Rush Limbaugh advocates violence (and gets away with it)

[richardmyers]

How Rush Limbaugh gets away with fomenting violence and hate against liberals; the poor; minorities

For more than a decade, Rush Limbaugh has manned the loudest megaphone the human race has ever known. His three hour talk radio program is heard on more than six hundred radio stations, five days a week. That is 15-18 hours a week of preaching to a "dittohead" audience numbering in the millions. Every profound, controversial, or profoundly controversial statement Rush makes is subsequently echoed by a plethora of right wing and news concentrator websites, all of which are followed by true believers who disseminate the new truth in letters to the editor, in comments after online articles, and in other ways throughout the right wing echo chamber. After attacking Sandra Fluke, Rush saw a need for a direct presence on Facebook and Twitter, but he quickly gave up these efforts. One might conclude that with such a fanatic following, indirect dissemination via dittohead works fine.

What's wrong with one person having such a Godzilla microphone? Nothing at all, so long as they avoid using it to disturb the public interest. But then, there's the rub. Fomenting violence is an astonishingly obvious way to damage the public interest. And while Rush may not be nearly so guilty in that regard as some others, having the only radio talk show carried on 600 stations makes what he does say a weighty issue.

There's significant reason to be concerned. A blogger activist who goes by the nick of Spocko has offered the alarming example of three Rwandan radio personalities who were convicted of genocide for inciting the murder of about 800,000 Rwandan citizens. Free speech is fine, but hate speech can have very serious consequences.

Now consider this: the three Rwandans had one radio station with two transmitters. Rush has more than six hundred radio stations.

Does Limbaugh foment violence? Yes, without question — but conditionally, and via dog whistle. Just last week Limbaugh asserted...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/07/1141320/-How-Rush-Limbaugh-gets-away-with-fomenting-violence-and-hate-against-liberals-the-poor-minorities

[geckosfeet]

1. The Rush person has a real bug up his oxycontin about liberals...

How Rush Limbaugh gets away with fomenting violence and hate against liberals; the poor; minorities

Lest anyone should conclude that Limbaugh equating liberals with terrorists might be an isolated example of Rush hyperbole, consider that Rush frequently employs the southern preacher's oratorical tradition to persuade followers of unerring truth — tell the congregation what you're about to tell them; then tell them; then tell them what you just told them. Rush rhetoric is repetitive in a way that meanings are rarely missed by his audience. And equating liberals with terrorists is pretty much an every day theme on the Rush Limbaugh Show.

Limbaugh presents this argument in two different ways — according to Rush, liberals and terrorists are alike:

Both liberals and terrorists have a lot in common. The one thing that they hate the most is freedom.

—Rush Limbaugh: Pearls of Wisdom, October 3, 2012

Rush also routinely claims that liberals consider conservatives to be worse than terrorists:...

Yeah rush, you hate liberals. We get it.

What astounds me is, this is the theme of his life. Yes it is his daily radio shtick, but he has been at this longer than many du'ers have been alive.

[graham4anything]

2. Rush the entertainer entertains the crazy people that follow his entertaining orders

and in the Iraq lead up
Sean Hannity and the others called Tom Daschle, majority leader the devil for obstructing the vote and all
It got passed, Tom and his wife could have died from the 'thrax he received in the mail.

the 1st amendment does not apply to yelling fire, making comments in an airplane or airport
or making death threats.

it's a very thin line, dontcha think? Bring back the fairness doctrine and equal time.