Our society took yet another hard knock to the chin this week, although the way that the old media is choosing to report on it, you may not even realize it. I suppose that it could be chalked up to the ‘corsening of our national dialogue’, but seeing as how that phrase frequently tumbles from the lips of the Leftists as they are busy practicing the very same intolerance and hate that they so eagerly accuse others of, I’ll simply call it an unfortunate side effect of our declining morals in this country, an inevitable byproduct of the constant assault on Christianity and the decades-long struggle to push it from its place at the center of our national character by the cynical seeking power, and the perverse who wish to feel better about themselves and are willing to erase any and all notions of a higher authority over the actions of man.
Unless you have been living under a rock, you probably know that conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was invited, then uninvited this week to participate in a bid to buy the St. Louis Rams football team, and that this bid was derailed not by unsavory information about Limbaugh, but by unsubstantiated accusations by the usual suspects on the left about “racist” comments he supposedly made. The old media, never ones to refuse participation in good old fashioned character assassination, predictably acted like sharks to chum, and dutifully reported racist remarks that Limbaugh never made, and when called on it, simply shrugged their shoulders and acted as if it was still okay, “because he had said things in the past that were both hateful and racist”. And that was that. It was okay to smear the character of a man who’s only crime is saying things that the self-appointed cognoscenti don’t like to hear. Because that crime is so heinous in the conform-and-think-only-approved-thoughts circles that currently control our culture, it was perfectly acceptable to serve the media created perception that a man is racist and hateful and summarily declare him guilty in the court of public opinion, truth be damned, and when you get caught not doing your job and actually sourcing what you report, you get a pass because you simply know that the victim is the kind of man you declared him to be, even if you cannot prove it.
So what does this have to do with a moral decline? Well, in the days back when things like the Ten Commandments were still discussed in public fora, like schools, people tended to take things such as “bearing false witness” more seriously. I’m sure its one of the reasons we have such concepts as perjury, slander, and libel in our law. And yet, in an age when the President can say he did not have sex with the woman who gave him a hummer in the Oval Office, under oath, and argue about the meaning of “is”, while at the same time, a moral system that teaches that lying is wrong is under attack as “small minded and bigoted”, then it isn’t so hard to see that the concepts that replaced that system in the public lexicon, such as moral relativism and situtational ethics, have contributed significantly to a brave new world where it is ok to malign a man’s character, and bar him from realizing a dream, even if your own lives are messed up and have exhibited the kinds of severe flaws that you decry another for, because unlike the heretic who doesn’t share your vile brand of political opportunism, your sins have been washed clean by your adherence to the belief that all people are equal…unless they don’t believe the same things you do, in which case they are less than a person, and subject to characterizations that would make latter-day propagandists blush.
Of course, there is a downside to this that I haven’t heard too many people talking about yet. In a country that was once unique for the concept that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, we now have people being targeted with falsehoods being attributed to them, because they do not adhere to the ‘approved beliefs’. Let that sink in for a minute. Not only are we seeing the ostracization of an entire class of people for their beliefs, the accusers are so afraid of the power, of the inherent truths in those beliefs, that it simply won’t do to debate those beliefs in a stand up fight. Now we must be destroyed for our beliefs, and there is no easier way to accomplish this without the handicap of going into a battle of wits unarmed than for the poorly equipped to prevent the fight with vile and specious claims presented as fact. The accuser need not trouble themselves with proof. An outrageous accusation of guilt of one of the new ‘thought crimes’ is more than enough to cause the intended damage. It is up to the maligned to prove that they aren’t guilty of the offense, and if they can’t, then the accusation remains, to taint their character, and cause them grief throughout the rest of their lives. And the old media is only too happy to pile on. It’s easy, and when they no longer interest themselves in doing their jobs, then the target is attacked on multiple fronts.
While the old media was busy painting Rush Limbaugh into a white hood and robes, in front of a flaming cross, the people who could have benefitted from his imput, his insight, and of course, his money, were cowed into foregoing their freedom of association in favor of distancing themselves out of fear that the unfounded and unproven accusations against him might taint them. They empowered, and continue to empower the wrongdoers here. Yes, I said wrongdoers. Yes, I know that is a moral judgment, and yes, I make it with the full knowledge and confession that I myself am far from perfect. However, unlike the Wrong Reverend Jackson, I never fathered an illegitmate child, and I have never referred to anyone as a “Hymie“. I have screwed many things up in my life, and have come to conservatism through a slow political evolution, but unlike the Wrong Reverend Sharptongue, I did not build a career as a race hustler on a fraud dependent on falsely accusing white men of raping a black woman.
So where does this bring us? A very scary place. The left is obsessed with race. It infuses everything they do, and everyone they look at. In their world, merit no longer has a place. If they turn their finely tuned perception upon a profession, or career, and they don’t see a rainbow of faces staring back at them, then they are obviously witnessing racism, and their newfound objective of a ‘compelling interest in diversity’ means that they must fill that profession with faces like their own. Qualifications be damned. Interest be damned. Merit be damned. And in the absence of real moral authority in today’s society, these bigoted race hustlers consider themselves to be the moral authority. That authority is bound only to one objective: the advancement of their own race, not for the sake of improvement, but to feed a sense of entitlement that they have falsely spent decades feeding to their own constituencies while at the same time making these same people total dependent upon them, and whatever entitlements they could provide. Such a cynical pursuit of power, gained largely by ethically and morally handicapping the very people that they purport to help has been not only corrosive to those constituencies, but to society as a whole.
None of this would have been possible without a concerted decision of the old media to enable and assist these cynical pursuits. By passionate portrayal of these self-interested and opportunistic crusaders, rather than deep scrutiny of the effects and goals of the social justice that they continue to pay lip service to, they have accorded these charlatans more gravitas than they could have ever earned on their own. But in order to permanently elevate these scoundrels, it was also necessary to attack the old order, to create a sense of guilt where none was necessary, and to repeat the lies about “white priviledge” and “the sins of America” while studiously avoiding any mention of the voluntary steps made by this nation to address such issues. The result was inevitable: a world where the ends justify their means, and anything goes. Lies and innuendo are perfectly okay. Destruction of your opponent’s character is okay. Accusations without ever presenting proof are okay. This is the world we now live in, and if you think its ugly now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Nice article, but you might want to fix this line:
In a country that was once unique for the concept that a person is presumed guilty until proven innocent, …
You’re absolutely right. That’s what I get for thinking faster than I type.
BiW,
On the spot as usual. Trying to get the Sunlight room discussion going again, look forward to your thoughts…
Gorilla, I noticed that you commented, and I’m sorry about not answering yet. I will get to it, but reality keeps eating up my intrawebbie time…
Corsening???
I have to say, since you started writing on this site, your posts are much deeper. I drop by regularly but don’t comment often because you leave me with much to contemplate at the end.
That the basis of condemnation of a person, not for what they actually have said, but what they “know” you would say is dangerous beyond belief. Thought Crimes are now a reality.
Well played, sir. Well played
Can you give me a link to the Executive Summary?
Who would’ve thought that Rush Limbaugh would provoke such a serious discussion of the dissolution of American society?
BiW, I laud you for giving this a serious analysis but I think you’ve overlooked a few practical points.
I apply for a job. My potential employer Googles my name and discovers that I have said a number of controversial things on Twitter that make the potential employer uncomfortable. Even though I have all the qualifications, I don’t get the job. That’s called reality. I might think it unfair but it’s the way the game is played.
I don’t know what this mistaken slavery quote is about but the two things Rush did say that caused some concern was McNabb was getting promoted simply because he was black AND Limbaugh made some comment about two NFL teams resembling the “crips” and the “bloods”, which he followed up by saying “There, I said it.”, implying that he knew this was not going to go down well. Any employer has the right to take these comments into consideration. The group that invited Limbaugh to participate in the bid knew his comments endangered their chances of winning the bid. They made a practical business decision.
We all live and die based on our actions and even on things we have said that may not reflect our true hearts. Folks like Limbaugh and Olbermann cannot cry foul if their big mouths get them into hot water, particularly in an age where everything is documented.
The comments falsely attributed to Limbaugh were not only dastardly but unnecessary since he DID say some damning stuff that was documented.
You have taken a simple case of a man’s big mouth getting him into trouble and extrapolated it into a treatise on race relations, justice and Christianity of all things. I admire your ambition in tackling these weightier subjects (even though I fundamentally disagree with you on many of them) but BiW, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. This is a simple case of a man’s big mouth taking him from the frying pan into the fire.
Well if it isn’t my favorite liberal come for a visit. Welcome, R. I’d offer you something to drink, but the fridge is empty at the moment.
I do like the fact that you read it, but like most of the deep thinkers on the left side of the aisle, you have gotten caught up in the wrong details.
It would be nice to think that this was simply a case of someone facing the consequences for their actions, such as your employment analogy, but such a characterization is a gross oversimplication of what happened, hoss.
He was already in. The group planning to make the bid for the Rams purposely invited him, and he was going to be a minority partner, meaning he wasn’t going to have anything to do with the day to day affairs of the team, other than having the kind of access that most fans can only dream of.
He questioned the group’s choice, knowing that he would be ‘controversial’ for them. If anyone understands the kind of vitrol that can be summoned like thunder by the intolerant Left, he does. He was assured that it had been considered and was not a problem. And it wasn’t. At least until the Wrong Reverends got ginned up, and got a player’s union offical all twiterpated. And then he came under fire not for something that he did say, but for things he NEVER said.
Rush is a big boy. He has endured the unremitting hostility of the Left for decades because he has the reach to make them feel it when he tells them in no uncertain terms that they “know” many things that just aren’t true. And when he says something that he knows will be taken out of context, or considered controversial by those who choose to be offended by every statement that doesn’t fit within their myopic worldview, he acknowledges it, as you pointed out. He doesn’t shy away from the things that he has said. The record doesn’t get scrubbed, unlike with leftists who get caught saying or doing controversial or provocative things. But this was different.
This time, the great guardians of the Politically Correct Culture brought their influence to bear on the basis of things NEVER said by the accused, and when they got called on it, and it had little or no impact on what had become a foregone policy of appeasement, a part of what gave America a claim on the notion of true justice in practice died.
Think about it this way:
A man with the money, the will, the interest, and the means to get involved in a sports franchise is approached by other investors to become a partner in their bid for the team. The man knows that this will be considered an affront to various individuals who believe that they and their sense of offense are the final arbiters of all that is correct and holy in culture and politics, but as he is reassured that it won’t be a problem, and it is something that he would like to do, he jumps in.
Right on cue, the usual suspects express their outrage at private individuals exercising their freedom of association to select a partner who they personally have deemed unfit to own a dog, let alone a minority stake in a monopoly sports franchise, and they set to work attacking his character with scurolous allegations about things he never said.
When it becomes known that he never actually said the things he stood accused of saying, no mea culpa, no apology, only an equally scurolous retreat to a more generic position of “Well, he’s said other offensive things, so he still shouldn’t get the position.” This from the mouths of people who have been far more hypocritcal and much less forthcoming about the unsavory information in their own personal lives. And in the meantime, people who have the power to successfully resist this attack, and actually stand on character and principle themselves choose instead to cave in, and grant this unprincipled and scheming indivuals more power then they deserve or are capable of responsibly wielding.
That was dispicable. Truly, I don’t know who sickens me more, the race-pimps for assuming that they can destroy a man’s desires and endeavors because they have decided he is a racist, and believe that it is perfectly ok to lie to achieve their desired result, or the spineless owners and owner wanna-bees who, even with the knowledge of the lies, decide to empower the lies and the liars by giving them their desired result.
Unlike you, I know that the remarks you point to were not seated in racist beliefs, but instead in asking serious questions and trying to have the kind of conversation that our Attorney General wagged his finger at the country earlier this year about us being too cowardly to have. Questions about a black man and his qualifications for a job aren’t automatically racist simply because he is a black man. Questions that probe whether or not he has the job because of his color of skin might poke at a sense of entitlement of the kind that has grown since the implemetation of affirmative action, but that does not make the question or the questioner racist. The most revealing part of this is that if it had actually been about what Rush really did say, and not lies of convenience, then we could have once again had an opportunity for an honest discussion of the type we were scolded for not having, and this would have faded away in time, because as much as the Jesse Jackson’s and Al Shaprton’s of the world wish with all their hearts that it were otherwise, there simply is no “there” there.
Thanks for the welcome BiW. Clearly if the main thrust of your post is about the reprehensibility of slandering a man, then you are 100% on the money.
Further, even if we discard the false claims and stick to the real ones, I’m surprised that your outrage is not targeted toward the team that invited Rush to the party, so to speak. As you present it, they were warned by Rush that things might get rocky. They said, “don’t worry” and then when the entirely predictable reaction came (rightly or wrongly), the bid team lost its balls and threw Rush to the curb. Your outrage at Sharpton is wasted … he is what he is and you know what to expect from him. Rush got screwed by his own “friends”.
Finally, it is very hard to determine who is a racist and who isn’t. I suspect Rush likes to piss people off, both for ratings and for a bit of a visceral thrill. I would not declare Rush a racist. I don’t think Don Imus (of “knappy headed ho’s” fame) is a racist. I don’t even think dumbass Bil O’Reilly (paraphrase: “I was surprised that none of the customers at Sylvia’s said ‘hey where’s my motherfu*kin’ iced tea?”) is racist.
Perhaps though, folks who are not racist but simply ignorant need to be enlightened lest they embolden true racists? I’m just sayin’.