Why Rush Limbaugh is a leading American intellectual

American Thinker ^ | November 30, 2008 | James Lewis

[vietvet67]

I have a bone to pick with Rush Limbaugh about the word "intellectual." He says he isn't one. But Rush is the sharpest political commentator we have today. He is a public intellectual in the old sense: A fine, original thinker who constantly reveals new truths that slip past the mindless media. He can communicate with whoever bothers to listen, as tens of millions of people do every week, throwing a sharp light on the biggest questions we face.  And he's entertaining and funny.

Rush has a well-thought-out political philosophy, with deep roots in European and American history. He constantly collects real evidence, and is better at explaining it to millions of listeners than anybody else today. Limbaugh has a twenty year track record of sifting truths from lies; that is not an accident, any more than Tiger Woods is an accident. It comes from great talent and lifelong practice.

In the upshot, Rush is a voice for rationality and sanity in a world awash in madness and propaganda. If that's not the proper role of an intellectual, what is?

The words "intellect" and "intellectual" deserve to be rescued from the myth-makers of the Left, which has decided in its amazing arrogance that it really owns those words.  But that is just another sign of its narrow-minded cultism. The Left shuts out competing voices, like any other cult, and then becomes outraged when independent thinkers don't agree with its "smelly little orthodoxies" --- as George Orwell famously called them. (Orwell started as a Leftist and then figured out the scam.)

An intellectual is just a thinker, somebody who uses the intellect and does it well. An athlete is somebody who uses physical talent and does it well. Those words stand for excellence.

Rush Limbaugh listens to hundreds of competing voices and finds ways to make sense of them. That is what good intellectuals do -- a lot of listening, a lot of dialogue, a lot of clarification. Talk show hosts have the perfect job for it.

By far the majority of the great intellectuals in history have been conservatives, going back to the two main wellsprings of Western thought, the Greeks and the Bible. It is also true in ancient India and China. Confucius was one of the world's great conservative thinkers, emphasizing personal and governmental morality, correct social relationships, justice and sincerity. 

(Which is why that Leftist hero Mao Zedong murdered tens of millions of people trying to uproot Confucian traditions in China. In the end, Confucius won.) 

Plato was a great conservative.  Cicero was a great conservative. The American Founders were conservatives, with rare exceptions. The wisdom books of the Bible are full of conservative sayings. That's what the Ten Commandments are about. "Honor your father and mother" is a profoundly conservative idea.

All high civilizations have been built by conservatives. You can't accumulate the cultural capital needed to build any high civilization if you try to destroy the past, as the Left constantly tries to do. You can't build a chariot if you have to reinvent the wheel every generation. The batty idea that kids have the real answers in life is just a modern delusion. It is just ignorant.

Conservatism builds. Leftism overthrows. That is the meaning of that pop word "revolution." The all-destroying revolution is an adolescent fantasy, and the Left hangs on to those fantasies a lot longer than conservatives do.

The idea of a "revolutionary" intellectual class is also a modern invention, made up to prop up the cult ego of the scribbling classes -- the teachers, newspaper writers and bureaucrats. Doctor Johnson called them the ink-stained drudges, and he was one himself. (A conservative, needless to say.) Professional word merchants only go back to 1800 or so. 

Most prominent thinkers in history were talented amateurs, and didn't need to ride the wild horse of social revolution to gain control over other people.  They kept their powerlust in check.

Socrates didn't have a college degree. He became an intellectual through constant dialogue. The Socratic dialogue is the origin of Western thought.  Aristotle, the pupil of Plato, who in turn was the pupil of Socrates, founded the original "college" -- Aristotle's academy, which met in an Athenian grove. Mathematics goes back to Pythagoras and Euclid and many others,  25 centuries of cumulative thinking by talented amateurs. Almost nobody got paid for doing advanced mathematics until the 19th century. All from amateurs -- "lovers" -- of knowledge. 

The same is true for the sciences and the other "departments" of human thought. But even the idea of "departments of thought" is a modern invention: As Alfred North Whitehead pointed out, "Nature has no departments." Neither does the human intellect. All that is just a bunch of paid professors trying to divide up the loot.

Intellectual creativity arose in thousands of places in the ancient world. We just happen to know more about Greece and the Hebrew and Christian sources than about the others. But they existed. Good thinkers are found all over, like good athletes and musicians. When they find other, they start to learn from each other, and then you see a spurt of creativity. It only takes a few to get it started.

But let me get back to Rush: Rush Limbaugh is far closer to the great tradition of Western intellectuals than anybody in the celebrity freak-show of the Left. It is the Rush Limbaughs who became Socrates and Plato in the ancient world. They composed the Psalms and the Book of Proverbs. They were not professional scribblers. They did not found a revolutionary cult designed to overthrow all the good traditions. They were talented talkers, and even better listeners. All good thinking starts from dialogue.

That's what the Doctor of Democracy does best today.

[Christian4Bush]

“Talent on loan from God” BUMP

[brushcop]

Meant to add that Rush is a right as he claims to be. Just wait and see how things develop and you’ll find him right on track. Well, Rush and gathering world events on FR will really keep you on point.

[Thermalseeker]

Rush has consistently failed to identify, name, and educate his listeners about America's **greatest** threat: MARXISM!

Wow! You must have missed his opening hour monolog from about a week ago. He spent the better part of an hour pointing out all the things that Obammy has said that are Marxist quotes. He also called Obammy a Marxist, plain and simple, and that he was a huge threat to the country. It was so much in Obammy's face I stopped what I was doing to make sure I was hearing him right.

[omega4179]

Thats why its so important to not just boycott the msm but write to their sponsors.

[NoGrayZone]

Rush has consistently failed to identify, name, and educate his listeners about America's **greatest** threat: MARXISM!

Do you actually LISTEN to Rush? If you do, perhaps you need to pay greater attention to what he says.

[Veeram]

ping !

[spatso]

I think Rush Limbaugh is the single most divisive factor in the conservative movement. I think he was a large contributor to the failures in 2006. He became the defender of Foley, he tried to blame the pages for the scandal, he kept the issue on the front burner far longer than needed. But, it worked well for his ratings. He picked a fight with Michael J Fox and he got whipped in the court of public opinion. But, even after he was whupped he kept the story going because his ego would not allow him to adapt to the moment and let it go.

In this election he was a constant vocal critic of John McCain. He made it clear his support for McCain, at best, was tepid. A large portion of the conservative base remained indifferent. He insists on creating battle lines when the country is in an economic crises and the GOP is just beginning to debate its strategic priorities. He has a bully pulpit that he is using to try and push the conservative movement further right without really trying to determine exactly what that means.

I know many of you think that Limbaugh is and asset to conservatism. It is my belief that he is the weakest link. He is a self serving, pompous charlatan who is intent on improving his ratings and economic well being. He promotes a pseudo conservative agenda because it works for his ratings. He has one interest that he believes in and it is called Rush Limbaugh.

[bert]

Consider if you will the great leftist mind of Prissy Mathews. He will make a profound comment and Rush will repeat it often in ridicule.

Five or ten times as many people will hear the clip on Rush than the original PSnbc utterance. The Rush straightening of the crooked deformed statement will be nearer to the truth.

[svcw]

Great article. I love Rush and he is the greatest source of gathered information around.
But I'll get some popcorn and wait for those on FR who cannot stand him for some reason or another.
Usually revolving around an issue they think is important and Rush does not or that he is not perfect and should just “shut up”, or he doesn't talk about something enough to satisfy them.
My feeling is when they have a 15 million listener radio show they can decide whats talked about and whats not.
Rush knows what he is doing, hence his 20 + year success.

[Born In America]

What don’t you get? It is talk radio three hours a day five days a week....

[J40000]

No true intellectual would call themselves one. Rather, it’s those who are phony and WANT people to think they’re smarter who call themselves intellectuals.

This is why libs like biden and gore go around saying how smart they are.

Rush has TRUE intellect.

[svcw]

Huh? What show do you listen to?

[carrier-aviator]

What is the BC controversy?

[yoe]

I have learned more from Rush about my country, its government, and the world than I have from countless professors. The man is a recognized genius when it comes to explaining the complexities of Democracy.

The Left wants to silence anyone who does not agree with them starting with Rush Limbaugh...they've tried before with disastrous effect.

[Mark was here]

yep.

[humblegunner]

What don’t you get?

I don't get the whole "idol worship" thing for a guy that just runs his mouth.

I guess if folks are sufficiently ignorant, they appreciate someone to provide them with opinions.

[KoRn]

"he said he’d never actually listened to him"

I'd wager that 80% of the people that hate Rush have never listened to his show. They only know of him from what others have said, especially the completely distorted media reporting on what he says.

The Michael J. Foxx episode has to be one of the most glaring examples of the media distorting what Rush said.

[saganite]

I think I heard Rush, or maybe it was someone talking about Rush, compare him to a pamphleteer of the Revolutionary period. Not a deep thinker but an excellent exponent of those thinkers’ beliefs in the public domain. Seems about right.

[Popman]

But, if he does not cover the BC controversy this week in- depth he will disappoint much of his audience.

Rush may bring it up, but he rarely wades into subjects that require a tin foil hat to participate.

Bear in mind, I'm not saying the BC controversy isn't legit, but it is taken on a life of it's own that has moved beyond reasonable thought process into the realm of tin hat buffoonery

Several articles posted lately proves my point

[hiho hiho]

“I am not sure why Rush has avoided the issue.”

Rush and other conservative mouthpieces are cowards when it comes to the Oboma birth certificate issue!