Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh seems to be living a grand life.  He just gave the main address to CPAC to an adoring audience and as part of that speech he told of being invited to the Oval Office for lunch right before Bush left office.  Limbaugh said,  “My birthday had been the day before. He (Bush) brought out a chocolate birthday cake, a microphone, and stood beside me with Ed Gillespie and sang happy birthday. Photographers taking pictures. I wish my parents were alive. My parents wouldn’t believe my life.”

How great.  The President of The United States not only invites you to the Oval Office, but makes a production of your birthday, chocolate cake, song and all.  Of all the people Bush could have so honored, it is interesting the Bush would give such attention and honor to Rush Limbaugh.

Limbaugh presents himself as the voice of true conservatism.  In his CPAC speech he complimented himself for not using a TelePrompTer.  He said, “Our beliefs are our core. Our beliefs are our hearts. We don’t have to make notes about what we believe.”

The reason he doesn’t need a TelePrompTer is probably the fact that he gets a lot of practice on his radio show to basically simply keep repeating himself.  He has a well developed point of view that he repeats in many forms.  Limbaugh identifies conservatism with some version of glorified capitalism,  he asserts wealth is accrued as the result of hard work, he sees threats from the government to individual freedom.  In Limbaugh’s universe, liberals are the enemy with whom he can never imagine reconciliation.  To him, liberals:

• hold individuals down
• suppress competition
• promote class resentment
• enact policies that will give them control
• cultivate dependency
• expand the welfare state
• seek to extract revenge on the wealthy

I read through Limbaugh’s CPAC speech and highlighted parts that show his philosophy:

1. Let me tell you who we conservatives are: We love people. … We believe that a person can be the best he or she wants to be if certain things are just removed from their path like onerous taxes, regulations and too much government. succeed.
2. The Democrat Party (tells individuals) You really can’t do that, you don’t have what it takes, besides you’re a minority or you’re a woman and there are too many people that want to discriminate against you. You can’t get anywhere. You need to depend on us.  … Just vote for us. .
3. New York has a dependency class that has grown up and been educated that their entitlement is to be fed and taken care of by these evil mean people who have more than they do. If New York City, New York  Most wealth in this country is the result of entrepreneurial, just plain old hard work. There’s no reason to punish it. There’s no reason to raise taxes on these people.
4. They’re poor (liberals tell them) because of us, because we (the rich) don’t care, and because we’ve gotten rich by taking from them, that’s what kids in school are taught today. That’s what others have said to the media. You know why they’re poor, you know why they remain poor? Because their lives have been destroyed by the never-ending government hay that’s designed to help them, but it destroys ambition. It destroys the education they might get to learn to be self-fulfilling. [Applause]
5. We can’t have a great country and a growing economy with more and more people being told they have a right, because of some injustice that’s been done to them or some discrimination, that they have a right to the earnings of others. … The Barack Obama administration is actively seeking to expand the welfare state in this country because he wants to control it.
6. They (liberals) believe that inequities and inequalities descend from the selfishness and the greed of the achievers.
7. There are going to be more controls over what you can and can’t do, how you can and can’t do it, what you can and can’t drive, what you can and can’t say, where you can and can’t say it. All of these things are coming down the pike, because it’s not about revenue generation to them (Obama and the liberals), it’s about control.
8. I sometimes wonder if liberalism is not just a psychosis or a psychology, not an ideology. It’s so much about feelings, and the predominant feeling that liberalism is about is about feeling good about themselves and they do that by telling themselves they have all this compassion.
9. He (Obama) wants people in fear, angst and crisis, fearing the worst each and every day because that clears the decks for President Obama and his pals to come in with the answers, which are abject failures, historically shown and demonstrated. Doesn’t matter. They’ll have control of it when it’s all over. And that’s what they want.
10. The Democrats and Obama are asking you to feel better simply on the basis that they’re going to get revenge for you, but your life isn’t going to improve, somebody else’s is just going to be destroyed and they want you to be happy over that. That’s sick. And that is not the United States of America. [Applause]
11. And beware of those different factions who seek as part of their attempt to redefine conservatism, as making sure the liberals like us, making sure that the media likes us. They never will, as long as we remain conservatives. They can’t possibly like us; they’re our enemy. In a political arena of ideas, they’re our enemy.  They think we need to be defeated.
12. We conservatives are not quitters. We don’t acquiesce. We’re not going to give up the American dream and watch idly while it is restructured and transformed. [Applause]
13. I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation. Why would I want that to succeed?  … I’m supposed to say I don’t want the President to fail? [Applause] We’re in for a real battle. We are talking about the United States of America … And it’s under assault. It’s never been under assault like this from within before. And it’s a serious, serious battle.
14. Freedom — freedom is the natural yearning of the human spirit as we were endowed by our creator. And the United States of America is the place in the world where that yearning flourishes, where freedom is expected because it’s part of the way we’re created.
15. This is something liberals will never understand about the United States of America and it’s right under their noses, right in front of their faces, we are a competitive people. We strive, enough of us do, to be the best. We strive to win. We strive to avoid defeat. Enough of us still do. Don’t believe otherwise. The liberals have made efforts to shut that aspect of our nature down. Wherever you live, I am certain that you, when you were a child or your kids today in youth sports are told not to keep score, because the losers, it’s just not fair.
16. What is so strange about being honest to say that I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation? Why would I want that to succeed? [Applause]