The GOP Should Treat Americans as the Ignorant Dopes that They Are
That seems to be the message that critics of Rush Limbaugh, such as Patterico, are saying. Apparently, the American public is too stupid to understand the “nuance” behind “I hope [Obama] fails” in his efforts to destroy capitalism in America and install socialism. Apparently, people such as Patterico and AllahPundit and some other so-called “moderates”, posing as standard bearers of the conservative movement, think our message to the American public needs to be more on a less “nuanced” level the ignorant dopes can understand.
I’m sorry, but I am getting sick of these people. Rush Limbaugh, for the past 20 years, has been doing nothing, but using the 3 hours of his show each weekday to teach, inform, educate and inspire people about the bedrock principles of conservatism and explaining to people how it has been through conservatism and capitalism that this country has become the greatest, most prosperous nation in the history of the world in a mere 233 years. He explains and informs and educates about history and about the economy and about how conservative and liberal policies have succeeded and failed, respectively, every time they have been tried all across the world.
Rush has been converting people from all ranks of life, of all ages and of all political ideologies to conservatism for 20 years. Those who actually take the time to listen to his message and appreciate all he has to explain, educate, inform and inspire, are those who benefit the most from his message.
When I see posts like that from Patterico, it tells me that instead of wanting to improve this nation, instead of wanting to lift this nation up to being more informed, more educated and more inspired to do something with that better information and knowledge, people like Patterico simply want to accept the ignorance of this nation and craft a strategy around that. As Michael Steele put it a “hip hop” strategy of pandering to ignorance and small attention spans.
In other words, they simply want to try to pander to ignorance and win an election here and there, rather than think long term and teach and inform and educate people so that they finally understand the ills and failures of socialism and Marxism and liberalism and the benefits and successes of conservatism and capitalism. If that knowledge and education takes root, then we won’t have to worry in the future about socialist/communist/Marxist candidates like Obama, because the nation will be informed enough to reject such lousy ideology outright.
Rush is a teacher who wants to improve the knowledge and education and inspiration of his students, which are his fellow Americans. It seems to me that those such as Patterico and AllahPundit and other Rush critics are just panderers and politicians who are more concerned with winning elections with the ends justifying the means.
They are not statesmen. They are pandering politicians. They are exactly what they usually criticize in their writings. That is sad and disheartening, because they have established themselves in this day and age of the blog as influential bloggers in their own right, and they could have a much greater influence of teaching and educating and inspiring as Rush does. But instead of doing that, they seemingly choose to simply make a name for themselves by criticizing a man who is doing what they should be doing, but for some reason are too afraid, lazy or unwilling to do.
Here is what I contributed to the thread at HotAir Headlines:
But, you know, that’s nuance.
The problem is, Americans have short attention spans and don’t always do nuance well.
In other words… Americans are ignorant morons, and instead of doing what Rush does on his show every day and trying to teach and inform and educate and inspire in order to turn people from ignoramuses into informed, educated inspired citizens, people such as Patterico want us to accept the public as ignorant morons and frame our selling points to them in dumbed down ways. Brilliant.
Yeah, I’ll stick with Rush’s strategy, thank you.
I hope Rush Limbaugh fails in his attempt to set himself up as the de facto head of the Republican Party
Uh, Patterico? Are you dense? The Left, Democrats and Obama are attempting to set Rush up as the de facto head of the Republican Party. Rush is, and has been for a while, the defacto head of the Conservative movement. Big difference.
The fact that good intelligent (I thought) people like AllahPundit and Patterico are too lazy or dense or jealous of Rush to recognize the difference is sad and disheartening.
Michael in MI on March 5, 2009 at 7:08 PM
If You Have the Principle Down Pat, Then, by Definition, the Policies Follow
This is just yet another reason why I am such a HUGE, UNAPOLOGETIC fan of Rush Limbaugh: The Definitions of Conservatism
But regardless, one of the criticisms that I have faced from these people is that I gave a totally rotten definition of conservatism, that I’m such an idiot I don’t even know what conservatism is. This is people supposedly on my team saying this. And, of course, my definition of conservatism, as I just explained, was to counter the public description, the left’s description of us as conservatives, because that’s what they think, people who aren’t conservatives, that’s what they think conservatism is. So my explanation was to counter that. The second thing that I’m being dragged on the coals for is I supposedly advised Republicans to forget about policy and focus on principle and philosophy. These people are having a cow over the fact, “How can you come back without policy, you’ve gotta have policy! You’ve gotta have some strategic policies to announce to people, things that you’re for.” See, this is what’s happened to the conservative movement that the so-called best and brightest who you’ve never heard of, and you won’t on this program, the best and brightest in our movement don’t understand the role of principle, and they don’t understand the role of philosophy.
If you have the principle down pat, and if you have the philosophy down pat, then by definition, the policies follow. But these people, by the way, want to change conservatism. They’re trying to redefine it and make it Democrat lite, because they think the situations today are different than they were in the eighties, and of course we have to adapt with new policies. That’s why they say the era of Reagan is over. But the era of Reagan was not policy. The era of Reagan was philosophy; the era of Reagan was principle. What was it that gave us, for example, the tax cut policy to raise revenue and wipe out a recession? Conservative philosophy and principle. The policy, the law, the idea, the way to get it implemented, descended from that. What was the policy that led to our victory in the Cold War and bringing down the Soviet Union? Well, it wasn’t. It was a philosophy, it was principle, and it was based on the principle of freedom and that eventually regimes which oppress their own people will collapse of their own immorality if you just nudge them in the right way.
You don’t have to fire a shot. The policy people in that era were the ones that wanted us to meet with all the Soviet leaders. The policy people were the ones that wanted to get Reagan to tone down the lingo. The policy people are the ones that wanted to get into the minutia of writing all this gobbledygook that would then form legislation or party platforms which would lay out our position on how to defeat the Soviets. Well, before you do that you’ve gotta have a philosophy and a set of principles that guide you. Our principles and our philosophy stood side by side. The policies create themselves, and the policies, as I say, descend from several principles, freedom, the founding, the preamble to the Declaration, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. It’s amazing the policies you can write if those are your principles, it’s like amazing the ideas you can come up with.
Welfare reform. Where did that policy come from? Oh, yeah, there might have been people working deep down with the sleeves rolled up on the intricacies of the operation and how to implement it, tell the states what to do. But the concept was we’re destroying lives with welfare. We’re going to get people back to work, we’re going to get them off welfare because we love them and because they want them to be something. We want them to get something out of this life they have been born with more than sitting around and subsisting on something that’s very little from the government with no future. Now, that’s the philosophy, that’s the principle, that too much government destroys lives, damages the future of a lot of lives, we want to stop this because we love people. Before we get to this point, did any of you who object to welfare on the humanitarian grounds that it is destructive of families and people, did you need somebody to explain a policy to you before you understood that welfare was bad? Or was it just instinctive, you just know, you’ve had kids or whatever, the more you give people without requiring them to earn it, the more you are seeing to it they’ll never be able to earn anything and you’re going to have to take care of them the rest of their lives. And we believe that ultimately is destructive to people and it insults them. They’re capable of far more, but we look at them and say, “No, you’re not, we have to take care of you because you’re incompetent.”
Well, that’s not who we are by virtue of philosophy. That’s not who we are on the basis of principle, and I don’t care whether it’s 1980 or 2009. That hasn’t changed and look at what’s happening. Obama is reversing welfare reform. The stimulus bill, or one of these pieces of legislation, does away with it. The states are going to now get more money from the federal government based on how many new welfare cases they create, how many more people are added to welfare rolls. You have to be ever vigilant against this stuff because the left is always going to try to undo anything done that emancipates people and gives them freedom. So these people on my side are taking me over the coals because they think I eschewed the notion — even Rich Lowry at National Review didn’t understand it. He’s the editor of National Review, which descends from William F. Buckley. I never said I was against policy. Of course you need it, but policy guided by what? If you’re going to have policy that says we need to be more like Democrats, we need to identify this particular group of voters and come up with a plan and a party policy that goes and gets them, fine, but you’re changing conservatism when you do that. You’re not using a conservative philosophy or principle to go do that, you’re starting to look at people the way Democrats do. And you’re looking at them on the basis, “Well, have to win elections.” Yeah. But we got a blueprint for that that our own party is ignoring.
So I would urge all of you, don’t be talked out of what your instincts tell you. We’re all conservatives here, and those of you listening who are new to the program who might be tempted to cross over, we’d love to have you. But if you’re a liberal or moderate, independent, however you describe yourself, I’m addressing the conservatives for the moment. Don’t let yourself be talked out of your instincts. Don’t let yourself be talked out of what’s in your heart and what you know by virtue of life experience. By the way, Rich Lowry is not one of the critics. Lowry is not one of the people I’m talking about. He praised the speech, he just said it was the one area he disagreed with. But what I fear is that even on our side, what is conservatism is now up for debate, people are trying to come up with their own definition and idea of it and using what they think is their superior intelligence, smarts to overpower the whole concept just so they can be hailed and touted as smart and revolutionary, evolutionary, moderate, modified conservatism to fit the times, which seems to be one of the things that they are doing.
I don’t think the Constitution needs to be modified to fit the times. The liberals think that. I don’t think the Declaration needs to be toyed with. Chris Matthews asked the other day on his show, “Do you want to live in a world where Limbaugh is writing the Constitution?” I don’t have a desire to change it, Chris. Works fine for me. I’m trying to defend it and protect it against people who are trying to change it. So I’m not opposed to policy, but principle and philosophy, those are the two things that we need to get us back on track and understand what our objectives are. It would seem to me, given what’s happened with the Obama administration, the things that they’re wanting to enact, that our philosophy and principles ought to just be staring us right in the face. They should be larger than ever. They are the antidote. Conservatism, as it’s always been known, is the antidote to what is happening here. And one day, don’t know when, the antidote will be the vaccine, whatever you want to call it, the nation will take it, the nation will get the vaccine and we’re going to fix all this just as we did in the eighties. I don’t know how much destruction is going to have to occur before that happens, but it will eventually happen.
In the meantime, ladies and gentlemen, I urge you not to cower and not cave when people make these attempts on you to modify, moderate what you’ve always known to be the principled base and foundation of conservatism, ’cause that’s the first battle we face before we even get to Obama. We’re just trying to stop Obama, slow him down a little bit now, but there needs to be a unified opposition to it. I am willing to take that role since Rahm Emanuel and Obama have anointed me the leader.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, as to policy, ladies and gentlemen, I have proposed a policy, a bipartisan stimulus plan. My policy was proposed in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. It was a brilliant policy, hailed by many as a genuine bipartisan compromise, rejected entirely by the Obama administration.
Obama Attacks Rush Limbaugh, but Prostrates Himself to America’s Enemies
Spot on post by Jay Nordlinger at NRO, both his article and his follow-up at The Corner:
Readers have made some points about my Rush Limbaugh bit in Impromptus today, and a few of these points, I forgot to make myself. In particular, I should have noted this: One of the creepiest, most disturbing things about the “war on Rush” — particularly as orchestrated from the White House? Limbaugh is a private citizen. A reader wrote, “The same people who gasped because the FBI surveilled John Lennon are more than happy to have government employees — including Emanuel and Gibbs — conduct a campaign to demonize and diminish a radio personality for political purposes.”
Rush is a big boy, and he can handle it. But still . . . There is something creepy about bringing the weight of the government down on a radio host, even if that host is prominent, influential, and brave.
Couldn’t President Obama save this heaviness for Ahmadinejad, Assad, Kim Jong Il, and other real villains?
Also, weren’t we supposed to have a new kind of politics in the Obama era? Change and all that? A discarding of the bad old ways? And here we have Carville and Begala . . .
Well, let that same reader talk about it: “So who’s working on the Rush campaign? Perhaps the two most execrable individuals in American politics, Carville and Begala.”
That’s putting it a little strongly, but, still, that’s putting it — and the Obama era doesn’t seem so terribly new, except for the galloping socialization of the country.
I made some of these same points directed at AllahPundit at HotAir:
Why the fixation on Rush as a “private citizen”? The idea, I take it, is that Obama’s bringing the enormous power of the presidency to bear on a poor, defenseless Joe Public, but Limbaugh’s anything but defenseless (as today’s debate challenge proves) and considerably more powerful, I think we’d all agree, than the average congressman who would be considered fair game as a public official. If the White House had picked him out of a phone book or was rooting around in his trash, that’d be an egregious breach of privacy, but he’s one of the most powerful people in American media, with a following in the millions, and they haven’t done anything untoward (yet?). In fact, strictly speaking, they’re not “going after” him at all. They’re going after the GOP, to tar them by association with Rush and they’re willing to inflate his influence to do so. It’s Republicans who are suffering from having to thread the needle between defending Limbaugh and rejecting the “I want him to fail” rhetoric. What harm has Rush suffered? His stature’s never been greater, as he himself acknowledges right here.
Take all this and substitute MICHELLE MALKIN in all places you reference RUSH and answer your own questions as I asked you in Ed’s thread on this. If the Federal government was trashing Michelle Malkin, misrepresenting her, smearing her and then propping her up as the leader of the GOP to tar and feather them with a false caricature of Michelle Malkin, would you be so quick to just throw your boss under the bus?
Michael in MI on March 4, 2009 at 5:23 PM
*****
I’m saying he can handle himself, as can Michelle, and he did a fine job of it here. I concede there’s a debate to be had about how much influence someone would need to be able to have a “fair fight” with the White House, but I think a guy with 20 million listeners qualifies. Michelle probably doesn’t.
Allahpundit on March 4, 2009 at 5:28 PM
Being able to handle himself is not the issue, AllahPundit. Something isn’t just or unjust simply because the object of the attack can handle oneself. The onus is on the Administration.
It’s like a man hitting a woman. A man should *never* hit a woman, no matter whether or not she can ‘handle herself’. A gentleman simply does not do that.
Same thing with the Federal government. It is above the dignity of the Federal government to be attacking-smearing-making fun of media members. It’s a matter of dignity and unofficial ethics and class and respect for the position of authority.
I really can’t figure out why you don’t understand that, other than you just don’t like Rush Limbaugh so your view is tainted.
Michael in MI on March 4, 2009 at 5:35 PM
And this was my contribution to Ed Morrissey’s great take on this at HotAir:
But first, spot-on, Ed Morrissey. Spot-on analysis. This is an attack, NOT a “promotion”. When the Left smears Michelle Malkin and misrepresents her views and then “promotes” her as the leader of the Conservative movement with the purpose of discrediting Michelle AND all Conservatives, only the naive would call that a “promotion” that helps her.
When the White House, the mass media, the Democrats and the Left are taking everything you say completely out of context, smearing your message, misrepresenting everything you say and then propping up THAT as representative of you and your message, I don’t see how AllahPundit considers that a help to Rush Limbaugh.
What Rush Limbaugh does is what AllahPundit describes. He shines a light on the Democrats and the Left’s message, he plays their speeches in full context, he reads their idiotic op-eds in full context and then goes on to explain what they mean, using their own words in full context. That is NOT what the Left, mass media, White House and Democrat Party is doing with Rush.
The Left smears their opponents and then presents that message as representative of their opponent.
I’d like to know how AllahPundit would feel if this were the Left, President and Democrats going after Michelle Malkin in the same way. Would he say that smearing Michelle Malkin and misrepresenting her views was propping her up and making her more popular and would be a good thing for her website and reputation? What if the Left-President-Democrats decided to say that everyone on the right was represented by the homophobic, racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic, Bible-thumping, bigoted Michelle Malkin? Would AllahPundit just turn around and say that Michelle Malkin was not a private citizen and the Left-President-Democrat Party had every right to attack her like that? And then he would blow it off as he is doing with the attack on Rush?
Michael in MI on March 4, 2009 at 12:58 PM
*****
Their motivation is nothing more or less than exploiting the fact that MICHELLE MALKIN is unpopular (or so they believe) with most of the country. If that’s true, it’s MICHELLE MALKIN’s fault, not theirs. They’re not insulting HER, they’re simply promoting HER to leverage that unpopularity against the GOP. If it’s untrue, then they’ve shot themselves in the foot by raising the profile of a WOMAN who might turn the country against them.
Here’s the bottom line: The only sure winner in all of this is MICHELLE MALKIN HERSELF, because this is bound to increase HER influence. That’s why it’s bizarre that so many of you are taking offense. If you truly believe that MICHELLE MALKIN is conservatism’s best messenger, then you should be euphoric over the free publicity SHE’s getting out of this. In fact, Peter Daou (a lefty) over at the Huffington Post is wringing his hands for precisely that reason.
Allahpundit on March 4, 2009 at 11:13 AM
Now, consider that statement and consider the way that the Left “promotes” Michelle Malkin and her conservative message. They don’t “promote” her in an intellectually honest way, explaining her beliefs and values and principles in context. They smear her, and then promote THAT as what Michelle Malkin represents. They work to marginalize her and ALL conservatives by putting up a completely bastardized version of Michelle’s views — an thus the views of conservatives — and then use that to turn people off to not only Michelle, but to all conservatism in general.
THAT is the effort that is going on now, AllahPundit. And the fact that you and many others cannot see that is very disheartening, to say the least.
Michael in MI on March 4, 2009 at 1:04 PM
ABOUT
“Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon.”
———- ———- ———-
“A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency or simply to swell its numbers.”
—Ronald Reagan 1975
“Don’t give up your ideals, don’t compromise, don’t turn to expediency — and don’t, for heaven’s sake, having seen the inner workings of the watch — don’t get cynical.”
—Ronald Reagan, 1976
———- ———- ———-
———- ———- ———-
Rorschach’s Journal. November 12th, 1985: Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout “Save us!”… and I’ll whisper “no.”
———- ———- ———-
“You see, Doctor, God didn’t kill that little girl. Fate didn’t butcher her and destiny didn’t feed her to those dogs. If God saw what any of us did that night, He didn’t seem to mind. From then on I knew… God doesn’t make the world this way. We do.“
———- ———- ———-
“Men get arrested. Dogs get put down.”
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“And I am reminded, on this holy day, of the sad story of Kitty Genovese. As you all may remember, a long time ago, almost thirty years ago, this poor soul cried out for help time and time again, but no person answered her calls. Though many saw, no one so much as called the police. They all just watched as Kitty was being stabbed to death in broad daylight. They watched as her assailant walked away. Now, we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. —Monsignor, Boondock Saints (1999)
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“Never shall innocent blood be shed, yet the blood of the wicked shall flow like a river. The Three shall spread their blackened wings and be the vengeful striking hammer of God.” —Il Duce, Boondock Saints (1999)
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“Now you will receive us. We do not ask for your poor, or your hungry. We do not want your tired and sick. It is your corrupt we claim. It is your evil that will be sought by us. With every breath we shall hunt them down. Each day, we will spill their blood till it rains down from the skies. Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace. These are not polite suggestions, these are codes of behavior and those of you that ignore them will pay the dearest cost. There are varying degrees of evil, we urge you lesser forms of filth not to push the bounds and cross over, into true corruption, into our domain. For if you do, one day you will look behind you and you will see we three. And on that day, you will reap it. And we will send you to whatever god you wish. And shepherds we shall be, for Thee, my Lord, for Thee. Power hath descended forth from Thy hand, that our feet may swiftly carry out Thy command. So we shall flow a river forth to Thee, and teeming with souls shall it ever be. In nomine Patri. Et Fili. Spiritus Sancti.” —Boondock Saints (1999)
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