The conservative propagandists have fewer restraints about the truthfulness of what they can say. We were again made aware of the conservatives' liberal (oxymoron?) interpretation of the journalist's obligation to report only true facts while listening to a recent broadcast done by "America's anchor" Rush Limbaugh. He astounded us by casually asserting that because the Tucson shooter was involved in a traffic stop early on Saturday morning, the local sheriff knew what evidence was in a safe at the home of the perp's parents. Does he do piece work and get paid so much for each and every lie he tells?
If el Rushbo's audience can't figure out that such a statement is absurd because the law enforcement officers couldn't know information gathered after the crime when something happened before the shooting started. If logical contradictions don't' bother his legions of teabagging listeners, then the task facing those presenting an opposing point of view is tougher than the Sisyphus challenge. Name for me one teabagger who insists that: An argument is valid if and only if its corresponding conditional is a logical truth.
Doesn't Rush's salary compute out to something like three dollar a second, one hundred eighty dollars a minute (exceptionalism? Do you think that he is personally concerned by the pragmatic effects of lowering the minimum wage rate?), ten thou an hour, 32+ thou for a three hour day, 160+ thou a week, $8 mil a year and doesn't that add up to make the reports of a 5 year contract worth $45 mil? It's no wonder that he sounds so folksy and just like one of the boys in the local pub. Not! Think he has a personal interest in lower taxes for the rich?
Tossing casual references concerning inductive and deductive reasoning, syllogisms, and ad hominem arguments at a bunch of college educated liberals is one thing, but throwing them at teabaggers, who are certain that Rush is infallible, is an act of futility raised to the tenth power. That existentialist errand brings to mind the old joke about the expert mule skinner who always started his first training session by whacking the animal in the face with a piece of lumber saying: "First, ya gotta get their attention."
In "The Politics of Protest" (The Skolnick Report to the National Commission on the causes and prevention of violence) it states: "The most violent single force in American history outside of war has been a minority of militant whites, defending home, family, or country from forces considered alien or threatening." (Ballantine Books paperback 1969 contained in the summary on page xxiii) Do teabaggers give a tinker's damn about that?
Wouldn't el Rushbo dismiss the entire report with a snarky one liner?
If teabaggers are not going to be concerned with facts; why should a columnist, who isn't being paid scads of money, bother with finding factual material just to preach to the choir (as it were)?
Speaking of talk show hosts, lately our efforts to listen to the Mike Malloy radio show have been complicated by the fact that numerous times the station switches to Dons Basketball.
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