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Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

    Scottish man found guilty of a hate crime over offensive joke

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    It’s no secret that America has the best constitution on the planet, but other countries are not as lucky to have the same rights. Markus Meechan, better known as Count Dankula on YouTube, made a video a few years ago where he wanted to turn his girlfriends pug into the ugliest thing he could think of, a Nazi. So over the next few weeks he trained the pug to raise its front right paw to the Bellamy salute (More commonly known as the “Hitler salute”) and taught it to respond to popular phrases associated with the National Socialist German Workers Party.  Upon posting the video Dankula was met with millions of people enjoying his comedy and collectively laughing together.

    As usual there were people who get offended by anything and decided to report the video to the Scottish Authorities. Dankula was soon arrested and thus started a long drawn out trial. In the European countries certain groups are babied by the law and protected from scrutiny and jokes that people will take offense too. In an Orwellian fashion, free speech and jokes are left up to judge decision to weather or not they were meant to be harmful. Meechan faces six months to a year in prison.

    This has been the biggest attack on freedom of speech that has happened in the last few years, and there is no stop in sight. That is because the UK has no free speech laws that protect comedians, content creators or your average citizens. It doesn’t matter how offensive the speech, people have a right to say what they want (so long as it doesn’t incite violence). When a government takes away one right, they will usually not stop until the people are completely silence. If you want to learn who rules over you, find out who you cannot question.

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