Tommy Tiernan and why Downs Syndrome People are as Bad as Everyone Else

Tommy Tiernan is in a bit of trouble at the moment. In his latest live act he has a joke about Downs Syndrome. Some prude who attended his live gig, obviously having never heard of him before, took offence at the joke and made a bit of a stink about it.

Actually, all Tommy Tiernan said was that if you wanted to smuggle drugs or anything else into the country through an airport all you would have to do would be to get somebody with Downs Syndrome to smuggle it in for you. I wasn't at the gig, but I'd imagine he made this point using colourful language and he was probably funny too.

Honestly I think anyone who goes to a Tommy Tiernan stand-up show should leave their outrage at the door. He's bound to say or do something outrageous. If he didn't he wouldn't be worth going to see.

I also agree with him about what he said about the Downs Syndrome. If you want to be serious about the 'message' behind the joke you could argue that he was simply pointing out the way the people patronise people with Downs. If you see someone with Downs, the instant reaction is along the lines of 'ah, look. God love him'. In reality people with Downs are as devious as anyone else. They know the kind of reaction that they bring out in people and are happy to exploit it.

I saw this last week while I was working at a busy junction. People were standing at the pedestrian lights waiting for the green man. There was a heavy flow of traffic and there was no other safe way of getting across. It was one of those pedestrian lights that works on a very long timer and takes an age to change and if you were from the area you would know that but it was busy so people had to queue.

All except for one. Out stepped this lad with Downs Syndrome from the queue. He stepped off the footpath with his hand raised to stop the traffic. Obviously the line of traffic he had stepped into came to a sudden halt. If anyone apart from a Downs Syndrome guy had done this you would have been deafened by the sound of blaring horns.

He proceeded to do the same to get across another three lanes of traffic. Each one stopped to let him pass with his hand raised to stop them without a single parp of a horn.

I was standing on the side that he was crossing to. As he crossed the last line of traffic and stepped back onto the footpath, you should have seen the grin on his face! The cheeky bastard! Of course anyone would else would do the same if they thought they'd get away with it which just goes to show that they're no different to the rest of us. Tommy Tiernan was just pointing that out and having a laugh too.