Posted on 03/08/2012 12:30:04 PM PST by Kaslin
We all need to calm down and watch our mouths.
Last week Rush Limbaugh referred to a Georgetown University law student who had testified to Congress about contraception as a slut. Rush did the right thing. He apologized.
Last year Ed Schultz referred to talk-show host Laura Ingraham as a slut. Ed also did the right thing. He apologized.
Last year political "funnyman" Bill Maher of HBO referred to Sara Palin as a "c...." Maher, of course, didn't do the right thing. He didn't apologize then -- and he swears he never will.
I know there will be those who say the mainstream media only report when conservatives call people names, and never seem to report when liberals do it.
I say you're right. It's a double-standard. What else is new? And what's the point? That it's OK to talk mean and dirty as long as both sides get shamed for it equally by the media?
I don't buy that bad logic. I expect my side of the political spectrum to behave better than the left side, and our side to be led by better angels. So did my father, Ronald Reagan.
My father was able to accomplish so much with Democrats in Congress and Communists in Moscow (or was it the other way around?) because he always looked for the good in everyone.
Inscribed on his gravesite in Simi Valley, Calif., are these words: "I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there's purpose and worth to each and every life."
So should we -- conservatives, that is -- act like Bill Maher or Ronald Reagan?
My father wasn't afraid to apologize. He apologized for Iran-Contra. He apologized to the Poles and Italians in 1980 after the media made a big stink out of a harmless joke he told on the campaign bus.
Apologizing is the responsible thing to do when you call someone a slut or worse. Yet it seems that when we in broadcasting, myself included, are caught with our big mouths open, we often don't do the right thing.
Instead of manning up and saying we're sorry, we hide behind the freedom-of-speech argument. Or we hide behind the lame argument that "I'm just an entertainer. I shouldn't be taken seriously when I say something dumb or ugly."
Yes, we have our First Amendment rights. But you might remember that more than one person has said over the course of history -- Pope John Paul II being a notable one -- that "with rights come great responsibilities."
And just because we have the freedom to say the raunchy stuff that Maher thinks is intellectual political comedy, it doesn't mean it's right to say it.
It's time we start acting more responsibly with our God-given rights. We need to remember our children are listening to our rhetoric. We harm them and society at our peril.
Rush acted responsibly. He acted like my father. The right needs to learn a simple lesson. When we act like Ronald Reagan, we win. When we act like Bill Maher, we lose. One thing I've learned is liberals very rarely apologize and never want to accept an apology.
No, he did not.
He said that a woman who wanted other people to pay for her sex supplies might be called a slut or a prostitute.
Falsely quoting somebody does not change what they actually said.
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Yes. Sit down. Shut up. Watch your mouth. Or you know what happens.
I wish that I could serenely accept this: That conservatives ALWAYS will suffer from a double standard and (partly “thus”) ALWAYS should strive to be genteel. Ideally, yes. But it’s very hard.
This is the main appeal of the otherwise-RINO Chris Christie: He gets in lefties’ FACES and isn’t all “no need to get upset about it” like the equally RINO Romney.
Michael Reagan is among the last whom deserve to lecture Rush on the issue of speech and decorum.
There was a time that I really liked Michael Reagan.
Not so much lately. I wonder what happened to him. He used to be a Conservative warrior, now he is a mealy mouth moderate.
IMO anyway.
He did NOT do the right thing by apologizing. Because he did not do the WRONG thing by calling that slut a slut. To hell with propriety and civility.
Half measures in defense of our country are not things to be admired.
In fact, he ASKED, “What do you call someone who wants to be paid to have sex?” Then he answered his own question, leaving open the possibility to be corrected.
It DOES rather have the Medved whiff about it, doesn’t it?
He mentions who his father ten times more often than Kerry mentions that he was in Vietnam, and that’s not easy to do!
_____ is dead to me now.
Rush ought to sue for just compensation to cover lost advertising revenues incurred by him to launch her career as a celebrity victim.
I agree with you that he should not have apologized, especially since that _itch refused to accept his sincere apology
The fascists have always been good at goading their opposition into act just like the fascists do and then spinning the behavior of their opposition as horrible.
Given how shallow the majority of folks are and how they've become immune to even noticing how vile the fascist democrat thugs are, it's wise to stay on a different level than they're on.
If the anti-fascists were to become expert at goading and baiting fascists, however, it would work as well for us as it has for them. The best thing you can do is to mock and make fun of fascists because they take themselves so very, very, seriously. They're easy pray for the very same tactics they preach and count on their opponents sticking to Roberts Rules of Order rather than employing the fascists own, Rules for Radicals tactics against them. When hit with their own tactics, they fall apart like a cheap suit.
JMHO
Agree. Actually, Rush’s “slut” comment was satirical humor, which is his stock in trade. Fluke was testifying before a government hearing that women should receive taxpayer money for contraception and “reproductive health”, even in the context of out of wedlock, casual sex. Rush’s take was that if Fluke takes money for recreational sex, she qualifies as a slut.
Compare this to Dave Letterman’s comment when Palin attended a Yankee game a couple of years ago with her daughter. The “joke” was that Sara’s daughter was getting “knocked-up” by A-Rod (player Alex Rodriquez) in the Yankee dug out. I can’t even imagine any pressure on Letterman’s sponsors over that.
My Dad was never President, but he told me that when he was young, he used to fight like a boy scout, and he lost every fight. He finally realized that in order to win, he had to quit fighting like a boy scout. He said he started getting the first punch in, and he started winning his fights and the bullies left him alone. The Democrats are bullies. You can ask them how many rounds the fight will be and they’ll hit you with a stool. The leadership of the Democrat party is controlled by gangsters.
“Lookie there....here comes another Republican with those big marshmallow gloves on. Harry, hit him with a baseball bat.”
It isn’t just that we need to get mean and nasty. We need to stop second-guessing ourselves about it and then APOLOGIZING! If you shoot your enemy in the belly during the heat of battle, do you low-crawl over to where he lies moaning and say you’re sorry afterward? This is a war and our bullets are words. They’re shooting our butts off and we’re worried about firing back?
Sounds good to me.
Matthew 10:16
“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
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