The talent on loan from God was apparently several thousand pain pills. If this is God-given talent, than Hunter S. Thompson is holier than St. Francis.
Yes, it seems that Rush H. Limbaugh III is in deep trouble with the law. His troubles involve an alleged addiction to prescription drugs. Now, were Mr. Limbaugh your average citizen, i.e. not the host of a radio show with 20 million listeners, we can guess what would happen to him. If he was lucky, he’d get off with probation and a hefty fine. If not, he could be facing a decent amount of years in jail.
Of course, it is quite doubtful that anything will happen to Cape Girardeau’s most famous son. He’ll likely finish the treatment he’s currently undergoing, probably cut a deal in the remote chance of a trial where he’ll have to do public service announcements, or pay a minor fine. Such is the fate of a drug warrior who, if the allegations are true, has committed a felony.
I’m not a drug warrior in the least, as those who have read these illuminated pages know. I detest the drug war as much as I despise the drugs. It turns otherwise honest citizens, ranging, it seems, from college students to multi-million dollar radio stars, into criminals. It causes ordinary men, those who run the drug war, to turn into tyrants, pursuing their unconstitutional cause beyond the limits of anything our forbearers revolted against. Therefore, I believe, absolutely, that what Mr. Limbaugh did should not be a criminal act.
Yes, he is a hypocrite, a loud pompous one, and should be shunned for being so. However, we should show him the mercy that he wouldn’t have shown us. Not because we’re better than Mr. Limbaugh, but for two reasons.
One, what he did is his own business. If he chose to destroy his health (and, it seems, that his overuse of one of the drugs most likely lead to his deafness) in order to alleviate his back pain, that should be up to him. The first and only business of the law is to protect people from each other and from the state. Mr. Limbaugh picked neither your or my pocket to feed his addiction, nor did he destroy state property or any other agents of the government. For that reason alone, he ought to be off the hook.
Secondly, restating the above, it is the right thing to do. Before we go on and point out the splinter in our brother’s eye, perhaps we should go about and remove the log in ours. Limbaugh never seemed to have this problem, as he was unstinting in his abuse of all and sundry enemies of what he considered to be the truth without ever seeming to give introspection a thought. It is this reason especially, that he must not go to jail, to expose the hypocrisy of so many in this foolish war.
Finally, I think it’s time I made a personal confession. I used to listen to Limbaugh in my younger, more inexperienced years. I enjoyed his vindictive, machine gun style diatribes and shared his visceral hatred of the Clintons and liberalism. As I’ve matured, somewhat, I’ve come to view him as, at best, a second rate pundit who mouths the collective loathing of a people who feel lost in modern society, and, at worse, a pathetic windbag whose highest aspiration is to be a clown for the millions he makes. At this moment, I feel sorry for those who still follow him, the pretend conservative who mouthed the idiocies they so desperately wanted to hear someone else say.
Don’t worry though. Limbaugh will be back. He’ll probably lack the force he used to have, now that his moral armor is as thoroughly pierced as Bill “Slots” Bennett’s. His influence was waning anyway (it probably reached its peak in the early Clinton years, from ’93 to ’95) and this will most likely further his decline. Still, who knows? Maybe he and Al Franken can go on tour with each other, debating at various universities. Either that or his possible cellmate, Tommy Chong (for God’s sakes, how can they arrest Tommy Chong? He’s more of an American icon than Rush! What’s next, George W. Bush actually getting a Congressional declaration of war for the next imperial adventure?).
We live in interesting times, and, not too infrequently, fun ones. The mighty fall, the large get elected to governorships, and the drug war grinds slowly on. The one question is, if Limbaugh goes, who of us is truly safe from the lifestyle police?