I praised New York Post cartoonist Sean Delonas the other day for his valiant efforts on behalf of crude schoolboy humor and gross bad taste.

A reader alerts me to comedian Rowan “Mr. Bean” Atkinson’s current fight against new laws being promoted in Britain designed to make un-PC speech (and by extension humor) illegal. My reader: “If it weren’t for people like Atkinson, the Delonases of the world wouldn’t be able to do what they do.”

We should all support Atkinson in this. Make no mistake, the nannies, ninnies, and two-bit totalitarians who squeal about crude speech being “hurtful” are plying the thin end of a wedge. At the thick end of that wedge will be the outlawing of any opinions but their own.

I’m only going to give two cheers for Rowan Atkinson, though. He is on record (here, for example) as supporting laws to punish “incitement to racial hatred,” which in practice—like these new laws he is campaigning against—means whatever the authorities want it to mean. As best I understand the matter, a person can no more help being homosexual than he can help being white, black, or yellow. To support laws against the one kind of “hurtful” speech while opposing laws against the other, is illogical.

Also on my Delonas post, a different reader wonders if we can get Sean appointed official Campaign Cartoonist for Rudy Giuliani. I like the idea a lot myself. However, I’m already worried that Rudy is a bit too Noo Yawk for the heartland voters. It must have taken his people ages to coach him into not responding to hecklers with “Shut the **** up, jackass!” Let’s not encourage any backsliding.