Some people take that to extremes. They think they can say whatever they want to say about people, especially in the general sense, so they can insult lots of them without being sued. After all, if they didn't insult you in particular, you can't insist that your reputation was sufficiently sullied to recover damages.
If you consider this a skill, go right ahead. Actually, it's pretty easy to do. Let me help you: Right-wing commentators tend to have less brains that God gave a grasshopper and the sensitivities of a pack of hyenas.
See? No sweat.
There are plenty of right-wing commentators out there, so they can't touch me except to respond in kind about my lack of brains and sensitivity--which they are likely to do since they find it quite difficult to take it after giving plenty of it out. They combine the words bully and victim to concoct a hateful, repulsive daily sewage.
Some of them, the cleverest, are paid lots of money for this as long as they don't insult people too much so that their sponsors--who are the only ones who matter in all this--don't start losing sales through flash-boycotts.
But they skate on the very edge of the waterfall, so the Constitution remains a questionable bulwark of their awful craft. The late Don Imus crossed it a while back, referring to Rutgers women's basketball players as "nappy-headed ho's." He paid a huge price for it, his sponsors freaked out and he was forced to apologize.
The racial aspect of this is a sculpted, daily cheap-shot opportunity. Stereotypes won't die soon as long as these poison producers get airtime. Even mass murder can be supported. Alex Jones went on for a long time believing he had been constitutionally supported in his claims that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, that it didn't happen, that the parents were out there to support gun control only.
Jones lost, but the money that the Sandy Hook parents had to produce to get him to court and face tough questions tends to discourage others who are humiliated thusly. He never apologized.
Never mind the money. For them, the essence of defeat for them is an apology. Don't expect them often from this bunch. The right to say insulting things comes right along with the refusal to say sorry. It's a sign of weakness, you know. Compassion nearly always is to these piranha.
Apologies, if sincere, mean that a wrongdoing has been recognized; that the harm is clear; and that it won't happen again if the apologizer can possibly help it. I'm reminded of the smarmy kids in some of my classes who, when asked to stop bothering someone, quickly respond with 'sorry', as if I would turn away from him/her and go on--until about 30 seconds later, when it would start again. I devised a response that would eliminate any further discussion: Don't be sorry, just be quiet. Rather than saying what was really on my mind, I don't believe you, my wish was to take the phoniness out of the issue.
Let us consider, then, Rush Limbaugh, who was awarded the Presidential (I loathe capitalizing it in this horrible case) Medal of Freedom by 45 at the State of the Disunion Speech this past Tuesday. It was the celebration of a career of abuse, supported by millions with weak self-esteem and are thus eager to bring someone down with them. This is quite a country for being the beacon of freedom. You'd think people would feel good about themselves living here.
But it's essential to this weasel and his presidential trash-alike that enough people don't. And for heaven's sake, don't lift them up and get them to feel better about humanity at large. That would be a happy thing. That would be verboten.
Like 45, they have to be unhappy about something. They need a gripe to get people fired up. Rush Limbaugh will create them until he dies.
Which, apparently, won't be that long. He has Stage 4 lung cancer. I'm sure that whatever family he has will miss him. I doubt very much that the country will. He has done little more for it than set people against each other from the pretense of inventing excuses to spin semi-truths into clever rejoinders to get dependent pawns to believe that someone had something coming to them.
As a matter of fact, isn't that exactly what 45 is doing? Isn't that what brings the dependents to his rallies? If he began saying nice things, would they even bother to stay? And if Rush Limbaugh began praising the people he trashed, would they stay tuned to his station?
In no small part, we are what we reward. I remember falling asleep on a couch and then awakening at 2 or 3 in the morning with this guy telling insults to what seemed to be pre-picked listeners on pre-taped shows, who laughed at him albeit nervously, not sure whether they should, not sure who the jokes were on. That was in the early '90s, when nobody could see Limbaugh coming in their rearview mirrors.
I didn't think so, either. I never thought the country would accept such nonsense. Not only has a significant part of it accepted it, though, it runs to embrace it. Here are a few of his real beauties:
- "Citizen service is a repudiation of the principles upon which the country was based. We are all here for ourselves."
- The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them."
- "If you believe in God, then intellectually you cannot believe in global warming."
- "Women should not be allowed to be on juries where the accused is a stud."
- "Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society."
- [Holding up a picture of Chelsea Clinton, then age 13] "Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is also a White House dog?"
- "Have you ever noticed how the composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"
It may not be the ultimate mockery, but it's close. Maybe Alex Jones will be next.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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