Why Bill Maher Is Wrong About Rush Limbaugh

[WilliamPitt]

Why Bill Maher Is Wrong About Rush Limbaugh
By Ilyse Hogue
The Nation

Bill Maher spent a significant portion of last Friday’s Real Time defending Rush Limbaugh. Well, not defending the man, whom he calls repulsive. And not defending Rush’s statements over the last few weeks, which he vehemently objected to on both political and rhetorical grounds. But Maher defended Rush’s right to say those things, invoking free speech and the ACLU, and in the process missed the point completely.

Maher proclaimed that efforts to pressure Rush Limbaugh’s sponsors amounted to an illegitimate attack on his freedom of speech, and that the advertiser campaign is an example of “the system being manipulated.”

Unsurprisingly, the right-wing press wasted no time in broadcasting triumphantly that even lefty pundits recognized that the real victim here was Rush.

Let’s get this clear: Rush is not a martyr for the cause of free speech. Nor have his First Amendment rights been violated in any way since the day he chose to call a Georgetown law student a “slut” for arguing that contraception should be covered by health insurance. For starters, violating Rush’s First Amendment rights would require state action. Rush has not been jailed for his views, nor has anyone even whispered a suggestion to that effect. There have been no calls for his radio transmitter to be jammed. No one is even demanding he be fined, which might be possible under the FCC’s arcane and arbitrary decency laws.

The rest: http://www.thenation.com/blog/166727/purchasing-power-why-bill-maher-wrong-about-rush

[seabeyond]

1. how ironic to yell someones freedom of speech while yelling others should not be allowed their

freedom of speech.

limbaugh got his right to say what he did. the nation and women have their right to call bullshit.

i hear so often this argument that only one side should have freedom of speech.

[Uncle Joe]

10. Precisely, and when the people speak with a voice so loud as to overcome the corporate media

megaphone and the advertizers have the good sense to listen, Maher refers to that as "manipulation of the system."

Maher makes the same mistake as too many others in writing off the power and authority of the peoples' "First Amendment" Rights while at the same time trumping those of the corporate media.

I do believe if the Internet weren't as strong as it is today, Beck and Limbaugh would still be doing their thing with only minor repercussions as the corporate media either ignored, downplayed or obfuscated those incidents.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. Maher more than anyone should recognize

that the forces being brought to bear against LimBloat are economic in nature. It's the invisible hand of the free market delivering a well-placed blow to his jowly countenance.

[TheWraith]

3. Once again, people fail to understand the concept of freedom of speech.

It's censoring your freedom of speech when the government says "you can't say that."

It's not censoring your freedom of speech when people, advertisers, and broadcasters say "we won't give you a megaphone."

[The Wielding Truth]

9. Yes.Political satire uses the truth to highlight injustice while propaganda distorts or flips the

truth to mislead the public to the ends of a political desire.Maher and Limbaugh are different, for sure.

[mmonk]

4. People aren't concerned about his free speech, but rather his defamation

of Fluke's character for having a different view than his.

[TlalocW]

5. I'm tired of people confusing what the 1st Amendment says

It's about the government not being able to abridge your right to free speech, right to assembly, etc. None of that is happening. We're perfectly within our rights to yell, "Shut up!," at someone else speaking. It's within our rights to tell other people what an idiot said in hopes that it will spur them into action not to support said idiot or serve as a warning they may not want to hang around him. And you know... since corporations are people too, that's all we're really doing - just letting some buds in on some knowledge that we think might help them.

TlalocW

[tularetom]

6. That's what I kept hollering at the TV when I heard what Maher had said

Nobody has messed with Limbaugh's first amendment rights. If the government shut him down or took some other action against him, then that would have been a violation of his first amendment rights. He has every right in the world to call this law student a slut. And his sponsors and stations want to dump him for doing so, they have very right in the world to do so.

So fuck him. Don't be fooled by the liberal media trying to make him a victim.

[zbdent]

7. Remind the right-wing "liberally-biased media" that they are associating with the guy

they were lambasting just a few days ago ... and tell them "you can tell a lot about a person by who they associate with" ...

[Vincardog]

8. I demand my 1'st amendment right to tell the sponsors what I think. Maher can call them too.

[Bandit]

11. Supreme Court ruled money equals speech..

If you choose not to spend your money with companies that sponsor Rush Limbaugh you are exercising your right of free speech every bit as much as Rush or any of those that are saying their rights are being trampled upon....

[Vincardog]

13. And the advertisers are free to speak with their money speech as well

[MicaelS]

12. Maher's still pissed he got kicked off ABC

For shooting HIS mouth off. He and Limbaugh both have same blind spot. They think they can say anything they want, anytime and place they want, and never suffer any consequences. And then they cry "censorship" if there are consequences.

[HisTomness]

18. This. This right here.

I like Bill Maher a lot, but sometimes he can be a hypocrite when it serves his interests, and this is one of those times. I didn't understand his defense until I realized that he and Limbaugh are in the same business and he sees Limbaugh's treatment as potentially threatening to his own livelihood.

I find it rich that people who make their money ranting politically find it particularly unfair that they might suffer financial consequences because things they say and do are unpopular with people. Can't have it both ways, fellas.

[tex-wyo-dem]

24. I'm with you...

I also like Maher a lot, and agree with him and find him funny as hell most of the time. I've cheered him on many an evening watching his program, but somtimes he says things that make me go wtf!?

Free speech is not the issue here. What is at issue is basic decency and the fact that RL and BM both work for others. Being in the public forum as they are, they are also playing with fire when they go over the line and risk losing support, whether it be by their sponsors, audience, bosses or the general public.

A good analogy I heard: if I went to my place of work, went into the breakroom and started verbally abusing my co-workers, it is certainly my right to do so and I won't be thrown in jail for exercising this right, but my employer would also have the right to fire my ass.

[WilliamPitt]

25. +1

[WilliamPitt]

25. +1

[tsuki]

27. To me, they confuse the

prohibition of government interference with speech to guarantees of celebrity, a national platform and a lavish lifestyle.

[Kalidurga]

14. Rush has the right to say whatever he wants....err sort of

He doesn't have the right to solicit a sex tape...He doesn't have the right to incite a riot...He doesn't have the right to say he has a bomb on an air plane...He doesn't have the right to defame, slander, and libel a private citizen...and he doesn't have the right to paid sponsors for his drivel.

[leftyohiolib]

15. maher is not a bright bulb

[wial]

16. generally agree but

it's quite incorrect to say no one is calling for government intervention. Some are, and the right is making hay of that. Jane Fonda for instance.

As for me, it sickens me the advertising industry gets to decide anything at all, but that's just because I love life and democracy. Meanwhile, I'm glad to see Rush discover that market forces do have a double edge, and that political will is a commodity with which to be reckoned.

[lame54]

17. Bill - Either help us flush this piece of shit or...

Get The Fuck out Of The Way

[DLevine]

21. Yes. What you said. n/t

[Mosby]

19. Bill's in good company - the president of UC doesn't understand the 1st amendment either

Univ. of California president defends Farrakhan right to speak on campus

(JTA) -- University of California President Mark Yudof defended Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's right to speak at the university's Berkeley campus.

Farrakhan's speech Saturday was billed as being about black empowerment, but was also peppered with anti-Semitic and hate speech, students told The Daily Californian student newspaper.

A petition circulated after the speech by Jewish student leaders, which opposed Farrakhan's speech and character, but not the Black Student Union's right to bring him to campus, garnered more than 350 signatures, the student newspaper reported.

"Louis Farrakhan is a provocative, divisive figure with a long history of racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic speech," Yudof said following the speech, which was part of the Afrikan Black Coalition Conference. "It was distressing in the extreme that a student organization invited him to speak on the UC Berkeley campus."

"But as I have said before we cannot, as a society or as a university community, be provoked by hurtful speech to retreat from the cherished value of free speech," Yudof said.

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/03/11/3092078/uc-president-defends-farrakhan-appearance-on-campus

What a fool.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

20. Bill Maher is a liberal libertarian. He's just sounding more like a libertarian here

when it comes to speech.

[hughee99]

22. This has nothing to do with the 1st ammendment, Limbaugh is still broadcasting.

This is about the free market that Limbaugh loves so much acting to tell sponsors what they want and don't want, not some government entity deciding who should and should not be heard. For years Rush has been telling his people that the free market will fix all problems if left alone. Although history shows that this is not how things work, ironically, this may actually be the case, for once.

[thucythucy]

23. One of the many ironies here

is that Rush was clearly trying to intimidate Ms. Fluke and others like her from speaking out publicly on the issue of health insurance coverage of contraception.

So it's free speech when a multi-millionaire with millions of mega-watts of transmitting power and the (now fading) support of corporate America attempts to silence individual citizens from speaking their minds? And it's a violation of free speech when those millions of citizens shout back?

Sorry Bill (and Rude Pundit)--but you stepped in it deep this time.

[barbtries]

28. i'm surprised that Maher would go there.

of course rush can say whatever he wants to say. NOBODY that i know of has said that he can't. should he continue to get paid the big bucks to say what he does say? hell no. i have the right to say THAT, don't i?