But I support his right to freedom of speech.
The Groan has been on the receiving end of complaints about one of Bell’s cartoons. Like all of this man’s scribbles, it is crudely drawn and makes its point equally crudely. It gave offence, apparently.
There is a delicious irony in that bastion of offence seeking being on the receiving end of the monster that it is so willing to unleash on others. However, however…
One complaint to the readers’ editor’s office ran: “Whatever disagreements Bell wishes to express regarding Israel’s current actions against Hamas rocket fire, this picture uses classic antisemitic iconography that should have no place in your newspaper.”
I disagree. It doesn’t matter how nasty Bell’s cartoons are. It doesn’t matter how many people are offended. What matters is that he is free to express those opinions. That way we can see him and his loathsome fellow travellers in the brightness of sunlight and abhor them publicly for what they are and what they represent. That is the true power of free speech.
So, yes, I do want to see Bell continue to publish his dreadful, amateurish doodles making their puerile points. For his freedom to make an arse of himself is the same freedom we have to express ourselves for better or for worse.
Freedom of speech means that we allow – defend even – the freedom of those we deplore to make their points without fear or favour, without some special interest group crying offence and using their sensitive thin skins to get that speech shut down.
No argument there. Bell was always one of my reasons for not reading the Grauniad.
Agreed but, as I’m sure you are well aware, had Bell targetted blacks or Moslems or gays his cartoon would have been struck down before it got near the printers. It’s clear that there are in the press and on TV/radio politically correct metro-lefty “approved” targets of opportunity and the Jews are back up there with any vaguely (or not so vaguely) right-wing outfits. Bell takes his freedom to offend only so far as offending those on the Guardian’s approved offendee list.
As it is, in practice, there isn’t the freedom to offend you (and I) would wish to see. I’ll only believe freedom of speech is being exercised in the press when knuckle draggers like Hamas and the Moslem Brotherhood and their supporters in the political class (and elsewhere) are subjects of Bell-type cartoons in the Guardian (or the Telegraph for that matter) and swathes of professional offendees are swamping those papers’ complaints sites as a consequence. More to the point, in respect of a publication which is happy to resurrect deliberately offensive cartooning, when can we expect the publication of the Mo cartoons?
Dear Mr Longider
As my little bro has pointed out elsewhere, offence cannot be given, it can only be taken.
DP