Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the so-they-say dept

This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Gary with a response to the Texas cops who seized an anti-GOP sign from a homeowner's lawn:

Makes sense

Because the people who shout "Snowflake" the loudest are the most easily offended.

Some people, however, oddly presumed that the sign — which is uncomfortable to say the least, but intentionally so to make a point — must somehow violate some law, and our second place winner comes from Will B. in response to that idea:

Cite statute, please, bearing in mind that this cartoon was A) A cartoon, not an image of a real child, B) in no way explicit, and C) clearly protected political speech.

"Art depicting sexual acts with children" when defined broadly can include classics like Lolita, which to the best of my knowledge isn't banned anywhere in the US. Explicit pornography involving real children is banned. (And of course, having sex with a real child is illegal - supposedly. Unless the person having sex with real children is a Republican politician. But no, this sign is clearly what's wrong with America...)

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we've got two more comments from that post. First up, it's Stephen T. Stone with another response to the "this can't be legal" argument:

By that logic, all the Christians who say “all LGBT people are pedophiles” would be breaking a few laws—but I have yet to see any of those Christians arrested, tried, and convicted of a crime for doing that.

Some people took a slightly different (but equally wrong) tack, arguing that the police were simply doing their job of keeping the peace by removing something likely to incite anger. Gary nicely outlined how misguided this is:

You understand that is the Exact Opposite of the job the police are supposed to perform, right?

They should be there to say, "We'll keep an eye on your house because some people are grumbling." Not, "Well it'd be a damn shame if your house gets vandalized."

That sign was not any sort of illegal graphical content - otherwise the police department would have said so clearly, instead they denied any sort of legal force.

Over on the funny side, our first place winner is the fifth and final winning comment from that post, which in one thread unsurprisingly veered to specific conversation about Brett Kavanaugh's unhinged senate performance. Stderric took the top spot though truly it was John Oliver doing the heavy lifting:

As John Oliver observed, "I hate to say it, but I’m starting to think that men might be too emotional for the supreme court."

In second place, it's Killercool taking on the question of whether hockey teams should prefer their players go to bars rather than play video games:

Look, if you aren't drunk and getting in fights, why even play hockey?

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start out with an anonymous thought about Verizon's latest ridiculous commercial:

Missed opportunity to post this ad on Go90 and have their highest rated comedy ever.

And finally, we've got Agammamon with a response to the real-life "wicked witch" who is fighting back against Warner Media's trademark bullying:

I'm going to assume that she's doing this to get enough discovery to get together a list of names to be cursed.

Otherwise she's not a very wicked witch.

That's all for this week, folks!

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team