Obviously not a Republican; I still have shame....

[osodecanela]

I have great difficulty even turning on Fox News. It’s never more than a minute or two before I want to hurl something right thru the TV screen. I know it’s important to actually be aware of the alleged news coverage those on the right are hearing, but the anger it provokes in me isn’t healthy either for my psyche or my blood pressure. Likewise, the right wing radio hosts like Michael Savage or the greasily bombastic Rush Limbaugh.

Can. Not. Listen. Calmly.

Limbaugh announced this morning he has advanced lung cancer. Under my breath, I murmured, “good”. A second later, a wave of shame for my response swept over me. I could feel my cheeks burning. I’m ashamed schadenfreude was my immediate response. No one should take pleasure in news of what’s often a terminal diagnosis.

Right?

Comments

[dr_tectonic]

Enh. In the abstract, suffering and death are bad, and no-one deserves either. But in the specific, it's a very good thing for someone who has contributed to much suffering and death to no longer be capable of inflicting more, and it is not shameful to be pleased at the news that such will soon be the case.

Would it be better for that to happen without suffering and death on the part of the perpetrator as well? Yes, of course. But that small added badness does not outweigh the imminent much larger reduction in badness.

[osodecanela]

My shame wasn’t that I want Limbaugh off of his hateful bully pulpit. It was that I could wish him ill, in which case, in that split second, I sank to his level. That’s no place I want to be.

[zipperbear]

The problem, of course, is that you and Rush Limbaugh consider each other evil, for different reasons. If Limbaugh believes that gay sex is immoral, for example, and that somehow your proud existence in a same-sex marriage is a corrupting influence, and holy books (which have been popular for millennia) seem to support his views, then you're unlikely to convince him or his followers that he's wrong.

Our split second of doubt, where we don't actually wish him ill, but only want his evil influence to end, is what convinces me that we are right and he is wrong. A properly moral society would not have a history of fire hoses and night sticks to suppress civil rights movements.

My biggest hope is that the fiscal conservatives will realize that economic and social terrorism (glass ceilings, gay bashing, driving-while-black, the war on drugs, etc.) can only drag down our economy and society. Free market competition seems to work better than totalitarian central planning, but only to the extent that we aren't overtaken by crime, corruption, and nepotism. Fair competition in a level playing field is no match for home invasion robberies, cyber-crime, and military juntas. The free market may also encourage nuisance lawsuits, sanctimonious excesses in the name of political correctness, and some of the nanny-state unintended consequences that enrage the conservatives and reactionaries. Capitalist democracy also seems poorly suited for handling issues like overpopulation and global warming, but perhaps outbreaks like measles and coronavirus will more effectively reduce the closed-minded population than HIV did.

The world is a complicated place, morally and politically and socially. We can only do our best, hoping that it's the right thing to do. With luck, the future will look back on us kindly, with sympathy for our ignorance and flaws.