Brickbat: The Thin(-Skinned) Blue Line

Scott Cornell / Dreamstime.com

Austrian police in Tyrol have issued a $197 fine to a man for calling them "Smurfs." The man, who wasn't identified by media, warned others on Facebook about a traffic speed check, posting about "two smurfs standing with lasers" near a highway. Cops said he violated public decency and defamed the two officers.

Comments

[Hugh Akston]

Well at least the Aussie cops still wear blue. Here in the states most municipal departments have shifted to black because it doesn't show blood stains.

Also, what are the use of force rules for when Aussie police encounter violent perpetrators?

[Eidde]

Are you confusing Austria with Australia?

[My Dog Bites Better Than Yours]

There's a difference?

[My Dog Bites Better Than Yours]

There's a difference?

[Rhywun]

You know who didn't confuse Austria with Australia?

[loveconstitution1789]

The Duchy of Warsaw?

[loveconstitution1789]

The Duchy of Warsaw?

[loveconstitution1789]

There was only one Duchy of Warsaw, not two.

[Earth Skeptic]

That water color painter?

[Bearded Spock]

The Hapsburgs?

[Hank Phillips]

The Turks at Gallipoli?

[Libertarian]

" . . . shifted to black because it doesn't show blood stains."

As the Parkland shooting proved, pee stains as well.

[markm23]

+10 LOL

[Crusty Juggler]

They put another shrimp on the barbie?

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

Stand back, secure the perimeter, wait 15 minutes, and clean up whatever bits the local fauna didn't like.

[SQRLSY One]

What IS it, that Rodger the Red Kangaroo is DOING with that stuffed rabbit, in that last, bottom photo??!?

Inquiring minds want to know!

[SQRLSY One]

You know, out of the blue, the question occurs to me...

Rabbits are NOT native to Australia, and they have run AMOK down under! Suppose they ever successfully interbreed with kangaroos!!! The results would be HOPPERS FROM HELL, with super-hopper-powers!!! If they ever learn to shop at the shopping malls, in long shopping lines for super-popular products, they'd super-hop the lines in front of us, and maul us at the malls!!!

The Aussies would have very little choice, other than to devise a GMO to go on the counter-attack...

MeThinks that such GMO should be called the "Thunder from Down Under, Super-Mall-Mauling, Shopper Hopper Stoppers"!!!

Or maybe "Thunder from Down Under, Super-Mall-Mauling, Shopper Hopper Coppers" (Coppers with police powers).

The evolutionary arms race would be ON!!! To fight back against these "coppers", the Shopper Hopper Gang would need...

"Thunder from Down Under, Super-Mall-Mauling, Shopper Hopper Copper Stoppers"!!!

[Red Tony]

Why hello, methed-out Dr. Seuss!

[SQRLSY One]

The counter-counter measure then becomes a device used by the coppers, to chop them all to pieces!

This, then, is known as the?
"Thunder from Down Under, Super-Mall-Mauling, Shopper Hopper Copper Stopper Chopper"!!!

[loveconstitution1789]

Hey mate, you mixed up Australia with Austria.

Goodday!

[Eidde]

G'day, mein herr, ich bin putting der shrimp on der barbie.

[IceTrey]

I guess there's a little Hitler in all Austrians.

[Libertarian]

You can take the Hitler out of Austria, but you can't take . . . .

[Fist of Etiquette]

...the man maintains the term "smurfs" was meant as a harmless joke rather than an insult, and plans to defend himself at regional police headquarters.

Feelings became hurt.

[Radioactive]

Team Gargamel?

[loveconstitution1789]

meow.

[Libertarian]

Blue Lives Matter.

[Crusty Juggler]

Do you know who else was thin-skinned?

[Adans smith]

A leper colony?

[sage]

Hey. I'm eating here.

[Libertarian]

Sage?

[sage]

HEY!

[Libertarian]

Like I said, . . .

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

Barack Rodham Trump?

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

Scyphozoans?

[Telcontar the Wanderer]

HMMWVs?

[loveconstitution1789]

Old people?

I mean you can see right through their skin!

[Social Darwinist]

Buffalo Bob?

[I am the 0.000000013%]

noooo

[Earth Skeptic]

Balloon Boy?

[Inigo Montoya]

Maybe part of the reason the man hit a nerve by calling them smurfs was their lack of female cops?

Among the TV smurfs, it's overwhelmingly blue dudes, and a just one sort of sexy Smurfette. It is often the same situation in most police forces. In fact, the majority of the female cops I've seen are not bad-looking, which makes you wonder about hiring criteria.

The man might have been on to something, and they didn't like that.

[dontquestionit]

The female Smurfs were created in a lab. Smurfette was made by Gargamel to sow division. Sassette was created by the Smurfs to give Smurfette a sister. Both were evil before cishet Papa Smurf used a magic potion on them.

Nanny Smurf has an unclear origin.

[Emotional Opposition Animal]

At least they didn't smurf his door down in the middle of the night and smurf his dog.

[loveconstitution1789]

You know which Austrian was also Australian?

[Inigo Montoya]

Arnold "Crocodile" Schwarzengger?

[Bearded Spock]

"That is not a knife. This is a knife."

*rips heart out of teenage mugger while Linda Kozlowski looks on in horror*

[Jerryskids]

Seems to me that if the cops are claiming the term "Smurf" is ipso facto a derogatory term, the Smurf people have a defamation claim against the cops. Smurfs are cute and lovable and sweet and harmless and earnest and honest - are cops outraged that anybody would think any of those terms would apply to them?

[BestUsedCarSales]

The real reason they're offended is today the Smurfs are Belgian.

[Earth Skeptic]

Safe places for smurfs?

[gaoxiaen]

Some Smurfs are really tough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmBxlcXzqK8

[Hank Phillips]

How clever. Now the peeps will all try to outdo each other. They'll be flinging polizei perps into dat brier patch and calling them Smurfs instead of jackbooted looter econazi minions. Was this how jackbooted minions became cute and cuddly alluva sudden?

[croaker]

Smurfs work for the TSA, so defamation works for me.