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The one thing I have always tried to teach my children is to respect and obey the law. Even if a law is "wrong" and "immoral" you still have to respect and obey it. Working hard for years and years to try and change the law does not mean you don't respect the law. In fact, working within the law to change it is a very high form of respect.

I have always admired Rush as a great spokesman for conservative values. When it is clear to everyone that he has routinely violated the law for years, while never lifting a finger to help change the law, it makes it hard for me to hold him up as a role model.

He said today he is not a good role model. I agree.

I have fought long and hard to end the war on drugs and try to restore freedom to our country. My biggest foes have been men like Rush and Bill Bennet. Men who claim to have a high regard for the law while they trample it into the ground. While I argue for freedom, I am called a "druggie" , yet I do not use any drugs. My foes fight to keep drugs illegal while they buy them on the black market.

It is a strange world.

When it is clear to everyone that he has routinely violated the law for years, while never lifting a finger to help change the law, it makes it hard for me to hold him up as a role model.

Please don't take this personally, I'm only latching onto your comment as one of many today that have been blaming Rush in this way.

He obviously has an addiction, which is far beyond anyone's ability to control alone.

He needs help. And he's getting it, so let's hope this time he gets some relief.

I no longer consider those who are addicted to be the lawbreakers--they have illnesses and can't stop themselves. The lawbreakers are those who provide the drugs.

Rush's illness has made this clear to me.

I never actually thought about it much before, but if someone of his stature and abilities can't control himself, it's obvious no one who's an addict can. I don't blame Rush for his sickness, anymore than I would blame people who've suffered from cancer and other illnesses.

He's sick, and he needs to get better. I feel a great sorrow today for him.

While I argue for freedom, I am called a "druggie" , yet I do not use any drugs. My foes fight to keep drugs illegal while they buy them on the black market.

It never ceases to amaze me how so many people around here pay lip service to the concepts of freedom, liberty smaller government and self determination, yet they have absolutely no problem when the police (the "good guys"), wearing black ski masks serve a seach warrant by smashing in someone's front door and charge in with sub machineguns. If after the Founders signed the Declaration of Independence had been able to see what this country has become, they would have likely just thrown up their hands and sent an apology to the King of England for all the trouble.

I have no problem with most of your post. And hey, I'm against the WOD myself. But you went over the line on one point.

"My biggest foes have been men like Rush and Bill Bennet. Men who claim to have a high regard for the law while they trample it into the ground."

Read this sentence again. See if you don't find the tiniest thing wrong with your implication and blanket accusation here.

What law did Bennet break to deserve to be invoked in this sentence? He never talked about gambling. His own religion doesn't even call gambling a sin. To claim he "tramples the law into the ground" is obscenely unjust, especially when you think about how harsh a microscope he has been under for over a decade. He probably -is- a bloody saint compared to most of us, cause most of us couldn't stand 1/100th the scrutiny he lives under for his crime of acknowledging right and wrong.

Separate but related thought:

Hypocrisy is the only sin I know of that one can commit over and over and over while simultaneously slamming everyone else guilty of it into the ground... without ever being called a hypocrite.

All other sins are open to the charge of hypocrisy... except hypocrisy itself. That charge can never be made to stick.

The implications are enormous. It is the only moral authority that remains in our culture, and it's free of charge to everyone, no matter how disgusting a life they may lead.

Qwinn

The one thing I have always tried to teach my children is to respect and obey the law. Even if a law is "wrong" and "immoral" you still have to respect and obey it

I'm jumping in here, but this statement jumped out at me! That is the very argument used by the Nazis in Nuremberg as a defense. We were following the law, even though it was immoral. If a person knows a law is immoral, it is their duty to disobey (depending on the gravity and other circumstances.) And I am NOT a libertarian, and my views on the WOD are unusual, and they are my own! I take no drugs (unless you count black tea).