Some people hate their enemies so badly that fairness doesn’t matter

By David McElroy · March 5, 2012

Rush Limbaugh has been a polarizing figure for years. To many of his adoring “dittoheads,” he was a political god. To many Democrats, he was the devil incarnate. His bizarre comments last week that law student Sandra Fluke is a “slut,” though, surprised many of those who love him.

Limbaugh’s apology Saturday was meaningless and perfunctory. With many of his allies condemning his remarks and sponsors pulling out of his show, he didn’t have any real choice. I don’t think anyone believes there’s any sincerity to the statement, any more than there typically is when a parent forces a child to make an apology to an adult for being disrespectful.

It would be easy to pile on Limbaugh here, because he’s an easy target and he deserves the derision. (I’ve made it clear in the past that I have no use for him.) But Limbaugh is just a symptom of an ugliness that stains our political culture. It’s not something unique to Republicans or conservatives. I’ve seen it from progressive leftists and libertarians, too.

It’s a hate for their enemies that’s so strong that truth and fairness don’t even matter to them any more. What’s worse, they don’t even recognize their double standard. I can’t imagine how corrosive that hatred must be for them on the inside.

When stories such as this one with Limbaugh happen, those on the progressive left are smug and self-righteous. Many of them are no more fair and honest in their reactions than Limbaugh is. Consider this graphic offered by the progressive left website Daily Kos for readers to use online in attacking Republicans over this issue. The headline on the graphic says, “Republicans hate women.” It’s a lie, of course, but the truth doesn’t matter when you hate your opponent. Honest disagreement becomes “hate.”

The truth is that the social conservatives and progressive leftists have very different opinions about several issues related to the whole matter of Fluke, contraception and health insurance. If you start with the assumptions about reality that each side makes, it’s understandable why they’d come to the conclusions they come to. So even if you disagree with the other side, you should be able to civily disagree.

It seems convenient for the progressive left to forget for the moment that one of its heroes was attacking a Republican woman last year in very crude terms. Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a “cunt” in an interview last spring. And on his own show, Maher called Palin a “dumb twat.” (Just in case you’re not sure, look up both words. You’ll find that they’re both vulgar terms for female genitals.) Maher’s language betrays a juvenile inability to make points without resorting to personal insults and an intellectual shortcoming in not being able to make his points without obscene language.

So did the people at Daily Kos make up graphics lasy year saying, “Democrats hate women”? Of course not, because attacking their own party didn’t fit with their political agenda. So Maher’s comments were mostly ignored. They certainly didn’t get sponsors pulling their ads from his television show, as has been the case with sponsors pulling out of Limbaugh’s show.

I wish more fair-minded folks would get upset with people such as Limbaugh and Maher, but not for political reasons. I wish more people would start holding others accountable — even people they agree with politically — just on grounds of honesty and fairness. I disagree with Fluke’s position when it comes to her demand that employers be required to pay for contraception, but I’m not going to call her a slut. (I have no reason to think it applies, and it would be ridiculous to say in this context even if I had reason to believe it.) I disagree with Palin about most things and I think she’s one of the less-bright politicians on the American stage today, but I see no reason to call her obscene names.

This sort of dishonesty and unfairness is done by individuals, not by entire political groups. It’s not a conservative thing or a liberal thing or any such thing. It’s about petty-minded and hateful individuals, whichever group they’re a part of. You turn it into a group thing when you have different standards about how you react to it depending on who says it.

As long as you justify the dishonest and unfair things that your own allies say — by saying, “They do it too!” — nothing is going to get better. Public discourse is just going to get worse.

Limbaugh was very wrong to say what he said last week, but he’s just one symptom of a very deep sickness in our political culture.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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