# Rush, Rush, Rush... liberals are equivalent to murderers and rapists? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 20, 2009, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680 "2009-02-20T05:01:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/161 "2009-02-21T06:14:42Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > From Merriam-Webster Online: > Still, I knew that sooner or later someone would start splitting hairs over whether all murders are equally bad. Actually just correcting your assertion regarding motives, purely as an aside. > [@](#): > > Like him or not, Limbaugh did not say nor imply what was attributed to him in the OP. Like it or not, he sure as hell said exactly what it says, the implication of which is that liberals are as evil as rapists and murderers. As you know, I have explained precisely how he did it. In the post you ignored. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/162 "2009-02-21T06:22:19Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > And I don’t see anywhere that NOW intended to state that their position was that “honor” killings are anything other than bad. There doesn’t seem to be any indication of a value judgment, merely a disagreement about the fundamental nature of the act to clarify the nature of the act. Honor killings and domestic violence are both really horrible, and while they are both violent expressions of male control over women, they are not the same thing. > > Again, I didn’t see anything in the article to indicate that anyone with NOW was defending honor killings. > > Is there some other point you were making? I think that Limbaugh’s belief is that when one type of murder or rape is considered less egregious than the other, there is likely to be a coresponding softening of societal attitudes toward it resulting in both a greater number of the lesser offenses and punishments that are less severe. And personally, whether someone beheads his wife due to domestic violence or as an honor killing, I’d like to see him be offed identically either way. > [@Stoid](#): > > Like it or not, he sure as hell said exactly what it says, the implication of which is that liberals are as evil as rapists and murderers. The quote for all I know is correct; the implication you drew from it is not. > [@Stoid](#): > > As you know, I have explained precisely how he did it. In the post you ignored. Perhaps you could point me to where you explained that since I seem to have missed it. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/163 "2009-02-21T06:34:31Z")
No, no, **Stoid** , you don’t understand. Rush is a deeply nuanced thinker, with shades of meaning that escape casual examination like the plain meaning of his words. Hegel? Kant? Hah! Superficial, facile, get the whole meaning in one lazy pass over their words. But Rush? Rush’s meaning requires hermeneutics and deconstruction, his meaning must be teased out by minds equipped by training for this. Often, its directly contradictory to what a simple reading would reveal. Happily, we have men of sufficient intellectual caliber to hand, who can parse it out for us. Hell, if you can find profound depth in Ayn Rand, finding nuanced meaning in Rush is a lead pipe cinch! ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/164 "2009-02-21T06:41:20Z")
Not at all. Rush’s intent can be easily discerned by anyone not blinded by rabid Rush hate. You’ll notice that a great deal of verbiage has been spent in this thread explaining to Stoid (and you, for that matter) where she was wrong in her OP…and yet here she stands, defiant and unconvinced to the very end. There are none so blind as they who will not see. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/165 "2009-02-21T07:49:00Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Perhaps you could point me to where you explained that since I seem to have missed it. [Really?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10855975&postcount=133) ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/166 "2009-02-21T07:55:50Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > No, no, **Stoid** , you don’t understand. Rush is a deeply nuanced thinker, with shades of meaning that escape casual examination like the plain meaning of his words. Hegel? Kant? Hah! Superficial, facile, get the whole meaning in one lazy pass over their words. But Rush? Rush’s meaning requires hermeneutics and deconstruction, his meaning must be teased out by minds equipped by training for this. Often, its directly contradictory to what a simple reading would reveal. > > Happily, we have men of sufficient intellectual caliber to hand, who can parse it out for us. Hell, if you can find profound depth in Ayn Rand, finding nuanced meaning in Rush is a lead pipe cinch! Sorry. I forgot. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/167 "2009-02-21T11:09:28Z")
What cracks me up is that this is pretty much Rush’s modus operandi. And it makes me laugh at how much the left (me included sometimes) freaks out when he says stupid shit like this, and it makes me laugh even more to see the right invent innocent excuses for him. To me the conversation ought to go something like this; Leftie: Fucking Rush said something inflammatory again. Righty: What a pip, huh? ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/168 "2009-02-21T12:35:28Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Nope. I’ve clarified it at least three times already. If you’re bound and determined to believe that Limbaugh and I equate liberalism to rape and murder there isn’t anything more I could say to persuade you otherwise. I’m not bound and determined to believe anything of the sort. He was quite simply giving a laundry list of people whose motivations are unimportant to them. That is exactly what he said. No more. No less. That he picked murderers, rapists, etc and finished with a strawman argument of other things liberals believe is entirely purposeful. He peppered the paragraph with enough awful things to draw fire from the left so he can sit there and rail against the oversensitive knee jerk leftists who have once again taken his words out of context in an attempt to smear him. If it makes it to the news cycles, he gets to blast the liberal media for having nothing better to do than attack him for being a conservative. In the end he’ll drop down into that stentorian tone he uses when he really thinks he’s on a roll and tell his listeners that this is what liberals do. They take words out of context in order to silence the opposition, silence the last conservative voice in this country, silence your voice. Wrap it up with an ad about lifelock and cue station identification. Seriously. How do you listen to Rush and not pick up on the pattern? [QUOTE=Scylla] One thing you need to consider is the people calling Rush a troll. Conservatives generally don’t like PC. We think it’s dumb, groupthink quasi-censorship. Some of us, including myself will go a little bit out of our way not to be PC, or to set off the PC detectors of the offerenderati. I don’t care for other people telling me what is appropriate or not appropriate to say. So, he pushes that button. He wins when others take the bait. I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. I certainly agree that he’s being nasty to liberals, but I think it’s stupid to think he’s equating them with murderers and rapists. YMMV. [/QUOTE] This has nothing to do with hating PC, though certainly Rush did have a field day after the Attorney Generals comments about race in America telling his listeners how brave he was standing up to the PC crowd by questioning the value of a black quarterback (E’s a ero 'at man is). This is simply Rush being Rush: making a statement obfuscated by enough chaff to anger those opposed to him and draw attention to his majestic self. I don’t think he’s a troll because he’s a “conservative”. I certainly don’t think he’s a troll because he’s “anti-pc,” and really who is pro-pc these days. I _know_ he’s a troll because he is one. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/169 "2009-02-21T12:52:09Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > There are none so blind as they who will not see. Please use this as your sig line? You can think it applies it to all your myriad critics here, of course, and we can get such a charge out of reading it coming from you. Win-Win!! ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/170 "2009-02-21T13:06:54Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > > [@Guinastasia](#): > > > > Actually, if anyone, Rush reminds me of december. Who, IIRC, was banned for the kind of shit Rush pulls. > > If he starts posting on the Straight Dope maybe he’ll be banned too. Of course he would be. But **Stoid** and others do exactly what Rush is accused of doing - false attributions, quoting out of context, equating your political opponents with criminals and murderers, etc. - and they are not banned. And nobody Pits them. Go figure. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![leander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@leander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leander)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/171 "2009-02-21T13:49:18Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Of course he would be. > > But **Stoid** and others do exactly what Rush is accused of doing - false attributions, quoting out of context, equating your political opponents with criminals and murderers, etc. - and they are not banned. And nobody Pits them. > > Go figure. > > Regards, > Shodan Poor, poor Shodan. It’s so hard for him, being our resident truth-teller and right wing nutjob martyr. And his whole house is painted yellow. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/172 "2009-02-21T13:50:26Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > Please use this as your sig line? You can think it applies it to all your myriad critics here, of course, and we can get such a charge out of reading it coming from you. Win-Win!! Also, speaking of highly ironic phrases used by both sides equally smugly, has Limbaugh ever marketed himself or his show with the title “Rush To Judgment”? Seems to me BOTH sides would like that–the left because it paints him as rabid and unfounded, and slightly off his nut, and the right, too, because they LIKE him being so totally judgmental, and enjoy the conclusions he reaches by his hasty ill-considered reasoning. ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/173 "2009-02-21T13:53:00Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Of course he would be. > > But **Stoid** and others do exactly what Rush is accused of doing - false attributions, quoting out of context, equating your political opponents with criminals and murderers, etc. - and they are not banned. And nobody Pits them. > > Go figure. > > Regards, > Shodan He’d be banned for trolling. Stop grasping for bias. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/174 "2009-02-21T14:00:46Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > ::shrug:: If liberals wanna think Rush is equating them with murderers, I guess they can think it. Looks like some of y’all are focusing on denotation; others are focusing on connotation and innuendo. Do you genuinely believe Rush was not using innuendo in his statement, that he wasn’t using a rhetorical device that gave his words a meaning eyond their most literal base meaning? Daniel ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/175 "2009-02-21T14:09:56Z")
I’m not touching you, Daniel. ---
**Author:** ![George\_Kaplin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@George\_Kaplin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/George_Kaplin)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/176 "2009-02-21T15:20:37Z")
> [@Starving Artis](#): > > Third, what Limbaugh is saying is not so much that the motives of rapists and murderers don’t deserve examination or attempts at insight so much as he’s saying that _ **they don’t bring anything to bear on the heinousness of the crime.** _ So what you’re telling me is that Limbaugh mentioned liberals alongside rapists and murderers to draw attention to one point of comparison: that their actions are so heinous that no motive can mitigate them. Again, don’t you think that’s a rather offensive, divisive, and misleading thing to say? ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/177 "2009-02-21T15:27:42Z")
> [@George\_Kaplin](#): > > \*\*Starving Artis \*\* I love this. I see Artis Gilmore. [I mean, he could use a little meat on his bones](http://www.remembertheaba.com/OnlyintheABAMaterial/BigHairMaterial/Gilmore/IsselDriveGilmoreClose.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/178 "2009-02-21T15:45:33Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Looks like some of y’all are focusing on denotation; others are focusing on connotation and innuendo. Do you genuinely believe Rush was not using innuendo in his statement, that he wasn’t using a rhetorical device that gave his words a meaning eyond their most literal base meaning? > > Daniel Do you genuinely believe that it is possible to determine connotation and innuendo objectively? Do you genuinely believe that the liberals here are not letting their general attitude toward Rush guide how they find innuendo and interpret the connotations? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/179 "2009-02-21T15:51:17Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Do you genuinely believe that it is possible to determine connotation and innuendo objectively? Who are you, Lacan? To the extent that we can ever determine objectively the ideas in someone’s heads as communicated by their speech, of course we can. If you’re some kind of French Deconstructionist, I’m not talking to you. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680/180 "2009-02-21T15:52:55Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Okay, let’s play. > > Is there a reason that Rush doesn’t care about the motive of these particular things, or does Rush just not ever care about motives for anything ever? First, I don’t think that is important to the discussion. It is only important that Rush was drawing an equivalence only about his attitude toward their motives and you conflated into a general equivalence. Second, I would imagine the reason that Rush doesn’t care about the motive of these particular things is that Rush believes the action itself is bad. Now, this doesn’t mean that Rush is saying that liberals are as bad as rapists and murderers, only that all three things are in the category of “things so bad that Rush doesn’t care about the motive of the actor.” Rush may put many other things in that category (such as drinking directly out of the milk jug, double-dipping in the salsa, etc.). Third, it is possible to draw the conclusion that Rush was using murderers and rapists to draw a parallel between them and liberals by innuendo and connotation. However, that is not necessarily so. Another interpretation is that Rush just thought of the two things that are easiest to think of that are always bad. “Murderers” was easy because he had apparenlty been thinking of the beheading incident, and “rapists” may have come to his mind because of the NOW angle on the beheading incident or something. The point is that it isn’t necessarily the case that Rush was intentionally trying to get the listener to equate liberals with murderers and rapists, and any suggestion to the contrary just shows your own biases in interpreting what he said. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rush-rush-rush-liberals-are-equivalent-to-murderers-and-rapists/486680.md?page=10)