Sorry, I just had to rant for a second there, please excuse me. I believe in the freedom of speech and the rights granted in the First Amendment. I just wish that it was used more for uniting and for the general fostering of goodwill and understanding - I feel this man's use of the radio is the antithesis of all things kind and pure and/or decent and positive.
Will someone please speak in Rush's defense, or the defense of those who listen to him? Failing that, will someone please tell me the draw of this man?
8 comments:
As one who falls on the conservative side of the fence (if we pretend for a moment that the political spectrum of ideals can really be divided into only two dimensions), I can only say that people on the right are attracted to folks like Rush Limbaugh for the same reason people on the left are attracted to folks like Michael Moore or Bill Maher. Politically moderate people are easily roused by those who have ordained themselves high priests of political hyperbole.
While most reasonable people think they’re all jackasses (or should anyway), the vitriolic speech we hear from these folks still resonates with people on some level. While 99.9% of me thinks Limbaugh is a political dinosaur and an intolerant fascist, 0.1% of me cheers when he rails against “Limousine Liberals”, or calls Cindy Sheehan a puppet of the far left.
And on that same token, 99.9% of me thinks Maher is a pussy who won’t engage in an intellectually honest debate because it wouldn’t getting raging applause from his overwhelmingly far-left studio audience. But 0.01% of me laughs my ass off when he posts pictures of Bush and Chimpanzees side by side striking eerily similar poses.
They are ALL unashamedly hypocritical. But some folks look at Maher or Moore and think “Well, I don’t think they’re that bad. I think they have some valid points to make.”
Well, welcome to the world of Rush Limbaugh, where people on the right say the very same thing, and are just as quick to vilify the other side.
Personally, I’m content vilifying both sides. ;)
I appreciate you trying to defend him in some small way there John.
My biggest problem with Bill Maher has always been that he isn't that funny :-) But he does have more balls than Limbaugh at least. I have seen him bring people from all ends of the political world on his shows and I have seen him on the shows on the right like The O'Reilly Factor. I have never seen /heard Rush debate anyone. Oh wait, except callers, and whenever they get the upper hand on him or are making valid arguments for the left he cuts them with the whole fake dead air act.
My biggest problems with Rush stem from his foul remarks about Michael J. Fox (saying that he was "faking" his tremors on television) to his most recent "Barack the Magic Negro" song - It's a lot like doing black face, and not in the ironic way, in the elitist WASP-y way. And let us not forget how the man railed against drug users made fun of them and said they often got too light of sentences and then gets nothing for abusing prescription drugs himself... I don't understand. Had some on the left done this their career would be over. I guess my problem is I find him a detestable human being, he has the right to say whatever he wants, but his continued popularity says little for the evolved mindset of the American people in my opinion. Straight up, he sucks ass.
A quick side note on Cindy Sheehan - a woman who loses her son in a war she feels is completely unjust would be morally obligated to speak out against it. I don't support everything she says or the way she does it, but I totally support her right to do it and see her reasons. Her child was lost, expressing her grief in waging what she understands to be a righteous cause doesn't make her a "puppet of the far left". On the same note, I would NEVER say that a woman who has lost her son in Iraq and completely supports the president and the war effort is a puppet for the far right, even if she called those who opposed the war criminals and staged demonstrations against them. I would find that distasteful and disrespectful, I don't understand why the other side can't grant the same courtesy.
One more thing to add here. I too have issues with both sides of the aisle. I tend to agree more with the left than the right*, for sure, but both extremes are usually only concerned with their agenda and unwilling to compromise on anything. That is no way for a progressive society to function.
*The issues I am usually on the right or Republicans with are:
- to some extent the second amendment
- term limits (oh wait, they abandoned that part of their platform)
- the government should maintain a balanced budget (but they can no longer really claim they are the party of fiscal responsibility, the Repubs have spent more money than any Dems have in the last decade or so)
- strong states rights in certain areas, I mean, we are a federalist system
***At least these are my opinions at this time. I reserve the right to evolve and grow and to change my opinions with maturity and age and new perspective.***
Oh, I'm not trying to "defend" him per se... :P If Rush were dropped from the airwaves tomorrow, I would be quite pleased. The man is a pompous, self-important sociopath. :P Yeah, sometimes he touches on issues that are close to home, but most of the time I wish he'd just shut his damned mouth. So, yes, he does indeed suck ass.
Bill Maher
1. I detest the fact that Maher, when he is so gracious, brings a single conservative guest onto the show, and looks for every opportunity to serve them up as meat to the audience (typically members of the ACLU, the American Communist Party, and Green Peace... all there on a field trip or something)
2. While Maher appears ballsy by engaging his foes face to face, if you actually watch him, he's the master of giving a 10 second stump speech, and changing the subject when he finds himself outmaneuvered or caught in a contradiction. He's a master of misdirection, but little else.
Now, I used to like Bill Maher quite a bit. While he was a jerk-face, he was a jerk-face to everyone, even steven. :) But today, he's little more than a huge sellout to the far left.
Cindy Sheehan
First of all, let me say that as a parent and a human being, I have an enormous amount of sympathy for her with respect to her loss. Losing a son or a daughter is undoubtedly one of the hardest, most gut wrenching thing that any parent could ever have to endure.
That said…
She has used the loss of her son and the wound she has suffered to advance a political agenda. Yes, she expressed her opinions to the press about her feelings, and that I have no qualm with what so ever. As far as I’m concerned, she has absolutely every right to be resentful. But I think my opinion would be different were her son’s own beliefs not what they were.
Casey Sheehan believed in his mission. He even voluntarily re-enlisted knowing he’d be serving a 2nd tour in Iraq. To me, Cindy Sheehan’s very public political activism is just disrespectful to the memory of her son, his beliefs, and the choices he made. Not to mention the fact that she was willing to destroy her own family in the process. She’s now estranged from her own parents, her husband, her remaining children, her son’s friends and colleagues, so on and so forth.
I’m also dubious of the fact that for two years after his death, she never arranged for a headstone for her son. She didn’t even have to pay for one. The DoD would have provided one at no charge had it been requested. But she was more concerned with performing political theater than making these arrangements for her son.
So, in short, as a parent and a human being, I sympathize with her loss. But legitimate grief doesn't stop her from having poor character, or sucking ass.
As far as Bill Maher goes, I can take him or leave him to be honest. He barely blips my political radar in the slightest. Does he still have a show?
I still see the Sheehan issue differently than you.
I don't presume to know what he son would want, he may well have still supported the war at this point or may not have, again I can't speak for him. I was only commenting on her right to express her grief and pain and beliefs the way she sees fit.
I would not have considered it disrespectful if my mother protested a war that I died in, if she felt it were unjust. I would be more disappointed in her if I died defending her right to express her views and then she remained silent. That I would find disrespectful. I consider the most important thing in life to be choice/free will/liberty. Some people I am sure place honor or duty or some other lofty goal above it, and perhaps her son would have been one of those people, I can't say.
So that I am completely clear here, I am not disagreeing with the things you have said. Perhaps, you are correct. But, were it me, I would be damn proud that my parent was standing up for something that they believed in, even if the beliefs were not my own. That is what freedom is to me and would be what I was defending.*
*Of course I would have been court-martialed for refusing to fight in the Iraq War if I were in the service, but that's a completely separate debate.
Oh believe me, I understand your angle completely, and don’t necessarily disagree with you. Of course she has the right to say or do whatever she wishes.
But freedom of speech is *not* freedom from disagreement. If you choose to make yourself a public figure, speaking publicly about your beliefs, then you are tacitly inviting public debate and criticism. Criticism is not censorship. It, too, is a cornerstone of Democracy.
And thus when you use the death of your son, who was a professional soldier, as a platform for political activism against a cause he believed in, a cause his father and grandparents believed in, then you’d better be prepared to deal with adverse public opinion. Last time I checked, no one was throwing Cindy Sheehan in jail, or preventing her from speaking to those who would listen…. and no one is forcing her to exercise respect for her son’s memory, or show good taste.
But even that isn’t what makes her a “puppet of the far left”. It’s the fact that she didn’t engage in this campaign of hers until MoveOn.org and other anti-war organizations picked her up as a pet project, and threw the weight of their funding into turning Cindy into a poster girl for their cause. Now, I do not believe MoveOn.org or similar organizations are evil or malicious. I just think that their partnership with Cindy and the further harm done to her family as a result are a tragic and unfortunate consequence of a distasteful decision.
Anyways, good discussion! :)
Good discussion indeed. Clear and valid points made. Opinions differing but remaining civil. Wow, Congress could learn a lot from us :-) not to mention The View. lol ... I so very strongly dislike Rosie O'Donnell.
Yeah, Rosie O'Donnell is a cunt, for lack of anything nicer to say about her. And to be perfectly honestly, I've never called anyone a cunt before...
But I'm fairly certain she is one.
So much for being civil... lol!
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