*I can't verify whether this is an unaltered screenshot of his showI must admit that the news hasn't given me much in the way of inspiration this week. With my choices of topic reduced to rehashing immigration yet again, dissecting the FBI's recent raid techniques, or commenting on tense relations between Isreal and Palestine, I conceded to watch TV for a bit, to see if I could come across something that sparked my interest. Fox News never seems to disappoint in this regard, and sure enough, Bill O'Reilly's steaming nuggets of wisdom have left a bitter taste in my mouth.
He opened his show with an exposition of his current feud with a University of Oregon newspaper that published "insulting" cartoons of Jesus. Mr. O'Reilly has found it in his heart to be the crusader for justice yet again, and has called for some pretty steep consequences in response. He even went so far as to demand that the school's President be fired. O'Reilly cited that the Constitution does not protect speech that is intended to harm or injure people, claiming that these cartoons would fall under that very category.
I'm not so quick to jump on that bandwagon. First, in looking at the cartoon (you guys can do a quick google if you're really interested), I'm hardly offended. It's essentially a cartoon of a crucified Christ with an erection. Big deal. Maybe if the joke were more cutting or even funny, I'd be more worked up like O'Reilly. After all, who cares if some school paper depicts Christ with an erection? That doesn't put anybody in any kind of danger. It may be inflamatory and brazen, but it certainly isn't altogether obvious that there was any intention to injure people with it the way that there would be if they had printed "Cash Reward To Kill This Guy On Campus" above some student's picture.
What is it that O'Reilly's really afraid of here, anyway? Eventually people might start thinking that Jesus actually had human erections from time to time? Sure, the cartoon was crass and arguably antagonistic, but what's the danger in that?
This kind of thing really starts to worry me. O'Reilly said that the cartoon was intended to harm people (as if "offense" equated to "injury"), but I don't think that the Bill of Rights was meant to be silent on people's right to instigate offense in people. What O'Reilly seems to support is a kind of freedom of speech where "you can say whatever you like, as long as you don't make fun of us." That's no kind of free speech at all.
As a matter of fact, the American in me finds Bill O'Reilly's take on this issue patently offensive. I'll even take the liberty of saying that O'Reilly's opinions have carried me beyond the threshold of "disgusted" from time to time. This new campaign he's on in order to fill time in his show seems aimed squarely at we who believe that a person should be able to publish a cartoon of whatever they damn well please. Suddenly, I'm not so sure that O'Reilly's dream of the First Amendment even guarantees his freedom to this caustic and incendiary argument against the cartoon. Then again, it probably doesn't protect my right to express my offense either, so long as somebody might be offended by hearing it.
There is certainly an ethical question when you use free speech simply to insult and attack people. That just means you ought not to do it. Sure, the cartoon was printed in bad taste, but it certainly shouldn't create a fallout that puts the Presidents of universities in a position where they have to fear for their jobs when they neglect to properly censor the school paper. If Americans are no longer allowed to offend one another, then there's no free speech at all. I'll even go so far as to say that without free speech, there is no liberty. For this reason, I call for Bill O'Reilly, the enemy of American Liberty, to resign quietly for his offensive and inappropriate publications.
If you think that last sentece sounded like madness, I'm proud to call you my countryman.
Branden Stein is an undergraduate in Philosophy and German at the Ohio State University. He can be contacted at stein.179@osu.edu
