Glen (Dreck) Beck and Rush (Limbo) Limbaugh are in a contest to see who can sink the lowest. By calling President Obama a fascist and inciting the lunatic fringe on behalf of the insurance and drug companies both men have sunk so low that they are in danger of setting their hair on fire. In fact, one of the judges of this contest seriously suggested that singed head hair might be a good way to determine the winner. Another judge objected, saying this would give the dreck man too much of an advantage over the follicley challenged limbo man.
The other judges promptly chastised the objecting judge for trying to be politically correct. “He’s not follicley challenged,” they said. “Saying that is like saying both men are intellectually and ethically challenged, and we all know they failed to meet those challenges a long time ago.”
“You should have said Limbaugh is nearly bald.”
The judge who had made the follicley challenged comment laughed. “As in bald faced liar. I like it!”
“Now, hold on there,” the other judge said. “Your comment makes me think you’ve already decided in favor of Limbaugh.”
“Well, Beck did say we should stop calling Obama Hitler.”
“But this contest is far from over. We can’t pick a winner yet. Beck is so good at ignoring anything resembling a fact that Fox will eventually have to do what Limbaugh’s employer did; they’ll have to say Beck is an entertainer whose job is to amuse rather than inform or report.”
“You make a good point. Beck’s an upstart, but he tells terrific lies about euthanasia and such.”
And so the contest continues. Other conservatives, inspired by our two media dregs, are trying mightily to please the insurance and drug companies by adding to the deception, and they are encouraging the gullible to react to the outrageous rumors. Saying that the Democrats are acting like Nazis is a classic example of what psychologists call projection. By inciting the gullible to disrupt town hall meetings the fear mongers are using the same tactics Hitler’s Brown Shirts used to disrupt meetings and stifle debate. Sarah Palin’s lies about the health care bill containing a euthanasia proposal and “Obama’s death panel” also indicate that she is following Hitler’s advice about telling the big lie rather than a small one. In fact, most of the opponents to health care reform are telling the big lies. Mien Kampf, anyone?
I am afraid that reasonable people, who have this strange, un-Republican notion that facts matter, are going to have to hold their noses and suppress their gag reflexes until this contest is over. Unfortunately, such contests will outlast the health care issue and most of us. Even when Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh finally leave the stage there will be others who will seek fame and fortune by exploiting the irrational fears and anger of people who are sitting on the thin edge between sanity and insanity. Those fear mongers may not be Nazis, but they are certainly despicable.
I realize that what I have just written is political, derisive, and scornful. I do not apologize for that. My fictionalized account of this, how low can you go, contest is far too real. The American people are both the judges and the victims. People who make their case responsibly and civilly deserve our respect and attention regardless of whether we agree with them. People who use sleazy tactics, tell outrageous lies, and depend on recklessly dangerous vitriol to create fear and anger deserve our scorn and contempt. The first amendment protects their right to free speech, but it also protects our right to mock them for misusing it. We should laugh at those irresponsible people, and we should do whatever is legally and ethically permissible to make them irrelevant. Fearful, angry reactions are dangerous and frequently disastrous. We must seek and demand objective reporting on what the proposed legislation actually contains. Our whole political system is based on the precept that an informed electorate will make rational choices. We must be informed rather than misinformed.
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