taboo topics. You just have to do it right.

If you're saying something odious in earnest, you do not receive this pass. If you post alt-right shite, expect harsh blowback. You deserve it.

2. Response is always fine. If you don't like a joke, your exercise of free speech allows you to say so. But when you cry to the refs for a deplatforming of the comic, or pundit, you're beyond your free speech rights. You're asking for penalties to be applied to another for his use of free speech. This is chilling, and disproportionate. The penalty for offense should not be a mob compelling a network to remove someone from a movie or newspaper column.

But if Maher says something offensive, and somebody else calls hims out for being offensive, why is that not just more free speech?

Yes. Totally fine. Moving to have him thrown off HBO? Creepy. Overkill. Highly un-American.

Also, why is being offended such a sin in your mind?

Because it's whiny. The bigger person ignores it, or mocks the offender. And in regard to comedy, it shows lack of intelligence. Show me a guy who is easily offended by jokes and I'll show you one with limited capacity to grasp irony. And it's clinically established that lack of capacity to grasp irony, or humor more generally, correlates with low intellect.

It's also a character flaw to apply to the refs. Rather than cry for a foul, isn't it more effective, indeed showing more character and self-reliance, to throw a few elbows? I could have cried to mommy as a kid when I was picked on, but I found it much more effective to kick the kid's ass instead. (After which his friend who was stronger kicked my ass, but that's another story.) You get the point. I had a hell of a time doing plaintiff's work for this reason. I hated using the phrase, "Give him compensation he deserves" in court. Even when I thought it was a good case where it was indeed deserved.

I understand we need refs. It's okay to go to them when one has to do so. But it should never be one's first move.

If someone tells me that most blacks are shiftless criminals, I am going to be offended, and also let my opinion be known that I think the person is a racist piece of shit. How is that anti-free speech?

As I stated above, I have no problem with attacking the shit out of people who espouse those positions. It's the ninnies who whine about some joke made in poor taste who are the problem. Like the objection that Maher is sexist or trans-phobic because he does jokes that can be perceived insensitive. Comedy often scars. Good jokes often have a bit of meanness to them. If you can't understand that, you're dumb, and therefore whatever point you make will be dumb. I can ignore that, of course, which I will. But when you seek to deplatform someone, now you're fucking with my entertainment. You've gone too far.

(This is not to excuse Maher's idiotic slur of a months ago. He should have been and rightly was taken to the woodshed about that joke, which went too far. But even for that, taking his show away from him would have been an execution for a misdemeanor.)

As for the anti-vaccine bullshit, maybe it's unfair, but it colors the way I think about everything else he says.

Agreed. I have a problem with that, as I do with any moron who supports an anti-vaxx policy. But I can compartmentalize. He's an entertainer, not family.

In the same way that I think you and I would both react to someone who appears to truly believe the tenets of Scientology. They may have other, non-Scientology-related beliefs that make sense and are not lunatic fringe, but I'm a lot more skeptical.

I disagree. Scientology is a way of life. You're either a soulless cynic in it for the payoff, or a complete fucking loon. Being anti-vaxx is just a really dumb view of a limited subject.