Posted on 02/18/2021 6:37:27 AM PST by Blogger
Freedom of speech died yesterday. Its first name was Rush. And that’s not an overstatement. If you’re under 40, whether you liked or disliked Rush Limbaugh, he was part of the infrastructure of the Earth you have always known. He was an institution. Elemental in a way few mortals ever become in this life. If you disagreed with him, he was a thorn in your side for decades. If you were a fan, there’s as big a hole in your life right now as there is in your day.
But if you’re over 40, you have a much greater appreciation for what the United States lost yesterday morning with his passing. Not only was he larger than life, his importance was much larger than himself. For those too young to remember, it will simply not be possible to comprehend the monumental coup Rush Limbaugh pulled off. In the pre-Limbaugh world, there were three television networks: ABC, CBS and NBC. PBS (State television) was added and eventually C-Span and CNN came after. All of these media were merely miniscule deviations of a common message. They were identical and interchangeable. They gave an illusion of competition while broadcasting just one viewpoint: the State’s. The one-voice press worked within a narrow lane. Based in New York City, they projected a New York worldview. Globalist in orientation, Statist in theology, Progressive in character. They ordained a given broadcast etiquette not to be violated. The rules of decorum dictated that Conservatives were invariably uneducated, superstitious, and uninformed. The Progressive panelist was invariably deferred to as the urbane sophisticate. More than a bias in any given feature or story, the bias was intrinsic, baked in before any story was even told. Conservative guests were scheduled only as foils.
There was only one right and proper viewpoint: the Left. Until Rush Limbaugh.
When I first heard his voice in 1992, I literally remember thinking---in the United States of America, “Can he SAY that?” That was my initial reaction. So pervasive was the smothering Leftist media that I feared for the life and safety of any man actually speaking his own mind on public airwaves. They would have to shut him down. Such views could not be spoken above a whisper. One just didn’t say such things publicly. To be heard on the airwaves, one had to sell one’s soul and check his heartfelt thoughts at the door. TV and radio were for parrots of the party line. The point of them was to sound like everybody else.
And if you’re under 40, you can’t imagine that, can you? Well, you have Rush Limbaugh himself alone to thank for a country in which ANYTHING may now be said publicly. He shattered the assumed censorship of the old world. And he did it with humor and wit and by the force of his personality.
Make no mistake, he got away with it because he was genuinely funny. But that was merely the delivery mechanism for the keen insight and instinct he transmitted brilliantly for three decades. He had been around so long that you had the rare luxury of taking him for granted. You could grow so used to his familiar voice and regular delivery of important truths that you forgot he was also authentically brilliant. He had so much fun and made it sound so simple that his genuine intelligence and genius slipped from conscious view. Conservatism before Limbaugh had been cerebral, stuffy and stilted. It was rooted in intellect and theory. Limbaugh had all of that, but turned it into play. He was truly a happy warrior. Where other conservatives played chess with the ivory tower Left, exchanging parries and thrusts with the presumption of equal/opposite intellectual standing from a loyal opposition, Rush mocked them. He ridiculed them. He derided and lampooned them. He laughed at them, not with them. And that. Changed. Everything. On the surface, that seems low-brow and easy. The class clown. Jeering at those he could not engage on a higher plane. But this is false. He certainly could hold his own intellectually and could best his philosophical opponents. Anyone can. But it was actually important to laugh at the ridiculous. It sounds simple now, but it wasn’t apparent then. Stupid ideas deserve to be called out as the stupid ideas they are.
In those days, one did not question the premises of the Left. It was “understood” that before any “debate”, the Left got to set the table. It was “understood” that only what the Left deemed important would even be discussed. The default setting for any discussion in public was Advantage Left from the get go and it was “understood” that the Left was right and the only point of the “debate” in the first place was to prove it to redneck yokels in flyover country.
Rush---and Rush alone---rejected the foundational premise that America had been conquered by the Left and that they somehow were entitled to unearned fawning respect. From the moment he appeared on the scene, they would now have to defend their premises. For the first time. No cows were sacred. For the first time. No matter what cherished “fact” the Left assumed, the new paradigm was, “Oh, yeah? Prove it!” For the first time, the Right went on offense. Respect for ideas would hereafter have to be earned. Put up or shut up. And they couldn’t. They never could. They had simply never been challenged to do so in front of the cheap seats before. Rush was a gentleman street fighter who dragged them off their pedestals and made them fight. He did it with piercing wit and intellect they could never match. In the early days, he opened American eyes to the intellectual paucity of the Left, and that emperor would never be imagined to be clad again. The art of ridicule is an undervalued and overlooked weapon. The Left had always been preposterous and ridiculous, but never subjected to saying so. Rush said so. Showed it. Looped it. In his television show, he literally looked on from a small on-screen inset and laughed at their “news”. He pierced their sanctimonious illusion of smug self-righteousness. As no one ever had. And as few ever will.
Rush was one of those rare men who was a philosophical optometrist. He fitted you with a lens for viewing all of reality. Many teachers tell you what to know and what to think. Rush taught you how to think. One of three men in my life to do that. I will be forever grateful. He was an American original, with talent on loan from God. Yesterday, God called in the loan. We were incredibly graced to enjoy it for so long. We are unspeakably sad to say farewell to the man who has lived in the American home and heart with us for over thirty years. There is truly no successor or heir apparent. No one will ever replace Rush Limbaugh because no one can. It is a sad day for us because it is a sad day for America.
But Rush was ever a man of good cheer. He would not have us downcast overlong. He was an ebullient optimist and would urge us today to take heart and courage. After all, because of one man speaking---a single man’s voice---today we have a host of Conservative institutions in place that could not have existed in the old world. He embodied the power of the individual, he modeled the unparalleled opportunity of America, he demonstrated the power of free speech and he reaffirmed the value of one man. Words still hold power.
Because of Rush Limbaugh, there is and has been Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Michael Savage, G. Gordon Liddy, Joe Pags, Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, FOX News, Newsmax, OAN, and innumerable “Rush babies”. Without Rush, the presidency of Donald Trump and its manyfold blessings would never have been possible. One American speaking his mind without fear literally changed the world. Even in these complicated times. And we need that lesson. Now more than ever.
It is sad to be parted from so good a friend and so great an American. He was a lion in his chosen profession and leaves a gaping, jagged hole in his considerable wake. “Thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty.” – I. Samuel 20:18 It is easy to ask why Rush was taken from us because it is not what we would choose. But he emerged when we needed him most. In the depths of the frightening Clinton years, a lone voice appeared from nowhere and carried us through the Socialist occupation of that era and the Obama regime. We were given him when we needed him. He was taken because, hard as it is to accept, we no longer need him.
His work is done. It is time to turn off the radio and be Rush Limbaugh. Ourselves. To engage the Left without fear. To defeat them one on one, in the home, in the shop, and on the street. We all have the toolbox we need. Do as he did. Speak from the heart, to the heart.
Every idol must fall. If Americans thought they couldn’t fight and win without Donald Trump or without Rush Limbaugh, think again. We get what we need. When we no longer need them, we no longer get them. If you think, “We haven’t got anybody left but God”, you finally get it. We need no one else.
Of course, we will all mourn the loss of “the big voice on the Right”. May we all emulate the courage of Rush Limbaugh in declaring the truth with wit and without fear and audaciously insisting that it always was and still is “the way things ought to be.” Free speech is dead. Long live free speech.
Millions of us walk in the shadow of the Lord, but Rush’s voice was literally amplified across the masses. The left is encircling us by shutting us out of media markets and platforms. They’re forcing us to resort to analog forms of communication, which I don’t eschew, but they do make it difficult to coordinate anything.
Our way of life is eroding, and the voices who champion it are becoming whispers. The next generation is out there, but will they stand up like Rush did all those years ago?
The world today seems just as empty as it was yesterday.
Had dreams about him all last night. To me, this loss is as profound as losing a close uncle.
Reading Dr. Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics. Another great book for young folks or liberals.
Excellent. Courage, people!
A wonderful tribute to a great man. I’m grieving the loss, and not looking forward to a big, three hour hole in my day.
Right on! Right on! Right on! What a great tribute to our friend and patriot Rush. He influenced millions of us, helped us to think on our own. He will be so greatly missed, those words just don’t do justice. But I look forward to seeing him in heaven someday and I can finally meet the man face to face that I never got to meet here on earth.
You're absolutely right - tell your friend that it is BEAUTIFULLY written and thanks much for it!
Truer words were never written. We have lost a man of deep understanding and insight.
This is so well written and encompasses my feelings exactly! Today is harder than yesterday as I sit and reflect on the influence Rush had in my life. “Talent, on loan from God” is so very true. To my Father in Heaven, Thank you for this treasure you shared with us.
Wow...that was wonderful. Thanks for posting.
Emptiness is the word. This is going to take a while to come to grips with. Parting is such empty sorrow - nothing sweet about it.
Thank you very much for posting it. And give your friend my compliments on his excellently written tribute. It is also a fine eulogy. I’ve copied and saved it.
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