December 17, 2015

For Rush Limbaugh and his wingnut audience, there's no dishonor in slaughtering civilians and citizens of other countries. Hell, there might not be dishonor to him in killing American citizens, for that matter.

Because that's how wars used to be won, according to Rush. We should never try to transcend our ugly, dark human selves in favor of something better. We should simply kill whoever stands between us and our goals. What a guy.

Transcript via Media Matters. Commentary is mine.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: Well, look, I understand quite clearly your point. This really revolves around yet another attempt to distort the point Trump was trying to make. And this is -- it's quite common. The Trump voter is a reasonable person with a decent amount of common sense, I'm convinced of that or they wouldn't be as supportive as they are.

I'm glad to see the feud is laid to rest between Rush and Ted Cruz. But the reality gap? That's wider than ever.

So Trump comes out and says in the aftermath of San Bernardino, put everything in context here, knowing what we know, that the family of the San Bernardino two were involved, Trump is saying we've got to go after them too. His umbrella is, we got to keep America safe and, number two, we've got to win. George Patton was right, the American people love a winner. Trump talks about two things, winning and preserving.

What exactly is it we're preserving again? And why is it that these nuts keep going after the San Bernardino shooters while giving Dylann Roof a pass? (It's a rhetorical question. No need to answer it.

He's into safety, the defense of the country, protecting it, keeping it safe, and winning. And in that context, people know what he means when he says we need to go after these peoples' families and so forth. People know what that means. And here come the efforts to try to say that Trump is a wanton murderer who wants to open the doors of innocent family members and start gunning them down if they have any relationship to terrorism, and everybody knows that's not what Trump means when he says these things. And, in fact, many in the common sense view think that, if we're serious about fighting terrorism, we have to fight every avenue and every influence and everybody that's a part of a terrorist act. And, you're right, it is in our history -- the killing of citizens and civilians, that used to be how wars were won. That's how you did it.

So when Dylann Roof unloaded his guns on a church full of praying Black people, that's winning? Because guns?

Terrorism comes in a lot of flavors. Domestic terrorism is the one we see most often in this country. Even the San Bernardino shooters -- at least, one of them -- was a domestic terrorist. Born and raised right here in California. A United States citizen, which I realize is an inconvenient truth for Rushbo to handle, but nevertheless, is the truth.

So is Rush arguing that the "killing of citizens and civilians" is something so coded into our DNA that we should simply accept it when white guys do it and only react when brown people do? I think perhaps he is.

Either way, killing and maiming innocent civilians isn't something to puff up and be proud of. Instead, we should be reaching for better ways to resolve conflicts, ways that don't involve guns and death and mayhem.

For those who question why I even bother with this nasty piece of work, it's because he still has advertisers and he still has listeners who believe him. They're the Republican base, and they're going to nominate a nut to lead their party.

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