Leftist blames the victim
Rush Limbaugh was recently a huge victim of Leftist hate-speech, with all sorts of damaging lies told about evil things that he was supposed to have said in the past. The Left wanted to say that Rush was a hater but couldn't find anything to prove it so they just made stuff up. But according to the addled Leftist assertions below, Rush is still a practitioner of hate speech because of the WAY he speaks, not because of what he has said! It's eloquence which constitutes hate speech apparently.
"I think I’ve got it—the hate in America and where it’s coming from. Rush Limbaugh’s effort—aborted by his fellow investors, it seems—to buy the St. Louis Rams has given me the insight...
So the hate: I think people have a natural instinct to want to declaim, to inveigh, denounce, opine, and show-off to great rhetorical effect. It’s as natural as dreaming of playing major league baseball (it is, speech for speech’s sake, like baseball, a man’s thing). People (men) just want to hear themselves talk....
And the people who do it well, the only people who do it with any formality and structure, are conservatives. The art of this—the formal discipline of rhetoric taught in classrooms for generations—has fallen out of fashion in our era. Except, that is, on right-wing radio and on Fox News. It is the mesmerizing thing about all of these conservatives, not just the bile, but the cadence.. conservatives practice old-fashioned big-breath talking, long oom pa pa flights of castigation and censure and reproach and excoriation and threat and blame and denunciation in which meaning takes a back seat to verbal skill and style....
Losing out on the pure joy of owning an NFL team—as close as you get to being a true potentate in America—Rush may be facing a level of personal disappointment that few of us can truly appreciate, but he’s not weeping. Instead he’s blissfully self-dramatizing, channeling his pain into a great rhythmic flow which blocks out the sound of anybody else.
This, I think, is the root of hate speech: The conservatives talkers have shown many fragile people how to use rhetorical effect—repetitions, rising and falling pitch, tempo, structured breathing, metonymy, synecdoche, and a variety of tried-and-true tropes (“our country over 200 years old now”), combined with passionate enmity —to achieve a little place in the sun....
Source
The writer above is Michael Wolff, a journalist. He is a former columnist for New York magazine and currently is the media columnist for Vanity Fair magazine as well as a television commentator on CNBC. As such he appears pretty eloquent. I guess that makes him a practitioner of hate speech too. He clearly hates Rush. From his argument above, it would seem that his hatred of Rush has quite deranged him. I wonder has he realized that his criticism of Rush would apply equally well to Obama!
The source of some of the the libels against Rush has now been tentatively identified. It is a super-"correct" NYC law firm -- Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP -- with far-Left connections and which has been a big donor to Obama. It has a specialty in sports-related matters. Lying is apparently part of that specialty. Being truthful is not part of "correctness", it would seem. Lets hope Rush takes them on in the courts.
26 comments:
The world would be a much better place without Rush Limbaugh.
I'll bet Mr. Clean has never listened to Rush. But then again with so much wisdom He should turn his efforts to all of the world's problems.
"I'll bet Mr. Clean has never listened to Rush. "
Oh yes I have. Hence my comment.
Rush says:
"Too many whites are getting away with drug use...Too many whites are getting away with drug sales...The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them, and send them up the river, too." --in 1995
"I am addicted to prescription pain medication." --in 2003
Mr. Clean: Perhaps. It would also be a better place without Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. All three are good at defusing rational thought and arousing passion to no good end.
Ditto as to Mr. Wolf and Barak Obama.
But, fortunately, we have First Amendment rights which protect speech.
Even yours.
Hey Dean, why are you deflecting away from Rush Limbaugh? Because you cannot defend Rushbo? So you attack others? Typical conservative tactics.
Hey Mr. Clean: Did you read my entire comment, or just the part you wanted to?
Rush was included, and my comment applies to both left and right.
Typical liberal tactics. Respond only to bits and pieces of what is said.
Interesting, too, that you assume I'm a conservative. My conservative friends consider me a liberal. It's the curse of being an independent, able to see the right and wrong of both sides of the political spectrum.
Hi Dean,
Sorry for misrepresenting you as a conservative. Your comment appeared to me as being overly conservative, as is most comments on this blog.
In addition to your list, other people I can do without: Bill Maher, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Nancy Pelosi, John Ensign, Darth Cheney, H. Clinton, Michele Bachmann, Chris Dodd, Ms. Palin, Barbara Boxer.
"The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."
"They oughtta change Black History Month to Black Progress Month and start measuring it."
"Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."
Rush said;
"Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."
Don't you know that leftists consider facts to be racist? Unless of course, the "facts" are theirs.
The main reason the Left hates Limbaugh is because they fear him. They fear/hate anyone who exposes them as the mindless dupes, liars, and hypocrites they are. But don't be overly concerned, as it is simply another sign of their weakness. When you need to resort to lies and distortions to make your argument, as with the present government and it's MSM, you've already lost.
As for "Mr. Clean";
"In addition to your list, other people I can do without: Bill Maher, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Nancy Pelosi, John Ensign, Darth Cheney, H. Clinton, Michele Bachmann, Chris Dodd, Ms. Palin, Barbara Boxer."
Apparently, he's trying to tell us he dislikes both the Left (and) the Right. Interesting, since he sounds very much like a leftist. So please tell us just where it is that you stand.
Anyone who is not conservative must be a leftist including those in the middle which I consider myself.
Mr. Clean:
S'alright. Sounds like we both inhabit the middle.
"You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed."
"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease (Parkingson's). He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. . . . This is really shameless of
Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication
or he's acting. This is the only time I've ever seen
Michael J. Fox portray any of the symptoms of the
disease he has. He can barely control himself."
"You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed."
Ahem.
"Two of the racist quotes recently attributed to Limbaugh, which praised slavery and Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James Earl Ray, may have been falsified and then magnified in the media echo chamber.
The quotes were published in a 2006 book by Jack Huberman, “101 People Who Are Really Screwing America.” Asked Thursday for the source of the quotes, Huberman said he had no comment. His publisher, Nation Books, also declined to comment."
Source: http://tinyurl.com/yhfoloz
"I never said I supported slavery and I never praised James Earl Ray. How sick would that be? Just as sick as those who would use such outrageous slanders against me or anyone else who never even thought such things." - Rush Limbaugh
Source: http://tinyurl.com/ygewzpu
There's another way to know that Rush Limbaugh never uttered the racist quotes falsely attributed to him - if he ever HAD uttered anything racist on his show, his call screener Bo Snerdly, who is black, would have walked out on the spot. He's still with Rush.
Correct Robert,
His shows are all taped, but I have yet to hear any of the offending quotes reproduced. The teacher in my freshman high school speach class told us that the most lame argument is the ad hominem attack. It is used by people who cannot debate the facts.
There is a great book that seems to give the only explanation of the destructive impulse of the left I have run into, namely envy. Otherwise 'hatred' seems like it arises out of nowhere.
http://www.amazon.com/ENVY-Theory-Behaviour-HELMUT-SCHOECK/dp/0865970645/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255937341&sr=1-5
A better world without Rush? Where *else* is a national audience exposed to global warming criticism. Glenn Beck is new on the scene. Before him, it was only on the Rush radio program!
Rush's fault is that he fails to criticize the right. He is a Republican more than a conservative or libertarian.
That's exactly why Glenn Beck has taken off so forcefully. He is more libertarian than conservative, even! I've only seen his latest shows and he's a constitution thumping hysteric who has learned to control his emotion, thus creating great dramatic effect. His voice has a dual tone to it too that is hypnotic, in that he switches between a teddy bear like speaking voice and a very sharp rhetorical one.
If you don't accept that the only sources you can hear on the radio that criticize climate alarmism then please do some reading of John's 'Greenie Watch' blog. It's a total scandal that wont die even though it's being shot full of holes every single day. Without Rush or Beck out there there would be truly universal scorn towards those of us who dare speak are minds in social groups.
-=NikFromNYC=-
And to any ad-hominem attack, I have a comeback: "Even if I were a good-for-nothing, rotten S.O.B., that STILL does not affect by even one iota the validity of the information I have just presented. The information stands on its own validity, not on who says it."
"Even if I were a good-for-nothing, rotten S.O.B. ..."
Why would I want to listen to someone who has the above qualities in the first place? If I wanted abuse, I would have stayed with my ex-wife.
Mr. Clean, it's called logic. The measure of the truth of a statement depends entirely upon how well that statement matches reality, and has nothing to do with the character of the person making the statement.
Judging the veracity of a statement based on the source of the statement is known as the Genetic Fallacy. (A fallacy is an error in logic.)
"The fallacy therefore fails to assess the claim on its merit. The first criterion of a good argument is that the premises must have bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim in question."
Use the Name,
I am just curious as to why you left out this part of your definition for a genetic fallacy. Quoting your source:
The genetic fallacy is a fallacy of irrelevance where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone's origin rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation, typically transferring the positive or negative esteem from the earlier context.
A genetic fallacy is based on the history of the idea, not the character or truthfulness of the speaker.
The truthfulness and character does matter when offering an opinion as you did.
Anon,
Check the link again. The Genetic Fallacy is also a category of fallacies which includes the Association Fallacy, Appeal to intellectual and mental stability or capability, Ad hominem, and Appeal to motive.
I did carefully consider how much to link. Specifically, the ad hominem fallacy is the type of genetic fallacy being used here, but the definition on Wikipedia has gotten messy, so I decided not to link to it specifically. Here's another explanation of the Genetic Fallacy.
So to put it more plainly, if Osama Bin Laden said that water is wet, would that be any less true than if your best friend said it?
"This guy from The New York Times, if he really thinks that humanity is destroying the planet, humanity is destroying the climate, that human beings in their natural existence are going to cause the extinction of life on Earth -- Andrew Revkin. Mr. Revkin, why don't you just go kill yourself and help the planet by dying?"
Use the Force,
I did check the link again, and even the new link you supplied. It simply does not support your categorization.
I understand what you are trying to say, but you are the one that has created the logically fallacy here. Your original statement was, "There's another way to know that Rush Limbaugh never uttered the racist quotes falsely attributed to him - if he ever HAD uttered anything racist on his show, his call screener Bo Snerdly, who is black, would have walked out on the spot. He's still with Rush."
That is not a demonstrable fact, that is your opinion. It is not a scientific fact in that it is not repeatable under controlled or similar conditions. Furthermore, even if Snerdly were to say that he walked away because Rush was a racist, what would you think if it came out that Snerdly wanted more of a raise? Or wanted more time off? Or was offered another job by some other media company? When the media group he works for says "sorry," he walks away and THEN claims that he walked because Rush is a racist and not because of the other issues. Are you saying that his statements could not be challenged on the basis of his character and truthfulness?
If the person doing the action can be challenged on the basis of their moral character, your opinion based on what they might or might not do can be challenged as well based on your moral character.
Your example of "Bin Laden says the water is wet" is a false analogy. You are trying to equivocate a scientific fact with your opinion.
It doesn't work that way.
"I understand what you are trying to say, but you are the one that has created the logically fallacy here. Your original statement was,"
Bzzt. Wrong. That was Robert.
I was dealing only with logical fallacies.
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