How Stupid Are Limbaugh Listeners? – OpEd
While driving on my usual errands run the other day I listened a little to Limbaugh’s radio show. As usual I was completely amazed at the incredible misinformation vomited by the champion of stupidity.
Limbaugh strongly condemned Obamacare because he was convinced that the government has no constitutional right to require citizens to purchase anything, certainly not health insurance. Interestingly, he did not condemn the conservative controlled Supreme Court for allowing this to happen. Apparently, superrich Limbaugh forgets that car owners are required to buy automobile insurance. And there are now jurisdictions where home owners are required to buy flood insurance. There are also places where people must pay for an ambulance if they do not have insurance coverage. And let us not forget that government mandates parents to send their children to schools, which requires various kinds of spending (as does even home schooling). To get from one place to another by car often requires paying a bridge or tunnel toll, as yet another example. When I travel by air my ticket includes several government mandated costs.
You might think that a genuine conservative would strongly support public policy that prevented people from shifting costs that they should be responsible for to the general public. Individual responsibility in other words is not some socialist belief as much as it is a true conservative one.
The other ludicrous point he kept making was that Obamacare was a devious plot to ruin private health insurance companies. Again and again he was misinforming his loyal listeners to the incorrect notion that by forcing people to use health exchanges the hidden goal was to put private health insurance companies out of business. Just one very big problem. Health exchanges offer insurance provided by private health insurers, not some government provider.
Indeed, a major reason why many people on the left and independents were and still are unhappy with Obamacare is that they wanted a government single payer system, essentially Medicare for everyone, rather than a system that maintains the grip of private health insurance companies on the health system, because so much money is siphoned out by the insurance companies.
The next day offered another example of Rush slush: He repeated endlessly that the government entities that created the websites for the new Obamacare health exchanges had “limitless” money for the task. Limitless? You really mean all the money they could possibly want? Give me a break. Shut the fruck up Rush.
I doubt that Limbaugh himself does not know the true facts. He is criminally guilty of using the public airwaves to promote and expand the stupidity of Americans. His lying has reached such high levels that I hope some entity would go to the courts and attempt to get him off the public airwaves, and force him to spread his dung propaganda on media that must be purchased. What Limbaugh is getting away with is akin to shouting fire ina public place when there is no fire. In other words, there are limits to constitutionally protected free speech. Constantly telling lies that are designed to screw up our political system should not be been as allowable free speech. And his sponsors should also take umbrage at his irresponsible pattern of behavior and stop supporting him.
How stupid are Limbaugh listeners? Very, if they get their information from him.
