Thursday, July 03, 2003
(10:42 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Rush Limbaugh Hates America
During my long trip to Michigan, I listened to Rush Limbaugh on the radio; it's become a new tradition for me on long trips. While I was listening, I noticed that he employed the cliche argument that those who love America should not criticize "America" and that while he respects their right to do so, he thinks they should be more grateful to live in a country that allows them to criticize (and show their gratitude for this right by not exercising it).
Interestingly, however, he spent a great deal of time on his show criticizing our nation's public schools. I'd like to say to him, Rush, I understand your right to express whatever opinions you want to express, but damn it, the American public school system is the way we Americans have chosen to educate our children. We send our children to American public schools every day of the school year so that they can be educated as free Americans, and I personally don't appreciate your need to denigrate this great American system. Didn't you benefit from public schools, Rush? Don't you realize that public schools are the way that we maintain all our opportunities and freedoms for the next generation? If you hate America so much that you feel the need to criticize one of our biggest and most important institutions and try to tear it down at every turn, then you can get the hell out!
Strangely, that argument doesn't sound quite right, does it? That's because it makes no sense, just as it makes no sense to claim that a good American will not be critical of any other particular point of American policy (i.e., wars, police issues, tax systems, etc., etc.). Rush is more than willing to be deeply critical of virtually every institution in American life, such as public schools or entitlement programs, and he is more than willing to be dismissive of a huge number of the members of our governing elites whom he classes under the heading of "liberal." Weird thing, though: they're Americans, too! If you're allowed to attack the half of the population that generally votes Democrat; if you're allowed to attack the core institutions of our nation (i.e., public schools, judicial review, the New Deal); if you're allowed to claim that our society is rotten to the core due to the evil influence of "liberals", then where the hell is this "America" that you claim to be so supportive of? Oh, I know: it's his narrow political program. People who support "liberal" policies or who worry about what some "UN bureaucrat" thinks of US military actions are anti-American and only interested in their own political gain, while people who support his narrow political program are simply supporting "America" as such.
The thing is, I can't even piece together what he wants to happen. He claims to hate entitlement programs, but he apparently has to support Bush's new farce of a Medicare drug benefit. He claims to hate criticism of our nation, but he consistently acts as though our nation is heading straight for the trash heap. I think that ultimately, for him, supporting "America" means agreeing with Rush Limbaugh at every point -- even when he doesn't agree with himself.
I promise I'll stop picking on the conservative "easy targets" for a while, for the two people who are reading (including Robb). Incidentally, Rush's hijacking of the term "America" is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about below with the "empty signifier," for those who are curious about such matters.
