More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
Whenever I've finished recording a Radio Free Delingpole podcast, I'm always struck by the billion and one clever things I wanted to say but never quite got round to articulating.
One of them concerned the latest Rush imbroglio, which Lance mentioned yesterday.
As a conservative, I do of course totally see where Rush was coming from. His base position is one almost all of us would agree with: the State - ie the taxpayer - has no more business paying for contraception than it does subsidizing college kids to drink cheap booze or buy cut-price marijuana. If kids want "fun", they should darn well work for it and pay for it.
And as a polemicist, I do have a sneaking admiration for the daisycutter bomb subtlety of El Rushbo's attack. Here in this Fluke woman was another incredibly annoying liberal agitator doing what liberal agitators always do which is to hijack social issues and use them as a way of increasing by stealth the power of Big Government. Clearly such irritants need squashing: squashing brutally.
As someone who wants Tea-Party-style conservatism in government, on the other hand.....
See, here's the problem - and it's something my wife (not to mention the various therapists I've seen over the years) is often saying to me: "What are you trying to achieve?"
Sure, if your war aim is simply to mouth off, vent your spleen, show the home team how incredibly right and funny you are, and make the enemy feel really unhappy then, yes, do what Rush did. (And what I do in arguments most of the time too....)
If, on the other hand, you actually want to achieve something useful for your cause than you simply have to think more strategically. In Conservative-land, Rush's response was funny and apt and hilariously but justifiably over-the-top. But for anyone who is not a conservative - which is at least half America, not to mention most of the rest of the world, it was pure poison.
It gave, not least, the impression that conservatives are so stuck up that they even think kids messing around with sex before marriage are at best sluts, at worst prostitutes. Now I know this isn't exactly what Rush meant, but it's how it sounded to liberal ears and how it's being spun in the broader media.
Trust me, it doesn't make conservatives look good. It makes us look like unelectable freaks.
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Comments:
Jan '11
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
This is such a worn argument.
Within any successful movement, there are some leaders whose job is to attack the other side and others who bring new people to the party. Often, these goals -- and the styles that are invariably derived from from them -- are at odds with each other: attackers sometimes turn off potential converts and persuaders sometimes lower the troops' morale. Both styles can be useful and have their place, just as both can be done to excess and can be used in the wrong context. It's a mistake, however, to act either as if the attackers have the sole claim to forcefulness and commitment or that the persuaders are the only ones with brains and class.
Nov '11
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
On social issues it would be interesting to hear your answer to this. Then a comparison with your argumentation style on Global Warming. I had decided to just not read your social issues articles anymore because they are so clearly agenda driven and not about the actual issue. Meaning it's more than the libertarian (and conservative), freedom to decide, but more about what prudes conservatives are and they should shut up because I'm embarrassed or something. This is the second time I've broken my decision (no more, I promise) but I really wanted to put in another idea for the name of your new book about Nasty Conservatives for Vaginal Probes: Is that a Watermelon in There? I think it's something the personhood crowd could get a discussion out of too.
Oct '10
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
While I can't say I share Mr. Delingpole's concern with Rush's choice of phraseology, I'm certainly open to alternative descriptions of "someone who wishes to force taxpayers, no matter their religious principles, to subsidize what she considers to be key to her sex life." Per The Big Questions, either "extortionist" or "contraceptive sponge" seem appropriate.
Aug '10
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
Re#23
Edited on March 8, 2012 at 4:45pmparasitic tyrant?
Aug '10
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
deleted
Edited on March 8, 2012 at 6:40pmDec '10
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
Aodhan: Leftists will not respect apologies. They will interpret them as vindication of their critique. Look! Rush is a foul-mouthed bigot, who apologizes when forced to!
They will, however, reluctantly fear and respect someone who bests them rhetorically, even if they hate and revile that someone. · 5 hours ago
Totally agree. As PG Wodehouse said:
“It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.”
Rush does best what he did with the news that Dennis Kuchinich got clobbered the other day. He pointed out the media regret that such a 'colorful,' 'principled,' 'man of strong conviction' was leaving, and contrasted it with the nonsense that was promulgated when Olympia Snowe announced her retirement. "Ohhh, nooooo . . . another 'moderate' throwing in the towel because of the right wing extremist nutjobs who won't cooperate with the left."
He's really good at pointing out contradictions and absurditites. And he's far more articulate than most of his opponents.
Jan '11
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
You are all - beginning with Rush - missing the point!
We should be discussing the HHS assault on religious freedom first, foremost, and continuously.
What some woman in Georgetown does or doesn't pay for birth control is not the issue: the issue is that this Obamacare mandate is a direct violation of the First Amendment.
As soon as we get distracted into talking about the cost of contraception, we've allowed the Left to frame the argument. Again.
Nov '11
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
Here's another way to deal with with Rush's comment that may not appeal to all but is less Chamberlainesque. This woman is writing to a different audience and I think she covered in the rest of the article why she overused the s-word. It will probably make 'offended' young women think again about who is really spouting poison.
http://pjmedia.com/blog/in-defense-of-slut-shaming/?singlepage=true
Jan '11
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
Margaret Ball: You are all - beginning with Rush - missing the point!
We should be discussing the HHS assault on religious freedom first, foremost, and continuously.
What some woman in Georgetown does or doesn't pay for birth control is not the issue: the issue is that this Obamacare mandate is a direct violation of the First Amendment.
As soon as we get distracted into talking about the cost of contraception, we've allowed the Left to frame the argument. Again.
::Applause::
May '11
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
As conservatives we need to realize we are dealing with professional victims. The left has mastered the passive agressive art of being offended and turning that victimology into derogatory terms like hate monger, misogynists, racists etc....... Young feminist women grow up wanting to be Anita Hill. Having the king misogynist conservative calling Fluke a derogotory name is her game winning grand slam home run in game 7 of the world series. All we do is indulge these people when we call them names.
Aug '10
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
Exactly.
And we're smart enough to deploy more subtle and creative mockery than schoolyard names, anyhow.
I think Rush was right to apologize. I think it was the classy thing to do after letting slip a less-than-clever epithet that was sure to push so many people's buttons in such an unhelpful way:
James Delingpole:
It gave, not least, the impression that conservatives are so stuck up that they even think kids messing around with sex before marriage are at best sluts, at worst prostitutes. Now I know this isn't exactly what Rush meant, but it's how it sounded to liberal ears and how it's being spun in the broader media.
Mar '11
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
James Delingpole:
Trust me, it doesn't make conservatives look good. It makes us look like unelectable freaks.
We don't look good to liberals, anyway, but I agree that Rush fell into the trap set by Ms Fluke and Mr Obama.
My English heritage makes me rather pessimistic about the US - at best it will go the way of the UK, at worst Greece.
Rush will be fine, because his listeners (including me) know what he meant and will not desert him. As he often points out, it's a mistake to try to convert liberals (your therapists have, it seems, made the same point to you, James).
Some have been, and will be, converted (such as David Horowitz) - but most will not be, irrespective of what we say.
To use an example that you intimately familiar with, James - try converting Sir Paul Nurse to give up his belief in "Science". It's better to ridicule 'em, as you and Rush do so well.
Edited on March 8, 2012 at 6:41pmDec '10
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
Margaret Ball: You are all - beginning with Rush - missing the point!
We should be discussing the HHS assault on religious freedom first, foremost, and continuously.
What some woman in Georgetown does or doesn't pay for birth control is not the issue: the issue is that this Obamacare mandate is a direct violation of the First Amendment.
As soon as we get distracted into talking about the cost of contraception, we've allowed the Left to frame the argument. Again. · 58 minutes ago
Margaret -- dittoes. Unfortunately, what Rush did was move the discussion -- and we are at the losing end. Again.
Edited on March 8, 2012 at 6:38pmApr '11
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
The problem with Rush is he has gotten sloppy. It may be a result of his success or his contentment in marriage but I have been noticing it for a couple years now. Rush has been successful for more than 2 decades and he has become the voice of conservatism because unlike the timid in the Republican Party he can articulate conservatism in a very effective way. Because of this the left has used every opportunity to destroy him. This is not about his use of offensive language, the left wallows in that kind of stuff. And Margaret Ball and Thelonius are right we should not allow the left to advance the discussion on their terms. This issue is about our fundamental liberties which is where Rush has returned to after his soiree into the gutter.
Aug '10
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
re#30
Thelonious, You're right.
I'm not convinced Limbaugh made a mistake, (for some people, he seems to have called attention to the connection between freedom and responsibility) but continuing to call names accomplishes nothing. It only distracts.
Edited on March 8, 2012 at 6:55pmAug '10
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
James Of England
James is right that premarital sex is not close to prostitution in modern mores (although as someone who both has sex worker friends and disapproves of premarital sex, I surely come a good deal closer than most here to thinking of them as similar).
Maybe off-topic, but the more I see of life, the more my attitude towards prostitutes and porn stars becomes, "Well, at least they're getting paid for it."
Premarital sex in the name of "love" has caused so much misery among my friends.
James Of England
Rush lost the war for the characterization of what he said, and was thus right to apologize and mitigate the harm as best he could.
Yes.
James Of England
I'm not convinced that he should have been more careful before saying it; Rush does a lot to win arguments by being creative and right. Becoming cautious would lose more than we gain.
I see what you mean. Still... "slut" is a pretty easy word to avoid saying, no pun intended.
The word is meaningless now, anyhow (virgins can get called "sluts" for refusing to submit to men's advances), so why bother using it?
Jun '11
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
So it's OK to use the s word that cannot be uttered out loud about Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin, but not about a liberal activist "college student?"
The speed with which LegalZoom et al. pulled their ads seems like this whole incident was a set up from the beginning.
One thing that Delingpole is correct about is that the Republicans are not serious about winning this election. It will be about as real as professional wrestling or a reality show. Romney is this year's version of the Washington Generals (A good loser like Bush Sr., Dole, and McCain).
Edited on March 8, 2012 at 7:17pmMay '10
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
Margaret at 27 and Liberty at 34 are correct. Rush has made his living making reasonable points in an entertaining, oftentimes "outrageous" (to the PC crowd) way.
In this case, he stepped over the line with the nature of the personal attack, got his facts wrong, and also leaned into the punch of the Axelrod/Obama "paint the Right as all social neanderthal nuts" strategy. He got cocky (again), and it costs all of us, just as Santorum does every time he free-forms an answer to a question and loses his message discipline.
His facts were wrong- I know someone very well who spent 9 years at Georgetown, and was prescribed hormone therapy, delivered- by prescription- in form of a popular BC pill- to treat a skin condition.
1) She was denied coverage by Georgetown,
2) Had to go to an off-campus doc, and
3) Pay for the stuff herself, as a grad student living on her own in Washington DC, at a cost for this one medical treatment of almost 10% of her fellowship (the medical plan was another 10%; she finally killed it all and bought a BCBS policy and saved money on balance).
(con't)
Aug '10
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
Margaret Ball:
As soon as we get distracted into talking about the cost of contraception, we've allowed the Left to frame the argument. Again.
I think I almost see where you're going with this, but not quite.
I have family and friends who I believe can't really understand how something like this can be an assault on religious liberties, I think because they're incapable of taking the idea of religious liberty seriously in the first place, at least where sex is concerned.
What's so wrong with pointing out to these people that the fact that cheap contraception is already so available makes it eminently feasible for nearly everyone to bear the costs of their own sexual activities themselves ("take ownership" of their own sex lives), and that for the few who may not be able to afford even that, there are services offering contraception for free, anyhow?
Some people may be more readily swayed by the argument that this mandate is useless than they would be by the argument that it impinges on religious liberty. Perhaps this is framing the argument in their terms. Perhaps it's just "meeting people where they're at".
May '10
Re: More Thoughts On Rush: Do We Want To Be Right Or Do We Want To Win The Argument?
Now, 1) Fluke is certainly an activist, 2) there is no reason that we should pay for Flukes BC pills, and 3) the principle of the government violating the 1st Amd here is dead wrong.
But Fluke's numbers were correct, and Rush was both wrong and a jerk in how he handled this.