Posted on 06/07/2004 5:50:22 PM PDT by quidnunc
Last year, on a long car trip, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh shout. I usually agree with Rush Limbaugh; therefore I usually don't listen to him. I listen to NPR: "World to end — poor and minorities hardest hit." I like to argue with the radio. Of course, if I had kept listening to Limbaugh, whose OxyContin addiction was about to be revealed, I could have argued with him about drugs. I don't think drugs are bad. I used to be a hippie. I think drugs are fun. Now I'm a conservative. I think fun is bad. I would agree all the more with Limbaugh if, after he returned from rehab, he'd shouted (as most Americans ought to), "I'm sorry I had fun! I promise not to have any more!"
Anyway, I couldn't get NPR on the car radio, so I was listening to Rush Limbaugh shout about Wesley Clark, who had just entered the Democratic presidential-primary race. Was Clark a stalking horse for Hillary Clinton?! Was Clark a DNC-sponsored Howard Dean spoiler?! "He's somebody's sock puppet!" Limbaugh bellowed. I agreed; but a thought began to form. Limbaugh wasn't shouting at Clark, who I doubt tunes in to AM talk radio the way I tune in to NPR. And "Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop!" was not a call calculated to lure Democratic voters to the Bush camp. Rush Limbaugh was shouting at me.
Me. I am a little to the right of … Why is the Attila comparison used? Fifth-century Hunnish depredations on the Roman Empire were the work of an overpowerful executive pursuing a policy of economic redistribution in an atmosphere of permissive social mores. I am a little to the right of Rush Limbaugh. I'm so conservative that I approve of San Francisco City Hall marriages, adoption by same-sex couples, and New Hampshire's recently ordained Episcopal bishop. Gays want to get married, have children, and go to church. Next they'll be advocating school vouchers, boycotting HBO, and voting Republican.
I suppose I should be arguing with my fellow right-wingers about that, and drugs, and many other things. But I won't be. Arguing, in the sense of attempting to convince others, has gone out of fashion with conservatives. The formats of their radio and television programs allow for little measured debate, and to the extent that evidence is marshaled to support conservative ideas, the tone is less trial of Socrates than Johnnie Cochran summation to the O.J. jury. Except the jury — with a clever marketing strategy — has been rigged. I wonder, when was the last time a conservative talk show changed a mind?
This is an argument I have with my father-in-law, an avid fan of such programs. Although again, I don't actually argue, because I usually agree with my father-in-law. Also, he's a retired FBI agent, and at seventy-eight is still a licensed private investigator with a concealed-weapon permit. But I say to him, "What do you get out of these shows? You already agree with everything they say."
"They bring up some good points," he says.
"That you're going to use on whom? Do some of your retired-FBI-agent golf buddies feel shocked by the absence of WMDs in Iraq and want to give Saddam Hussein a mulligan and let him take his tee shot over?"
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Well said. I, like PJ, was once a left wing hippie who thought drugs were fun. But, of course, I think life is fun, and I've seen some of my former compatriots in hippiedom become major space cadets.
A devoted Dittohead. :) I drive to work during the first half-hour of his show. It's my favorite part, like that first cup of coffee in the morning. Today as he was talking about the Gipper, I was saying, "exactly" over and over, out loud.
My favorite is:
"letting lawyers make laws is like giving whiskey and the car keys to teenage boys".
I'll never forget Clinton raising taxes to 85% on the rich Social Security recipients, ie couples making more than $32,000 yearly.
Hmmmm, I have lots of friends who disagree with me politically, and have good-natured discussions with them. Maybe it's just the way I was raised. Nonetheless, I agree with O'Rourke that civil debate is sadly out of fashion.
No kidding. I always love the way the Left say that Rush "yells," "spews," etc. etc. Rush speaks conversationally, and uses massive doses of very genteel humor to make his points
More importantly, he offers up FACTS and points out incosistencies and downright lies. I assemble these and use them to fry my few Liberal family (I have NO liberal friends) members.
P.S. Dumped boyfriend, kept the dial on Rush.
The P.J. line I use regularly is from his trip to the hideous slums in the Philippines, or some such place: "I could throw up, but how would that help?"
It's flip, but there's a serious conservative point. Feeling sickened by squalor isn't a virtue; it's just natural. It's a whole lot harder, if not impossible, to find real solutions for misery. Liberals think that just feeling bad about it is enough ... plus throwing tax money into a "program."
I suggest you read some of his other works. Start with Holidays in Hell.
PJ was once funny. Sad, this is not his finest work. In fact he may as well be a dem.
They do? Then, why is Big Stupid Government so much bigger, dumber and more expensive? Why is the deficit at record levels? What about "limited government" - whatever happened to that?
Conservative radio talk shows - specifically Rush Limbaugh - woke me up and turned me from a mindless parrot liberal into an informed activist conservative. Yes - Rush Limbaugh changed my mind despite what the big-nosed, bitter guy with the lampshade on his head has to say.
When I first listened to Rush I was angry. "How could someone say crap like that and get away with it!?" was my initial reaction. I set out to prove him wrong - he had to be wrong - because if he was right that would mean that I'd been lied to for years and that I'd been a fool - a useful idiot.
I started reading - actually reading something more than just bumper stickers and liberal-dominated media trash (Time, Newsweek, etc.) I found that Rush was right about a number of things - a large number of things. And that would mean...yes, I'd been lied to.
I used Rush Limbaugh as a crutch for a couple of years. There was so much catching up to do and he was very helpful in pointing me in the right direction. Thank you, Rush. I know I'm not the only one that you've awakened to the awful truth around them. Now I can find my own sources of information and I rarely listen to Rush anymore. He set me in the right direction - he changed my mind as he changed so many others.
For all his wit and biting humor, I really wonder how many minds P.J. O'Rourke has changed. Sure, he's a side-splitting read. But, truthfully, he's more of an entertainer than Limbaugh. He offers far less substance than Rush. Maybe he's jealous. Or just drunk. But, for whatever reason, he's just plain wrong on this one.
I've often wondered what one would get if he did a mind-meld between O'Rourke and Hitchens.
P.J. is right. I don't think Rush is effective overall in changing minds. Well, maybe I should revise and extend that remark. Rush might make conservatives out of the apolitical.
One of those super brains that can function after years of chemical abuse.
Miss Marple wrote, "I do't listen to talk radio for arguing. I look for different takes and tidbits about the news, plus some humor."
I do't either. This series. Real series and I do my own thimking.
(p.s. do't take this personal.)
Dennis
To my mind Michael Medved is significantly more interesting, and more intelligent and knowledgable to boot.
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