Taking The Klavan Challenge, Part I: Conscience is Bad

[Pamela Troy]

(Recently, Andrew Klavan, in a piece in the Los Angeles Times, challenged liberals to listen to at least an hour of Rush Limbaugh a day, for a week.)

Rush Limbaugh says that he wants me to listen for six solid weeks. That's the only way, he explains, that anyone can grasp the "context" of what he's saying.

Uh.. No.

Sorry.

I have a life. Yes, I know, I’m a San Francisco liberal, which, in the minds of Rush and his friends, means I spend my days on the government dole, strumming a guitar in my flower strewn, patchouli-scented rent-controlled flat in the Haight. Unfortunately the reality is I have personal and financial obligations that don’t include listening to a radio personality I detest for six solid weeks.

However, I’m willing to take up the gauntlet thrown by Andrew Klavan, and make the effort to listen for at least an hour a day for the next few days, and consider:

1. What he has to say.

2. What he’s getting at.

3. Why he says the things he says.

To that end, as a project this week, I’m going to listen to an hour or two of Rush. I will then take a quote that I consider most representative of the whole, and consider what he’s getting at and why he’s saying it.

Yesterday, on March 31st, the subject seemed to be how absolutely vital the Hummer is to American freedom as we know it. According to Rush, the current push towards smaller, more fuel efficient cars is part of a dastardly liberal conspiracy. Their real plan is to get people to like driving less and move to using public transit, which will in turn, lead to people to living in areas where they don’t have to drive, which will then destroy all initiative and invention.

He flatly dismisses the notion that anyone might actually prefer a small car because of the fuel efficiency. Apparently, as far as Rush is concerned, the primary purpose of a car is not transportation but what other people think about it. “People want to seen riding around in these little putput things so they can be seen as having a social conscience.”

The money quote in the broadcast, however, is this:

Self interest is what propels the United States military to victory! Not sacrifice! Not the concept of sacrifice! Sacrifice is giving something to somebody you don’t know! To make yourself feel altruistic! You’re not sacrificing, that doesn’t make you great! But giving something to your family because you provided it for them? That is good! But if you’re running around just giving people who do nothing for you, who’re just worthless, who don’t have anything to do with you, you’re cheating <i>them</i> out of their own self-interest! When you vote for politicians who take from your back pocket to give to others you think it’s compassionate? You think it’s caring? It’s not! It’s depriving the recipient of his own quest for self interest.

Obligatory readings from Ayn Rand follow.

So, what’s Rush getting at?

Conscience is bad. Doing something for people you don’t even know, who “do nothing for you” is stupid and just plain wrong.

You know, like this guy did:



Why does Rush say this?

Well, there are a couple of possibilities. One is that he’s someone who honestly doesn’t understand the concept of a conscience. It’s not normal, but there are people like that. They don’t feel empathy, and so they react to examples of it by redefining it as selfishness, which is something they do understand.

More likely, he does, like most of us, have a conscience based on empathy and a sense of social responsibility. The problem is, these things are so inconvenient to his world-view – and at this point, his career – that they’re carefully buried. The sight of someone doing something Rush senses is socially responsible or unselfish, like driving around in a small car or passing out food to the homeless, is dimly sensed as a rebuke, so he must put people who do these things in the wrong.

Those people can’t really be having a good time in that “put-put” car they’re riding around in. They’re just smiling because they think they’re better than everybody else. That guy can’t really be sacrificing several hours of his time a week serving soup to the homeless because the idea of other people going hungry bothers him and he wants to help. He’s doing it all for the glory, because he knows people are looking at him and admiring him for doing it.

It’s all about impressing everyone else.

In other words, Rush imagines everybody must be motivated by the same things that seem to motivate him.

[county worker]

1. I like David Letterman's' thought. Rush is too smart to believe what he says.

So are most of us. The rest need someone to think for them and that's what Rush does. The thing the listeners don't understand is that they are being played for suckers. Just look at the repuke budget today. More tax cuts for the rich, gutting medicare and social security and freezing government spending for five years when we are in a recession where consumer spending is gone south and only the government can fill in the void.

Now Rush will promote the repub budget and so will his listeners even though it means no medical care, no retirement income in the future and unemployment and home foreclosure in the near term. Meanwhile the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Rush's listeners prove the adage that says the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

[knowbody0]

2. truly, he is whacked.

talented, but completely insane.

[gratuitous]

3. I'll take Klavan's "challenge" if he'll take mine

We’ll go out for a little stroll in dairy country over in Tillamook County. In one of the pastures, I’m willing to bet that there is the biggest, nastiest cow flop either one of us has ever seen. I will listen to Rush if he agrees to stick his nose right in the cow flop to ascertain with 100% certainty that the vertigo-inducing smell is actually coming from the cow flop. I’ll listen to Rush for as long as he keeps his nose in contact with the cow flop.

Deal? Or no deal, Andrew? Your move.

[guitar man]

4. Fuck Klavan

He was a great character on Cheers, but that doesn't mean I'm going to follow him off a Cliff! :silly:

[Dollface]

5. I'd rather cavort with Cliff than listen to Limbaugh

But I express my deepest gratitude to the poster for braving the cesspool so I don't have to.

[Archie_Leach]

6. I read that article by rightwing reactionary VERMIN "Andrew Klavan"

in the Times.

When I read that article all it did was confirm that SUBhuman DROOLING KNUCKLE DRAGGING rightwing reactionary SH!T-F0R-BRAIN (isn't the terms "rightwing reactionary" and "sh!t-f0r-brains" redundant?) reSCUMlican VERMIN LIKE "Andrew Klavan" = EXACTLY THAT.

I DO listen to SCUM limbaugh and SCUM hannity and the rest of the other SUBhuman VERMIN. I tune into them for days at a time and listen as long as I can; which can be anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour or more depending on how much I can take.

After listening to these VERMIN what is clear is that this SCUM are talking to themselves.

Note that the MORON rightwing reactionary SCUM are always spouting about "liberals would get beat so badly in a debate by SCUM limbaugh...... or SCUM hannity....."..... the problem being the likes of SCUM limbaugh and SCUM hannity and the rest of the VERMIN NEVER "debate"...... they sit in front of the mike and drool.....

If you do some hard research you MIGHT find a video showing early SCUM limbaugh (mid/late 80s) where he's in some studio vomiting his already garbage to a LIVE audience.

Well THEN SCUM limbaugh is still learning the ropes so apparently he didn't screen his audience as folks in that audience got up and tore apart his rightwing garbage...... while these folks were tearing apart SCUM limbaugh's rightwing vomit all SCUM could do was burble back with uuhhh.... aaaahhh.... uuuuuhhhh..... ummmm..... uuuuuhhhhh.

Those individuals that got up tore apart SCUM limbaugh!

That's why SCUM learned later in the 90s when SCUM was still on television to NEVER allow outside audiences into the studio....

[Pamela Troy]

8. Doesn't the foam coming from your mouth damage your keyboard?

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. Why, when I saw Klavan, did I read it as Klavern? nt

[Peggesis1]

9. Who is the man in the photo? n/t

[petronius]

10. Raoul Wallenberg, I believe...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Wallenberg

[Shipwack]

11. A message to Rush

Self interest is what propels the United States military to victory! Not sacrifice! Not the concept of sacrifice!

Rush, this veteran says... Fuck you.

Fuck you, you god-damn mother humping drug addicted pedophile. Fuck you, your worthless father, and the mother that chose to spread her legs and and receive your degenerate, mouth-breathing fathers seed.

I consciously sacrificed a normal life in order to protect worthless, money-whoring meat bags such as yourself. I did this because I believed in serving the greater good.

Now I understand that this, with your stunted pre-tribal level of morality (typical of many of the members of the Republican party) and drug ravaged brain is difficult for you to understand. If I had the spiritual development of a four year old, I would too. However, because I and millions of my spiritual brothers and sisters (who include not only members of the armed forces, but also firefighters, teachers, and cops, and more) are able to feel a kinship to something beyond the family unit, you can sit on your gelatinous ass and reap the benefits of of others... In other words, you are a spiritual welfare queen.

And in case you've forgotten my main point, Rush (after all, it has been three paragraphs now)...


FUCK YOU.

[The Wizard]

15. This veteran agrees

Maybe he'd be a better human if he was raised by wolves.

[ColbertWatcher]

12. I challenge you to compile these in some public and challenge Klavan to respond. n/t

[imdjh]

13. I've actually tried this on my own

One day I was getting pissed off at WMNF, a supposedly liberal station which at times leans so far that it goes over the edge. In my definition, liberal and liberty are words which mean personal freedom, not a doctrinal lockstep that only seems to make sense to a small group of people who see no conflict between US constitutional protection for freedom of speech and European hate-speech laws.

So I pushed the theretofore unused AM button. After scanning through what seemed like an endless stream of stations that I had no idea still existed, I came upon a clear channel with someone talking. It was Michael Savage. I have to say, I was a bit disappointed. I'm not all that familiar with him, other than thinking that he's something of an operator, getting "Hollywood" to hire him for the illusion of balance; something like Ann Coulter and MIchele Malkin showing the world that the right wing isn't entirely angry white men and old Miss America contestants. The format of the show is decidedly strange, mixing hot-button political issues with the occasional chat about a completely unrelated movie. Anyway, I did this for several days which is surprising. I try, but I'm really not that interested in what other people say, when they are actually talking. Bulletin boarding has warped my interpersonal communication skills. I'm annoyed with real life discussions, because I can't skim what other people are saying and because I'm often interrupted before I can finish a really long sentence or paragraph which I would like to think of as "expressing a complete thought." OK, I'm a pain.

Savage mostly talked about economics during my experiment, and I'm not very knowledgeable on the specifics of economics. So I really couldn't say specifically why he was wrong at any given moment. So I stopped listening. The downside of this is that when I am discussing issues with conservatives, who often do read books and authoritative if politically disagreeable sources on economics, I'm at a disadvantage at the point where common sense isn't enough.

[hay rick]

14. Rush and GM

Rush has been known to do the radio equivalent of "product placement" on behalf of GM- in exchange for ad dollars and free cars. Link here: http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2009/03/rush_limbaugh_is_little_more_t.html#more

The writer, Paul Mulshine, is a self-styled "true conservative" and has a rather low opinion of Mr. Limbaugh whom at turns he describes as "the hefty huckster" and "little more than a streetwalker."

A quote from Mulshine's article:

In a 2007 article in Automotive News headlined "General Motors Payola," writer Mary Connelly told how "General Motors is recruiting many of America's best known radio personalities -- including Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Laura Schlessinger and Whoopi Goldberg -- to talk up its vehicles on the air."

The article noted that the company didn't pay the stars directly but advertised on their shows and gave them cars to drive and other favors. In return, the talkers would plug GM products. But not during advertisements. They would do so during the normal course of their on-air patter. In other words, Limbaugh would go from offering some insight about national politics to saying this:

"GM has a ton of momentum. They are working hard and they are thinking smart. Believe in General Motors, folks. They're a classic American company doing it all."