Where are the limits of freedom?

“On your knees, dog!”, a young man with a face untainted with a single thought aims a gun at a policeman. What does it look like? A scene from a film, a passage from a next coverage of tragic event in Warsaw? No, a new advert which appeared in one of Polish skateboarders’ monthlies. As the author of the picture and co-owner of a textile company which ordered this ad, there is nothing reprehensible, since the idea of threatening a policeman with a gun hatches in every young skateboarder’s head.

Now let’s take his reasoning apart. He claims a normal teenager dreams about killing or at least humiliating a policeman in service. The taste of revenge is for sure sweet, so every mentally healthy person would get their own back on their persecutors – is this how it works.
It’s just an innocuous joke, remember about it when you see a similar scene on a street. Just pass by and don’t try to react. Let guys have fun.

Everything has its limits. Everything but the human folly. And what are the limits of freedom? Other men’s freedom and, in any society, generally accepted social norms. In Poland, although it is still catching up with the West, people generally agree that people who aim guns at policemen are criminals.

So what can be done about this. The advert was published only in a niche magazine, I don’t know whether it has to comply with ethical standards of advertising. In my view the punishment should be the most severe, what in my books means financial. Those who have come up with the idea and those who have allowed it to be published should be fined heavily. If those retards who had thought it up had to pay one million zlotys for this stupid ad, the likes of them would think twice before they would something equally silly.