Rush Limbaugh on hope


Michael Stuart Kelly

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Rush Limbaugh on hope

This thing tickled me because it made me think of Bob Kolker (our distinguished Ba'al). :)

Here ya' go:

Hope really is an effort to prove to yourself that you're wrong when you know that you're right.

This is from a recent video I saw on Real Clear Politics: Rush Limbaugh To Obama: We're Just Not That Into You

When I heard him say the quote I extracted, I started laughing so hard I knew I had to post it here.

Michael

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  • 3 years later...

Damn, I do not know how I missed this one...

At any rate, they are still trying and failing.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/04/13/rush-limbaugh-dropped-by-longtime-indianapolis/203265

Indianapolis' WIBC has broadcast Rush Limbaugh's show for 22 years. Despite this long history, parent company Emmis Communications announced April 13 that they are dropping Limbaugh's show from WIBC's lineup.

Charlie Morgan, an executive for Emmis, indicated that the decision to drop Limbaugh was about the "long-term direction of the station," but also acknowledged that there was a "business element to the decision." Underscoring the business considerations, Morgan explained to the Indianapolis Business Journal that the absence of Limbaugh could actually help WIBC's advertiser prospects:

Interesting that this comes in the state of Indiana at this particular point in time.

Any wagers on the "Purple Mafia" possibly being a part of this?

We do have Vice President and the dumbest of that class, Joseph Biden, meeting, in secret, with the mega donators in the folks behind the response to Indiana's passage of the "Religious Freedom" Bill.

A...

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  • 4 years later...

Rush Limbaugh has announced he is beginning treatment for 'advanced' lung cancer.  My siblings and I nursed our mother at home as she died from lung cancer.  I hope Rush beats this.

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  • 1 year later...

So long Rush. He died today at age 70. Fox of all people had a clip of Rush saying something like, if smoking kills you perhaps they should make a horror picture about it.  I am for what Yul Brenner said before he died of smoking induced cancer, "Just don't smoke."

I watched my Dad who was a life long smoker die from lung problems but not cancer. Near the end he said, "Every breath hurts!"  

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I looked for a letter that mentioned Rush Limbaugh and found this which is also interesting for other reasons. The paragraphs are closed up for brevity. And a big thanks to Roger B.! Peter

 From: AchillesRB To: objectivism Subject: OWL: Dean Brooks on "Is Objectivism in Trouble?" (Part 1) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 22:13:32 EDT. Hi, again, everyone -- Roger Bissell here. I am again sharing some comments by my friend, Dean Brooks, long-time poster to AOL Objectivism discussion lists. He can be reached off-list at dean@ontics.com, though he also has been following the discussion in the archives....REB

==================================================

[Dean Brooks writes] The following is an essay I wrote several years ago.  It estimates the relative popularity of Ayn Rand and about a hundred other intellectual figures on America Online, using member profiles. At that time I was heavily involved in a philosophy discussion group on AOL.  We tried unsuccessfully to get AOL to create a separate Objectivism forum:  this, plus a 300-name petition, were our chief arguments.  It seems very relevant to the "Is Objectivism in trouble?" discussion.

 Before I give you the essay, I want to add one other point, not directly related, on the subject of intellectual and philosophical integration.  I've been involved in Objectivism for more than 20 years and I've heard, read, and written a great deal on the importance of philosophical integration. However, it is quite easy to overstate the importance of it by taking it in the wrong context.  When debating with, say, analytic philosophers, it is important because the opposing viewpoint denies it is even necessary.  When explaining basic principles to eager young minds, it is important because integration is so fundamental to catching one's own errors.  But in many fields, e.g. biology, geology, mathematics, engineering, economics, and so on, the actual body of knowledge that we jointly possess is in a perpetual state of dis-integration -- and yet we make progress. Integration is a state of mind -- and I should not have to underline that this means an *individual* state of mind.  It is critical to clear thinking, it is critical to grasping the truth, but that does not mean that it is critical to every kind of cooperative or social activity.  In fact, the opposite is usually true. Whenever there is progress in a field, it comes at the price of disruption, dis-integration, and re-integration, what Joseph Schumpeter called (referring to capitalism) "creative destruction".

 It is not simply that the experts disagree; the experts are also chronically unaware (even the smartest ones) of the contradictory implications of what they are doing, until someone comes along and points them out; the experts are also waiting for additional work to be done so that honest differences can be resolved by the evidence.  I don't know of any field, now or at any time in history, that required uniform adherence to a detailed paradigm, a "creed" if you will, in order to make real progress.  Plenty of individual scientists adhere to such a paradigm as part of their work, and that is clear evidence of the importance of integration; but in social terms they are actually better off if no one paradigm dominates the scene.  In fact, by the time there is a really overwhelming consensus, it's because the issue has long since ceased to matter.  At the moment when victory became certain, the arguments against continental drift or in favor of phlogiston were still loudly going on; a generation later there was nothing but silence.  I suggest that when we are measuring the progress of Objectivism, it is an error to hold ordinary lay people, non-philosophers, to a standard of rigorous consensus that professional scientists would not aspire to or bother with.

If we break down the meaning of "intellectual movement" we find that while the differentia is intellect, the genus it belongs to is *movement*.  This article is some evidence of just that – the direction in which we are moving intellectually.

Cheers, Dean (article follows) Ayn Rand Winning Friends Online

How is Ayn Rand's intellectual influence holding up as Atlas Shrugged turns forty?  Extremely well, at least in the online world.  In a search of self-descriptive member profiles on America Online (AOL) conducted over several days in July 1997, the following names or terms were mentioned (in order of decreasing frequency):

Ayn Rand/Objectivism/John Galt/Atlas Shrugged 1,559 Nietzsche/Zarathustra 1,085 Plato 976 Aristotle 846 Ralph Waldo Emerson 794 Marx Brothers/Groucho/Harpo/Chico 765

Rush Limbaugh 684

Tolkien 677 libertarian 671 Thomas Jefferson 560 Martha Stewart 479 Albert Camus 470 Robert Heinlein 461 Abraham Lincoln 454 communist/communism 380 Emily Dickinson 333 Jean-Paul Sartre 318 militia 291 socialist/socialism 277 Montessori 247 Scientology/Scientologist/L. Ron Hubbard 227 Karl Marx/Marxist/Marxism 220 Cyberpunk 203 Leo Tolstoy 200 Malcolm X 172

Soren Kierkegaard 166 Richard Nixon 159 Ernest Hemingway 158

Ronald Reagan 157

H. L. Mencken 154 Narnia 148 Celestine Prophecy 142 George Orwell 135 existentialism 131

Rudyard Kipling 124 George Bush 117 Bertrand Russell 104

Carl Sagan 77

Pragmatism 73 Douglas Coupland 65 Prometheus 60 Jimmy Carter 56 P. J. O'Rourke 53 Thomas Aquinas 50 Subgenius 46 Noam Chomsky 42 M. Scott Peck 42 Peewee Herman 41 Franklin D. Roosevelt 41 Charles Darwin 41 Spinoza 41 Gloria Steinem 39 Timothy McVeigh 36 Camille Paglia 33 Michel Foucault 32 Herbert Spencer 32 Immanuel Kant 31 Billy Graham 29 Pat Buchanan 26 Kennedy assassination 25 Lord Acton 24 David Koresh 24 Neo-Tech 22 John Maynard Keynes 20 Mao Tse-Tung 18

Barry Goldwater 18

Jacques Derrida 16 Milton Friedman 13 Harry Browne 12 John Birch Society 10 Friedrich Hayek 10 Rachel Carson 9 Marva Collins 9

Nathaniel Branden 8

William F. Buckley 7 classical liberal 7 communitarian 7 Thomas Sowell 7 Clarence Thomas 7 Ivan Boesky 6 Betty Friedan 6 Kenneth Galbraith 6

Leonard Peikoff 6

Leo Strauss 4 Ludwig von Mises 4 Cato Institute 2 Paul Feyerabend 2

David Kelley 2

Richard Rorty 2 Allan Bloom 1

John Hospers 1

Rose Wilder Lane 1

paleolibertarian 1

John Rawls 1 Murray Rothbard 1 Lester Thurow 1 Henry Hazlitt, Russell Kirk, Robert Nozick -- no mentions.

Anarchy, Star Trek, Generation X, Jesus Christ, Tom Cruise, Bible, Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, X-Files, President Clinton, Mormon, and Wicca all generated too many hits to count using the AOL search engine.  For technical reasons, this strongly suggests totals above 750 but not necessarily above Rand's total of 1,559.

[continued in Part 2]

From: AchillesRB To: objectivism Subject: OWL: Dean Brooks on "Is Objectivism in Trouble?" (Part 2) Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 22:13:44 EDT

[Referring to his web-based survey of "mentions" of Ayn Rand and various other cultural figures, Dean Brooks writes]

This fairly simple approach to gauging cultural impact has various pitfalls. First, of course, there is the difficulty of defining what is a mention and what is not, and extracting only those that are wanted.  This is sometimes technically impossible, as for example untangling Lincoln (without Abraham) from Lincoln, Nebraska and thousands of other Lincolns.  Or merely difficult, as in sifting dozens of individuals named Foucault to find a handful of citations for author Michel Foucault.  Some figures are known invariably by one name, some by several.  Sartre is Sartre, Roosevelt is often FDR, but Emily Dickinson is never just Dickinson.

Second, a few works are as famous as their authors, while many others are not.  In general the totals here ignore the less numerous separate mentions of an author's works, and the rankings are much the same as if the works had been counted.  Rand enjoys an apparent unfair advantage by being counted in four categories instead of just by her name; however, references to her name alone would put her roughly level with Plato and Nietzsche, and as no other title searched for (apart from the Bible) got mentions comparable in number to Atlas Shrugged, her advantage is genuine and worth noting.

Third and not inconsequential is misspelling.  There are ample variations on John Gault and Howard Rourke for any given name, and these are simply impossible to deal with.

Lastly, the search engine provided by America Online has serious limitations.  For example, because the most records the search engine can display at one go is 250, to cope with larger totals the user has to break down member profiles to those that are "male" AND cite Ayn Rand, followed by those that are "female," and then those that don't specify a sex. There are other techniques to get farther still--however, the search algorithm occasionally hiccups: on complex logical word combinations or large tallies, it may include stray items that don't fit or drop items that are known to exist. With all of these difficulties, and even given many hours of verification, these figures can only be considered a rough guide to relative frequency.

The reason for a particular mention varies widely from item to item.  Many of the mentions of Richard Nixon, Rush Limbaugh, and Ronald Reagan are mocking attacks accompanied by quotes of varying authenticity, which are intended to be (and occasionally are) hilarious.  Mentions of David Koresh or Timothy McVeigh tend to be part of screen names.  Mentions of Herbert Spencer seem to focus on his famous quotation on prior contempt guaranteeing ignorance, rather than on Social Darwinism, and the same tendency to quote a stock phrase from a book of quotations applies to mentions of other literary figures like Oscar Wilde, Emerson, Nietzsche, and Lord Acton.

Mentions of Rand were invariably serious, praising her fiction and philosophy, or else semi-serious references to living in Galt's Gulch and the like--no denunciations or jokes at her expense were found out of hundreds sampled.  Variations on "John Galt" as a screen name were extremely common, with more than a hundred found, and more than fifty Dagnys. Quotes from Rand sometimes varied considerably from the actual passages, suggesting (because Rand's work does not appear in standard collections of quotations) that they were reproduced from memory.  A few quotes were completely untraceable, as well as very unlike Rand in style, but still appeared to be sincerely intended.  There were at least a dozen mentions of Rand in conjunction with Christianity or attending church--"Yes, they're compatible," added one.

The most popular Rand quote by far was "Who is John Galt?", but unfortunately the search engine could not give a precise answer on how many times this appeared--over 100 at least. A strong second-place finish went to "I swear, by my life and my love of it, not to live for the sake of another man, or let another man live for mine," which appeared in all its variants nearly 100 times.

One very striking confirmation of the trends shown here is  provided by Chris Cathcart, who studied 8 different politics- related newsgroups, searching for the names of seven major libertarian thinkers -- Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, Robert Nozick, and Henry Hazlitt.

Says Cathcart: "This should be taken as a rough indication of influence. The numbers refer to the number of posts in which the person's name appears. Many Usenet posts are crossposted (in some cases, massively so), and these results are culled from only the 'current' Dejanews database, dating from 9/25/97.  In all cases except for Rand, the search was under last name only, and the totals probably most affected by this are Milton Friedman's, because another Friedman (David) is also oft- discussed on Usenet and even posts to various listed newsgroups."

Alt.politics.libertarian. Ayn Rand  3765 Friedman  2251 Hayek   1035 Mises   542 Rothbard   461 Hazlitt    390 Nozick     213

Talk.politics.libertarian Ayn Rand  3890 Friedman  3371 Hayek   1051 Mises    651 Rothbard   556 Hazlitt    421 Nozick     229

Alt.fan.rush-limbaugh Ayn Rand  2442 Friedman  1127 Hayek      474 Mises      225  Hazlitt    159 Rothbard    63 Nozick      36

Alt.politics.usa.republican Ayn Rand  3443 Friedman  1765 Hayek      977 Mises    439 Hazlitt    188 Rothbard   137 Nozick      36

Alt.politics.democrats.d Ayn Rand  1930 Friedman  1125 Hayek      708 Mises   206 Hazlitt    146 Rothbard    52 Nozick      24

Alt.politics.radical-left Ayn Rand  1756 Friedman  1650 Hayek      691 Mises      407 Rothbard   312 Hazlitt    236 Nozick     169

Talk.politics.misc Ayn Rand  3216 Friedman  1518 Hayek     1021 Mises    412 Hazlitt    347 Rothbard   143 Nozick      62

Talk.politics.theory Ayn Rand  1968 Friedman  1741 Hayek  794 Mises  504 Rothbard   380 Hazlitt    264 Nozick     226

In both of these surveys the absolute scores are perhaps not very meaningful--there are 8 million subscribers to America Online, and thousands of Internet newsgroups, and contributors are narrowly self-selected, so that these numbers cannot tell us much about Rand's impact on the population as a whole.  But the relative scores are intriguing.

First, the relative order is the same everywhere: Rand, then Friedman, then Hayek, then Mises, with Rothbard, Hazlitt and Nozick varying slightly in their placement at the bottom.

Second, we can compare Rand's numbers to the combined scores of Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Hazlitt, and Nozick to find an interesting trend line.

In the theory and radical left newsgroups, Rand's score is lower than the five combined by about 3 to 10 percent.  In the relatively specialized libertarian forums, Rand outweighs the other five by 1.3 or 1.4 to 1.  In the broader political forums of Democrats and miscellaneous, Rand dominates by 1.6 or 1.7 to 1.  In  Republican and Rush Limbaugh forums, Rand dominates by between 1.9 and 2.5 to 1.  Finally, in the broadest possible sample, the AOL member profiles, mentions of Rand dominate by as much as 50 or 100 to 1. Milton Friedman's much stronger individual numbers follow a similar pattern when compared with Rand's.

Last and particularly fascinating, apart from Ayn Rand's tremendous lead over other intellectual figures, is the general predominance of libertarian-Enlightenment favorites in the AOL data.  There are more mentions of libertarianism than communism and socialism combined; Jefferson outpolls FDR by 14 to 1; and hip libertarian journalist P. J. O'Rourke got more mentions than Christian psychologist M. Scott Peck, whose "The Road Less Travelled" holds the record for longest time ever (more than 10 years) on the New York Times bestseller list.  This result is consistent with other reports of the political views of the online population.  The leftist periodical Mother Jones ran an online presidential poll in 1996 in which Harry Browne, the libertarian candidate, got more than 35 percent of the vote.

This kind of data has important implications for the Objectivist movement and for the wider libertarian-Enlightenment worldview to which Objectivism belongs.  If ours is ever to become the "majority" view in any sense, the first place it will become apparent is likely to be online.

A final amusing personal note.  In an AOL forum, a critic recently complained to me that Ayn Rand's harsh rhetoric tended to alienate readers, and suggested that "maybe she should have taken a course from Dale Carnegie, on how to Win Friends and Influence People".  In fact, as I pointed out, the same editor who bought The Fountainhead refused Carnegie's famous book—and while Ayn Rand got 1,559 mentions in this survey, Dale Carnegie got only 89 -- "so maybe he should have taken courses from her!"

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I've always listened to NYC area am talk radio. I was a dittohead before it was a 'term'. I remember buying the Rush to Excellence tour on vhs. The last years I could only catch the weekend 'week in review' shows, gonna miss his presence.

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From Fox 40: On Wednesday evening, while being interviewed on Newsmax about Limbaugh's legacy, Trump demurred when asked if he'd consider filling the talk radio void. Any number of existing right-wing radio hosts are sure to jockey for the job, though not publicly, lest they appear to be exploiting Limbaugh's death. In Chico, California, the general manager of KPAY, Dino Corbin, told the Enterprise-Record newspaper that all of the regular guest hosts are being "tested, rated and scored to see who will replace the man who has been the most successful radio host ever." "It's like how do you replace Alex Trebek?" Corbin said, referring to the "Jeopardy!" host who died late last year.

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  • 4 weeks later...

From Deseret News. Three weeks after his death, Rush Limbaugh still rules the most valuable real estate in radio. His talk radio show is still on the air even as millions of fans and would-be replacements wonder who will become the “the next Rush.” end quote

The show without Rush, is still on AM radio and called by the same name, but I don’t know if anyone can make a success of it. I just went to the Rush site and saw you can re-listen to his past shows and interviews. One of interest might be the one with William Shatner. “To boldly go where no one has gone before” except Rush. Is it time to hang-up the AM radio line and rely on Fox News? Mark Steyn was a good substitute and he is Canadian and has a foreign accent from his time in English Schools. That might grate on people. Peter

Notes. As of 2020, Rush Limbaugh net worth stands at $650 million as of the day of writing. He is the highest paid radio host in the world and the 11th highest earning celebrity globally having a salary of $84 million a year. end quote

Mark Steyn was born in Toronto on December 8, 1959. . . . He has stated that "the last Jewish female in my line was one of my paternal great-grandmothers" and that "both my grandmothers were Catholic". Steyn's great-aunt was artist Stella Steyn. His mother's family was Belgian.[7] Steyn was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, in the United Kingdom, the same school that author J. R. R. Tolkien attended and where Steyn was assigned a Greek dictionary that had also been used by Tolkien.

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I see Dan Bongino isn‘t just going to “fill in” but will be the primary host of the Old Rush Limbaugh Show. He was good when he filled in for Rush but he was not his obvious replacement. Well, I think he was better than good but I worry because he was operated on for cancer just last year. We shall see. Welcome Dan! I heard his voice a lot when he was running for Congress in Maryland. Peter

From Wikipedia. Daniel John Bongino (born December 4, 1974) is an American conservative political commentator, radio show host, author, and politician. He served as a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer from 1995 to 1999, and as a Secret Service agent from 2006 to 2011. Bongino ran for Congress unsuccessfully as a Republican in 2012, 2014, and 2016.

Bongino publicly announced in June 2020 that he had purchased an "ownership stake" of unspecified value in Parler, an alternative social media platform popular among Trump supporters, conservatives, and the far-right.[22][23][24]

In 2018, Bongino said of himself, "My entire life right now is about owning the libs. That's it."[25][1][26] He is a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump.[16][27]

Bongino has called the investigation of the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections a "total scam,"[28] and is a proponent of the Spygate conspiracy theory.[29] In May 2018, he was quoted by Trump in a tweet, as saying that former CIA Director John Brennan "has disgraced the entire Intelligence Community. He is the one man who is largely responsible for the destruction of American's faith in the Intelligence Community and in some people at the top of the FBI."[30] Bongino was also quoted as alleging that Brennan was "worried about staying out of jail".[30

On September 23, 2020, Bongino announced that a seven-centimeter tumor had been found in his throat. He added that he was unsure if the tumor was cancerous or benign, but would fly to New York on September 25 for further screening.[54] On October 2, he said that he received a "bad phone call" from doctors, and announced that he would be undergoing surgery on October 7.[55]

Following his surgery, he tweeted that the "entire tumor" was removed from his neck, but that he very likely had lymphoma. He said that he would be receiving treatment in the future.[56] On October 16, he confirmed that he received an official diagnosis of Hodgkin's lymphoma, adding that he would be continuing treatment in consultation with his doctors.[57]

From The Mayo Clinic: Hodgkin's lymphoma is one of two common types of cancers of the lymphatic system. The other type, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is far more common.

Advances in diagnosis and treatment of Hodgkin's lymphoma have helped give people with this disease the chance for a full recovery. The prognosis continues to improve for people with Hodgkin's lymphoma.

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  • 2 months later...
On 2/20/2021 at 2:57 PM, Peter said:

From Fox 40: On Wednesday evening, while being interviewed on Newsmax about Limbaugh's legacy, Trump demurred when asked if he'd consider filling the talk radio void. Any number of existing right-wing radio hosts are sure to jockey for the job, though not publicly, lest they appear to be exploiting Limbaugh's death.

I heard Mayim Bialik will be the next guest host of Jeopardy and then Savannah Guthrie follows. So far I liked Ken Jennings the best, but all of the guest hosts have been good. What an amazing job they are doing. Peter

Notes. Mayim Chaya Bialik is an American actress, neuroscientist, author and film director. From 1991 to 1995, she played the title character of the NBC sitcom Blossom. She later played neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory from 2010 to 2019. For her role as Fowler, Bialik was nominated four times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2015 and 2016.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/29/2021 at 1:39 AM, Peter said:

I heard Mayim Bialik will be the next guest host of Jeopardy and then Savannah Guthrie follows. So far I liked Ken Jennings the best, but all of the guest hosts have been good. What an amazing job they are doing. Peter

Summer viewing? I hope “Match Game” with host Alec Baldwin returns in 2021. “To Tell the Truth” with Anthony Anderson and his Mama is very good (you will laugh) and so is “The Chase” with Sara Haines. “Celebrity Wheel of Fortune” and night time’s “The Price is Right” and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” emceed by Jimmy Kimmel are also good.

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