Rush Limbaugh Speaks for Sojourners
2009 April 1
Who could have ever believed that Rush Limbaugh would be speaking for the Sojourners Mobilization to End Poverty?
28 Responses
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This has got to be an April Fool’s joke!
Ha! Good one, Sojourners.
Anyone who understands what Limbaugh really stands for can unapologetically say, “I can easily believe it; it is no surprise at all.” And that goes for anyone who has been blessed by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, as well.
dittohead qb
qb – again I ask, are you sure we were not separated at birth?
k
I would like to encourage anyone who has an uninformed opinion of Rush, to first google Andrew Klaven and the “Limbaugh Challenge.”
Andrew Klavan…sorry
troy –
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-klavan29-2009mar29,0,5456892.story
I could easily find the message of political conservatism one in which most of the organizations such as sojourners could a (and maybe even should) agree with. A favorite “Limbaughism” of mine is that liberals measure compassion by how many people are being “helped” by government assistance while conservatives measure compassion by how many people no longer need government assistance. Waste, fraud, and abuse along with the quiet discrimination of low expectations have destroyed many lives that shouldn’t have been; in the name of compassion, I might add.
I used to listen to Limbaugh in the early 90s and he formed some of my ideas about society and the dangers of government. Back then, he used to speak about issues and ideas.
Unfortunately, Bill Clinton was the worst thing to happen to him. Clinton’s problems made Limbaugh lazy and allowed him to spend most of his time engaging in (to use a phrase he accused the liberals of doing) ‘the politics of personal destruction’.
Every now and then I’ll tune in again but listening to him is the radio equivalent to watching Jerry Springer…more than 5 minutes and my stomach starts to turn over. Whether or not he really feels this way or whether he just knows that this is what ‘sells’ to his large audience, his bitterness towards anybody who doesn’t think like he does is not something I would advise Christians to take part in.
It’s really a shame that a man with such talent wastes it.
It doesn’t look like that challenge thing went well.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/01/limbaugh-obama-may-give-g_n_181888.html
Better editing than Chinatown – wow that was impressive.
I always love it when someone who believes poverty is best cured by government programs sneers at the private sector and free enterprise which has actually done more to lift people out of poverty than all the government programs combined. The idea that conservatives “hate the poor” because they do not believe government spending is good economic policy is simplistic and misguided. However, I realize many equate a vote for “Change you can believe in” to a love for the poor and downtrodden. Just keep that warm fuzzy feeling while Obama goes about setting back American capitalism in a manner that could take fifty years to undo. In the future, when we are trying to revive the goose that laid the golden eggs, you can do like Rush and take care of the poor with your own money. The federal government will be totally bankrupt and there will be a lot more poor to take care of. Should be easy.
qb, you are right on the money.
Jim – Is there such a thing as someone who doesn’t sneer at the private sector and free enterprise — who actually believes in both — but who believes there is a role for government in caring for those who’ve fallen through the cracks?
What turns me off about Rush isn’t his affirmation of the private sector and free enterprise. I consider myself a strong advocate of both. It’s his meanness. Here is a thrice-divorced man who is lucky not to be in jail for drug abuse, a man who has perfected the art of hatred of enemy, who lectures us on morality?
Here’s what I’m talking about:
http://newsone.blackplanet.com/elections/top-10-racist-limbaugh-quotes/
Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican Party, knew what he was talking about when he denounced Limbaugh’s rhetoric as ugly and inflammatory.
Careful Robert. Don’t believe everything you read on a liberal website about Rush. Notice there are no references to the actual time and dates of those quotes. See if you can find the time, date, and context of those quotes and post that information.
Jim, I guess we have something in common. Sort of. As for me, I always love it when someone touts how much the private sector and free enterprise have helped the poor when both the number of people in poverty and the gap between rich an poor have both grown to historically unprecedented levels in the last 8 years.
And I love it, too, when it’s the “private sector and free enterprise” (what did Gordon Gecko say about them in Wall Street again?) that’s somehow going to be the fix even though it’s these very forces that have also put the nation and the world in the crapper–when, without regulation and government intervention (W and Dick Cheney say those have got to go!), that nice, friendly group you talk about that’s going to help all the poor people out of the goodness of their hearts instead grinds them into the dust and leaves it to the rest of us to pick up the pieces. No, man, you’ve got a great case.
And wow, you and QB are so right about Rush. I mean, what a poster-child for concern for his fellow man. I mean, look at all he’s done to promote goodwill and care. His charity, plain-dealing, and compassion are legendary. Why, you can almost point to one thing he’s done that’s been good for someone other than Rush. He’s a regular second Bono, that guy.
Here’s the truth: the only reason Rush has a job in the first place is that a bunch of folks (like you and QB?) DON’T have the spirit of commonwealth and compassion you tout but instead feel oppressed, cheated, and beleaguered by those [I'll have to edit for language here--Rush often doesn't] economically disadvantaged, urban, racially divergent citizens [end editing] and DON’T want to help take care of people around them. After all, those poor scum should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, right? And Rush helps his audience feel good about that–that they’re justified in their anger and their self-protectionism and their disdain and disregard for their fellow citizens. And Rush is totally clear about that every time he speaks, which is good because he’s used that to grow fat and rich off of all of his supporters by giving them precisely what they want to hear. Which means that the spirit of charity that folks (like you, unfortunately) facilely trot out as a feel-good way to justify their own too frequent “screw you” message to their fellow citizens under the veneer of some fantasy promise of a utopian Christian-capitalist safety net that always gets pulled our from under people is largely BS.
And I say it’s largely BS (and not purely) because I know that some folks (maybe even some who listen to Rush–likely even you and QB, which is commendable) actually DO contribute to food kitchens, help out with their churches, do things to help others. It’s just that they tend to be too small and too disorganized to make a real difference given the numbers involved. How many poor people could feed their kids, be retrained for new jobs, find transportation, break addictions, get medical treatment, and do a thousand other things to get back on their feet off of what you give? Off of what your church gives? And when things get rough on you, are you going to keep it all going?
Let’s face it, the only group that can organize and maintain something like that is the government. Which is also why we trust them with other complex things like the police, the fire department, the highway system, the military, food inspection, and the like. But wait, you say. Food inspection? Oh great. Like they really managed the peanuts-with-salmonella and the poisoned-toys-from-China thing. To which I’d have to say, that’s the sort of service you get when you put the private sector in charge of those things (which is what Bush’s administration systematically did). Energy? I bet if Enron makes the policy it’ll work like magick. The army? Heck, let’s use for-profit Blackwater (now XE) mercenaries. That’ll be cheaper and better (it’s costing twice as much). Need infrastructure installed? Halliburton with its no-bid contracts–thanks Dick C.!–will do great (so what if a few hundred servicemen and women die from improperly wired showers and tainted water). AIG will do the right thing if they get to be in charge of the bailout, of course!… And….
Am I just a biased liberal idiot for saying all this? Perhaps. I don’t have Rush or Ann or Michelle or Sean or Glenn or Bill to back me up. Just the facts of what’s happening in the world. But when have any of those “compassionate conservatives” you guys are justifying ever worried about facts? When have you and QB ever had to systematically and for the long-term stand behind the private-sector Christian-capitalist utopian fantasy you guys are peddling?
The truly sad thing is this: if the video mashup really had been something Rush had said, he could have made a real difference in the world. Instead, he’s helping people feel more comfortable in their selfishness, in their bigotry, and in their happy ignorance of the complexities of the difficulties we face. His MO is always the same: build a scapegoat, turn up the heat of hatred, self-righteousness, and disdain, do a spot of sleight-of-hand with things that sound like facts but aren’t, and rake in the cash.
Talk about being right on the money.
Yeah, Troy, you gotta be careful for the vast liberal media conspiracy… Which is why conservative media pundits outnumber liberals by such a huge factor. Look at how they’re trying to keep a good, honest, role-model of a man like Rush down.
A 5-year-old with 5 minutes and Google can turn up the tapes–except that you don’t need to. They’re already featured on the site. Hard to argue with Rush in his own words, but then, who’d want to argue with him? He’s just so totally transparently right.
Kathy & Troy, as I read the opinion article you linked to, I suppose the phrase that came to mind most is “Freudian projection.”
But, of course, I HAVE listened to entire Rush shows. And O’Reilly. And Coulter. And Hannity. And Beck. And Malkin. And the thing I most recognize is that none of them has yet to try the “Limbaugh challenge” themselves–certainly not Rush–though if either of you can point to ANY SINGLE INSTANCE of it on any of those shows, I’d love to know about it.
I mean, if you want to talk about a “lowdown, yellow-bellied, lily-livered intellectual coward [who is] terrified of finding out [his opponents] make more sense than [he] do[es],” that’s practically a dictionary definition of Rush (and all those other Media Heroes I’ve listed above).
You know, one of the few intellectually honest moments I’ve ever seen from Rush was after the 2006 midterms when he announced “I feel liberated, and I’m just going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don’t think deserve having their water carried” (you can Google it). He still touted a pro-conservative message–which is, of course, totally appropriate–but at least for one brief, shining moment he was intellectually honest about the complexities and about what he, himself had been doing: “carrying water” for a party he increasingly couldn’t believe in. Which means that prior to that confession he felt constrained not to tell people the truth about what he had been thinking before the election. Which means, in turn, that he had been misleading his listeners–which is, of course, why he felt “liberated” once he confessed the truth. Now there, finally, was a moment of honesty–though it technically doesn’t fulfill the “Limbaugh challenge” requirement of being intellectually honest about others. Still, it was a breath of fresh air. That lasted almost a whole show before he squashed it down again under the miasma of his usual bloviating.
But anyway, you show us Rush (or any of the other people I’ve listed) living up to the “Limbaugh challenge” EVEN ONCE and I’ll be happy to grant the partisan who wrote your op-ed his day. After all, what’s good for the goose…
But until then, let’s not pretend that Rush is some slighted, innocent victim. He is, however, utterly Limbaugh challenged.
Okay. I know it’s a dead horse. But one more question for QB:
Can someone “who understands what Limbaugh really stands for” unapologetically explain why Rush didn’t say it, hasn’t said it, and is unlikely to say it anytime soon (acknowledging his one instance of charitable work which is to be commended)–which is the whole reason, of course, that this April fool’s day mashup of Rush is so jarring, humorous, and impactful?
Sojourners is a post-partisan, post-denominational Christian social-justice organization. Why isn’t Rush helping them with their cause? And as a non-governmental organization out to help the poor, isn’t this exactly the kind of group that you and Jim and others believe should be shouldering this burden (rather than the government)?
Isn’t Rush letting you down here? Does his inaction in such causes show “what Limbaugh really stands for “? Can you explain that?
77, you haven’t done one thing to discredit my two main points.
1. People like you equate concern for the poor with the latest iteration of the welfare state.
2. You wrongly make the assumption that it is government spending which brings a people out of poverty when freedom and capitalism have done more to do this than all government spending combined. Government cannot create wealth; it can redistribute wealth and it can print money, but it cannot and does not create wealth.
You also create a scarecrow argument by taking what has been said here and suggesting that somehow I believe there should be no regulations of any kind on economic behavior. Since you have no clue what I believe in that regard, you are speaking from ignorance. I have made my living as part of the financial regulatory structure, so you don’t know what you are talking about.
I will say this, for all of your indignation about the lack of love an economic conservative has for the poor, it is absolutely clear the love you have in your heart by the way you write. No doubt about that.
You say, “Am I just a biased liberal idiot for saying all this?” Well, I don’t know you, I can only go by what you’ve written here.
Have a nice day.
77- What are you talking about? The “Limbaugh Challenge” is to simply listen to Rush for several hours, over several days, with an open mind. This is something you, Brad, David, and Robert have not done, and refuse to do, because you are afraid of being wrong. Whether you know it or not, you are 180 degrees off on everything you have said so far. To make matters worse, you are proud of it.
My favorite thing you said is the Bono comment. Priceless!
Jim,
What I said is that
1) the private sector is not likely to be able to muster the organizational complexity necessary really to take care of the situation longterm and in a comprehensive way. I mean, ask our friend Larry James how hard it is to do all of this. According to Hobbes, we willingly give up some of our rights to government so that all of us can live in better harmony–we get more than we give up because we’re interdependent (the concept of commonwealth). So rather than living individual lives that are “nasty, brutish, and short,” we throw in together. He puts it this way: “The final cause, end, or design of men (who naturally love liberty, and dominion over others [this ironic contradiction is exactly the point I'm making here--we love our own liberty at the expense of others]) in the introduction of that restraint upon themselves, in which we see them live in Commonwealths, is the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war which is necessarily consequent, as hath been shown, to the natural passions of men when there is no visible power to keep them in awe, and tie them by fear of punishment to the performance of their covenants…” Helping the poor figures into this model. Should people do it? Yes. Will they do it? Some will, but not enough. Will they do it if they’re required to do it by government? Yes. So your argument is with the conception of the commonwealth versus your touting of individual rights and individual superiority. Yes, I believe that the government has to manage distribution and organization–which is what government does. But that doesn’t mean I’m in favor of the “welfare state” which is a handy dismissive that fails to account for the complexities of the situation.
2) In general, yes, allowing everyone an equal shake has been good for humanity. Freedom is good and capitalism has done much. But you’re right: I don’t believe that unfettered capitalism is good–because capitalism at its core is not about equality but dominance, and that’s why we have laws about monopolies and economic ethics. And perhaps I misjudged your interest in regulation–though that’s certainly something your comments suggest you oppose. And we’ve been increasingly lacking that very sort of regulation beginning with Reagan which is why we’re in the mess we’re in today (and thus maybe you haven’t been living up to your job as a financial regulator). So thanks for admitting that government does have an important role to play. But my point was economic: over the last 8 years, the number of people in poverty has grown at a historic rate and the gap between rich and poor has also grown to a historic level. So at a time when companies have reeled in record profits, they’ve shown themselves more likely to make their leadership obnoxiously rich than to help the poor. Which seems to me to make your argument the strawman, not mine.
But maybe you can explain how the fact that your theory hasn’t really shown up in praxis proves your case. I’m eager to see.
Of course, I CAN point to successful government antipoverty programs both here and abroad. After waiting for your solution not to work the last time we were in a great depression, our friend FDR instituted changes which brought us out of it–though that took a temporary nosedive when he briefly gave in to the right-wingers. And it took longer to get out of because people before him let the situation languish for a long time. Of course, folks like your friend Rush are busily rewriting that history (made easier if you discount facts!), so you probably don’t want to hear about that.
But if you’re going to go for it, go for it. End social security, medicare, all those “welfare state” things that make our country so “bad.” Leave it all up to the private sector. I’m sure that’ll work out great.
Actually, why don’t you show us how it’s done first. Don’t drive on public roads or use the police or fire department or go to a museum or deduct your medical expenses or anything. Do it all with private, capitalist alternatives. Pay what you owe and let the market decide. Let us know how that works out for you. Then you’ll be able to make a really, really compelling case that nobody can disprove…
Troy, I get what the “Limbaugh Challenge” is. And I’ve tried it. But Rush hasn’t ever tried it with any of his ideological opponents. And I bet you haven’t, either. And that’s the point I’m making. Let Rush and all his ilk lead by example… But then, that would make them honest newspeople and not the “entertainers” they are.
And the Bono comment was meant to be ironic. I thought you’d enjoy it (in spite of all the good Bono’s doing around the world–which folks like you can laugh at while Rush sits on his duff and complains about how he’s going to move out of New York so he can keep more of his money for himself). I’m glad you appreciated the humor.
77- Rush pays people to follow the “Drive By Media” for him. For now, I have to endure it myself. I do draw the line at Rachel Maddow.
Have a good evening and do something worthwhile with all that passion!
77, once again, you keep trying to shift the terms of debate, but have said nothing that refutes my original two points.
1. Capitalism and freedom have done more to lift people out of poverty than all government programs combined.
2. People who want more government programs frequently assume opposition to such programs to be lack of concern and compassion for the poor (in spite of numerous studies showing political conservatives are more charitable with their own money than are political liberals).
You mention Social Security as a successful anti-poverty program. Can you name a larger Ponzi scheme than Social Security? If so, please name it and give details. All Ponzi schemes work for a while, but eventually, you run out of enough new “investors” to pay off the old “investors.” In a Ponzi scheme as large as the Social Security system, that may take decades, but we are getting there. We are getting very close indeed.
Jim, the blight of poverty has been getting worse every year and it’s likely to be far, far worse with the current economic collapse generated by unscrupulous financial speculation. You’ve got your work cut out for you and your friends since you believe your private efforts are the only solution. You (and your friend Rush) may want to join with Sojourners (an important private Christian organization) to help them with their efforts since they represent some of the thousands of partners you’ll need to accomplish your goals. Since everything has to get organized outside of government (which is apparently totally useless), your job will be far harder and will take far more dedication on your part. It will be virtually a full-time job. You probably don’t have time to waste making comments here. Thanks for making the commitment to shoulder the whole burden.
I should go get busy, too. There are a lot of hurting people to help.
I didn’t think you could name a bigger Ponzi scheme than Social Security.
77 said, “the blight of poverty has been getting worse every year. . .”
Yes, and the amount of government spending to eradicate it has grown every year. Thanks for making my point so eloquently.
Jim, qb doesn’t know you, but he thought fondly of you this morning while reading Leonard Pitts’ most recent op-ed (4/6/09).
To bolster his argument that it’s time to revisit the whole federal “war on drugs” thing, Pitts appealed to statistical data showing that the war on drugs has had precisely zero effect on drug trafficking, consumption, or whatever meaningful metric fascinates us in the dozens or so of years we’ve been engaged in it. Ergo, he said, we’re wasting a lot of money on a futile endeavor, time to rethink the whole thing, etc., etc. OK, I thought, maybe it’s time to reconsider on strictly return-on-investment terms. I’m willing to be persuaded.
Now substitute “war on poverty” (interpreted strictly as GOVERNMENT welfare expenditures, etc.) for “war on drugs” in the previous paragraph, extract the meaningful performance data from the U. S. government, and the irony begins to emerge. I doubt Pitts would be willing to entertain the thought, but it would be funny to ask, dontcha think?
BTW, the Ponzi scheme known as Social Security is all the more sinister because it’s a government-sanctioned version of it. At least we have the good sense to get outraged at the Madoffs of the world, who are ostensibly breaking the law. But in the SS case, we have our own elected people carrying out essentially the same scam, right under our noses. We are pathetic.
Conservatively,
qb