A human being’s sense of life during the premodern era of the Middle Ages was formed by the clergy of the Church. In other words, there was no sense of life, only an after life. The priests and prelates considered themselves the anointed ones to direct human existence on earth. Intellectual deterioration was essential to maintain this order; literacy was even considered beneath the secular nobility. According to historian Mark Bloch, they were the “oligarchy of priests and monks whose task it was to propitiate heaven.” It required the achievements of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason to unwind this mind-numbing human disaster.
Our postmodern era is experiencing the same kind of intellectual deterioration. According to Joel Kotkin of Chapman University, today’s secular clerisy of university professors, central bankers, government scientists, and media elites consider themselves to be the anointed oligarchy to direct all human activity. Since World War II, progressive world government dogma has dominated American media, especially from the likes of Walter Conkrite. There was little ideological competition, that is, until Poetic Justice Warrior Rush Limbaugh bombastically broadcast his AM radio talk show to national audiences in 1988.
The Body Politic Immune System
What Limbaugh achieved is nothing short of astounding. With his passion, talent, insight and sense of humor, he created a powerful new industry within the American media complex. Prior to Rush, AM radio was in trouble. It was the domain of local news, sports, weather and top 40 oldies music. In the 1970s the popular and progressive rock music industry had migrated to FM and its stereo broadcasting.
Since Rush, hundreds, if not thousands of local talk radio and syndicated broadcasts dominate the AM airwaves. He was the catalyst for dozens of successful broadcasting careers. But those merely represent the metastasis of his invasion into the body politic immune system. In other words, Limbaugh is the cancer that is attacking the beast, the beast that is erasing the greatest legacy of human flourishing in the history of the world, Western Civilization, and its inspiration, individualism.
In philosophy, individualism means our lives are our highest value; our rights are a moral principle. In economics, it means that we produce and freely trade value for value with others for mutual personal profit. In politics, it means justice and protection from the threat of government force. The domain of The Rush Limbaugh Show is almost entirely conservative Republican politics, to a fault. But he is also a staunch defender of free market economics and the founding principles of individualism at the root of American exceptionalism. He fights his rhetorical battles in the muck of politics because that’s where cultural trends manifest themselves, the swamp where the beast used to dominate, and where the mass audience is, the collectivists’ dreaded bourgeoisie.
Limbaugh understands that our wannabe progressive masters do not have the intellectual wherewithal to defend their ideas on their merits, so they resort to personal attacks. They can’t debate him on abstract philosophical or economic concepts, so he uses their absurdity to parody their hidden and dishonest political agenda. His critics, even those who admire his success, say that Rush is divisive. Well, duh, the alternative is submission. Poetic Justice Warriors do not submit. He just happens to have the loudest megaphone and the sharpest wit to exploit it.
The Drive-Bys
Prior to World War II, professional journalists typically came from modest backgrounds, accepted arduous entry level work to learn their craft, practiced high professional standards for accuracy and objectivity, and cherished their integrity. Poetic Justice Warriors Garet Garret and Henry Hazlitt are fine examples. Conversely, today’s journalists have little appreciation for America’s founding principles, have been indoctrinated by public education to believe that success is derived from identity groups, and are graduates of the elite universities that are debasing American history. Instead of integrity, they cherish their membership in this anointed progressive oligarchy.
According to New York Magazine, the New York Times, for example, has no interest in disciplined fact-finding, corroborating stories, or objective presentation, just activism. In his most brilliant and lasting contribution to linguistics, Limbaugh refers to today’s major media as the Drive-Bys. He explains the origins as,
The true definition of the Drive-By Media is they arrive on the scene of major breaking news and they stir up emotions to a frenzied fever pitch. They spread lies, and then, after a few hours or a few days when the real facts emerge, they’re gone.
More broadly, “it is the sensational, scandal-seeking, agenda driven coverage that is typical of the national press corps in America.” The mission is to smear their political opponents with rumor, innuendo, and slander. The idea is to ruin someone’s public reputation because they know, once a reputation has been tarnished, it is very difficult to repair. The tactic is to instill fear in potential newcomers to the political arena from the freedom movement and force their vocal critics out of office. The strategy is to eliminate all opposition to the secular clerisy’s political and economic power.
The Freedom Movement
In medieval times, the clergy and nobility enriched themselves on the backs of the Third Estate – the peasant class who had no way to defend themselves. Today’s oligarchy of secular priests operate largely outside the market economy. Like their medieval mentors, they enrich themselves on the backs of today’s Third Estate – the producers in the private sector. In 2010, the bourgeoisie fought back. A grassroots movement, mostly consisting of people who were not politically active, became fed-up with ever growing government power and debt, and the final straw was the abusive Affordable Care Act.
Local Tea Party groups organized themselves all over the country, formed a loose nationwide network, and found a champion with a massive audience and political influence in Rush Limbaugh. The result was a landslide victory of about 1000 Congressional, Governorships, and state legislature seats to oppose government overreach. President Obama called it a shellacking. Unfortunately, nothing much changed, the swamp absorbed them, and Joel Kotkin now warns:
With lower levels of cultural literacy and reduced interest in history, the new generation could reprise the intellectual deterioration of the Middle Ages. If one does not even know about the complex legacy underpinning democracy, one is not likely to understand when it is in peril. If we are to save our uniquely open civilization, we must counter the clerisy’s efforts to discredit our past and demolish our future.
As Poetic Justice would have it, today’s defenders of the market economy are well informed about liberty, eloquent in their defense of it, and operate in an efficient network environment known as the blogosphere, online video programming, and independent publishing.
When Limbaugh began, the dominant broadcast media landscape was NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN. Their lucrative hierarchy has since been dismantled thanks to the pioneering ambition of Limbaugh and his producers. His positions are highly partisan because his sites are set on ruining the most vile institution in American history. Poetic Justice Warrior Rush Limbaugh uses the power of ideas, with half his brain tied behind his back, to defend the preface of the Declaration of Independence from the barbarians inside the gates.
