Offensive....moi?

I am offended by many things.

Nick Griffin for example. His attempt to put a veneer of respect on a political party based in violence, repression, bigotry and viciousness is an affront to everything I believe in.

Bankers offend me for taking huge bonuses whilst others lose their houses and jobs, if not their lives.

The government offends me for fiddling expenses, allowing the banks and financial institutions to ruin the country and then telling me, the taxpayer that after bailing them out, my taxes must rise to pay for all of this.

Gordon Brown offends me for his bumbling attempts at leadership and his constant need to try and gain credibility by spouting soundbites based on the success of British artists or sportsmen.

Jeremy Kyle offends me for his bear baiting nasty programme exposing the domestic problems of the more vulnerable and ill-educated of society.

The X Factor offends me for being a platform for rich and famous people to mock misguided wannabees. Yes, I know Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke are very good singers but how many were humiliated in order to get to those two?

Ditto Big Brother, Britain's Got Talent and all the other reality shows designed to emulate the Victorian freak show mentality.

The point is everyone gets offended every day. Some people seem to have taken it to the point whereby any opinion that differs from their own is offensive. We now live in a culture where the slightest criticism of anyone is deemed offensive, where anything funny that's said about anyone is seen as offensive and in extreme cases, bullying.

So, the fuss of the Jimmy Carr story fits in with yet another probable witch hunt headed up by an indignant and angry press on our behalf. The truth of this is of course Carr's humour is well known by those who pay to see him. It is adult humour that steps very close to boundaries of good taste and undoubtedly in some cases oversteps the mark for some people. But you get what you pay for. Even if he did offend me I wouldn't feel the need to complain about it. Why extend the feeling of being offended by making even more of a fuss. Do people who complain feel they are protecting someone? In this case it seems pretty clear that the soldiers feel he might have nicked the joke from them anyway. Plus anyone who has ever met a soldier will know that dark humour is very much part and parcel of soldiering life. It keeps them grounded. Plus, there is a subtext to the joke as well which praises the types of people that soldiers are that the loss of limbs is no obstacle to them achieving great things in their lives.

And the irony of a potential campaign of injured feelings from the Daily Mail after the Jan Moir article on Steven Gately isn't lost on me either.

Similarly those people who tried to stop Nick Griffin last week, and have slated the BBC since then, have no right to be offended on my behalf. I'll make my own mind up thanks very much. In all of this, the one fact remains that you can't extol the virtues of democracy and free speech and then try to block certain views and thoughts no matter how heinous they are, nor can you stop people making bad taste jokes or overstepping boundaries of decency. What is funny is like music or art.....they are too subjective to put boundaries around them.

So, I say this to Griffin, Brown, Cowell, Tatchell, Wenger, Ferguson, Kyle, Cameron, Carr, Ross, Brand, Thatcher, Du Beke, Osborne, Miliband, Benitez and anyone else who says or thinks things that I find offensive, carry on. Carry on with doing those very things that offend me because I'd much rather live in a society that allows you to do that, and implicitly that includes my views as well, than one that bans it and consequently suppresses the people.

And yes, I did read 1984 on holiday, and yes I can see exactly what Orwell was forecasting for the future. With political correctness and suppression of protest and freedom of speech, just how far are we from having a Ministry of Truth dealing in lies, A Ministry of Peace dealing in war, a Ministry of Plenty dealing in hardship and a Ministry of Love dealing in the propaganda of hate?

Later, GJ