As a general rule, I have not paid any attention to Rush Limbaugh in over a decade or two. I don’t listen to talk radio, liberal or conservative. I do not watch talking heads on television. I occasionally watch television news programs, but not the opinion shows which falsely bill themselves as news shows. For in-depth news and analysis I want to get my information in a written format. For many years that meant newspapers, periodicals and books. As a child, because they were available in my home, I read multiple newspapers and a multitude of other publications. Not to say that we didn’t also get news from our television. Walter Cronkite along with Huntley and Brinkley were also regular features in our lives. I remember watching the last Huntley and Brinkley broadcast with my grandmother. But television was a passive watching experience. Print media, newspapers, magazines, books that was where you went to learn about the world, to investigate, to learn. I see that as the difference. I read to learn. The internet opened the world of learning in so many ways. The world is in my pocket and I wouldn’t give up my iPhone for all the newspapers in the world, but I do miss them.
What does all this have to do with Rush Limbaugh? Good question, I wish I knew the answer.
more below the squiggle
We have moved from a society that valued education and intelligence to a society that has a candidate for President that believes colleges are bad and that encouraging people to go to college or vocational training makes you a snob. In 1960 individual states in this wonderful country of ours could outlaw the sale of contraceptives. In 2012 we have Presidential candidates who would go back to that time. In the 1960’s we had sheriffs and governors who demonized civil rights activists, beat them up and threw them in jail. In 2012 we having state legislatures introducing bills that will make it a felony to protest. In 1968 I cried in sorrow when they first killed Martin Luther King, Jr. and then Bobby Kennedy. I was ten years old. Forty years later, I like to think that MLK,Jr and RFK, along with my mother, were there with me when I voted for Barak Obama for President.
Rush Limbaugh, you ask? What does this have to do with Limbaugh? Hang on, I think I am getting there.
I went to college of course, my parents being snobs,(snark-for the snark impaired) thought that I should. I studied Journalism. I learned the difference between news stories and opinion writing. Took courses in ethics and investigative reporting. Took courses, read books and attended conferences in which the importance of a free and independent press was discussed and debated. Freedom of speech and of the press are,of course, guaranteed in our country by the First Amendment to our Constitution--Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I studied as an undergraduate the cases and laws that apply to freedom of the press and freedom of speech. After college, deciding that I was better at reading than writing, I went on to law school, where I once again read and studied laws and cases on a wide variety of subjects including free speech and free press.
So I feel safe in saying that I do not need some Rush Limbaugh ditto head explaining to me that his or her defense of Limbaugh is protecting the right of free speech in this country. Here is what set me off;
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/...
The Rush defenders say that we of the left are attempting to stifle free speech by calling for a boycott of his sponsors, they equate our outrage at his hate speech as some sort of attack on free speech. Most of Rush’s defenders haven’t read the transcript or even watched the video of Sandra Fluke’s testimony. Of course I doubt they have actually read the First Amendment. Because they don’t read. They do not try to find out more information, they do not investigate. They listen to talk radio and what news they get is in short bursts, headlines,so to speak, either on their computer or the television. Ninety percent of the Rush defenders have no idea of what they are talking about because all they know is what Rush tells them on the radio. They are ditto heads busy perpetuating the lies as told by Rush- that birth control is just for sluts wanting “them to pay for her recreational sex”. I can’t even count the number of comments that start off with “..why should tax payer dollars pay for her to have sex ..”
Let’s just forget those total idiots. The people that I am worried about are the ones that say “ okay he was wrong, he shouldn’t have said that, but people talk bad about Rush all the time, it is a free speech issue and you people need to just leave him alone.’
It bothers me when a young man I know states, “Am I upset that he called her those names? No, I don't care. He shouldn't have done it, but what's done is done & he has the right to talk.”
Sure he has the right to talk. But is it a more important right than ours? I submit we have a right and more importantly a duty to respond to hate speech. Hate speech whether in this context or based on race, ethnicity or religion is wrong and should be called out. Condemning those who spew hate and lies is not just protected speech, it is required of those of us who would live in a civilized society. It hurt my heart being a life-long lover of newspapers to cancel my subscription to my local paper when they started carrying Ann Coulter but I did. We need to continue to call, write, email the sponsors of Rush and others of his ilk to let them know if they continue to support hate speech, we will not support them.