On Wednesday I did some running around town, and, bored with the NFL ref talk on ESPN, I switched over to WOWO. It was the Rush Limbaugh show. I listened to about 15 minutes of his indignation schtick.
Rush said a few things which I knew were either factually wrong or misleading, and made other statements which cried out for factchecking. Which is easy to do; I occasionally factcheck things pundits say. Rush’s track record for untruthfulness is well established (see here, for instance).
What a miserable life Rush leads. For three hours a day, he criticizes people with sarcasm and indignation. That’s what he does. Three hours a day, for several decades now. He makes up stuff when it suits his agenda, with no interest in accurately educating or informing his rapt audience. He has no compunctions about slandering people, about tearing down reputations. His purpose in life is to convince millions of people to despise the same people he despises. And, sadly, he succeeds in spades.
I would not take pride in a career like that.
Rush wants to get people riled up, to feed their anger, and to lay the blame for everything bad in the world at the feet of Obama and all things Democrat.
In real life, I hate being around negative people. They pollute my mind, bring me down, put a dark cloud over my world. So why would I listen to Rush on the radio? (Or to Sean Hannity, or Ed Schultz, or Michael Savage…on and on.)
So I just turned the radio off and contented myself with silence.
That night, my Scripture reading included Ephesians 4, which told me:
“So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth, for we are all parts of the same body. And don’t sin by letting anger control you…for anger gives a foothold to the devil….Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them….Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander….”
It applies to what I say and write, and it applies to what I allow to enter my head.
[Here’s a previous post I wrote about Rush.]
