{"id":3459,"date":"2012-03-10T09:42:22","date_gmt":"2012-03-10T14:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=3459"},"modified":"2016-05-28T16:15:02","modified_gmt":"2016-05-28T21:15:02","slug":"moronic-iron-manning-of-rush-limbaugh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=3459","title":{"rendered":"The same basic respect, i.e., none."},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been well over a week since a conservative radio host launched into\u00c2\u00a0a not-uncommon series of misogynisitic<\/span> ad feminam<\/span> attacks\u00c2\u00a0against a women\u00c2\u00a0speaking on\u00c2\u00a0an issue of\u00c2\u00a0concern to women.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The woman, Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University Law student,\u00c2\u00a0was invited\u00c2\u00a0by Congress\u00c2\u00a0to\u00c2\u00a0speak on the issue of mandated\u00c2\u00a0contraception coverage for women.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The relevant\u00c2\u00a0part of her\u00c2\u00a0remarks can be read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rush Limbaugh has such a long history of dishonesty and abuse that his views\u00c2\u00a0no longer deserve\u00c2\u00a0rational analysis.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sorry for the\u00c2\u00a0millions of listeners\u00c2\u00a0who listen to him.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m especially sorry\u00c2\u00a0for those who listen only because\u00c2\u00a0they find his brand of humor funny.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It’s best, I think, not\u00c2\u00a0to develop a taste for certain things.<\/p>\n

Some people defending Limbaugh, on the other hand, do warrant discussion.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Here<\/a> is\u00c2\u00a0fairly well known\u00c2\u00a0professor\u00c2\u00a0of\u00c2\u00a0economics at the University of Rochester, Steve Landsburg<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Rush Limbaugh is under fire for responding in trademark fashion to the congressional testimony of Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, who wants you to pay for her contraception<\/strong>. If the rest of us are to share in the costs of Ms. Fluke\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sex life, says Rush, we should also share in the benefits, via the magic of online video. For this, Rush is accused of denying Ms. Fluke her due respect.<\/p>\n

But while Ms. Fluke herself deserves the same basic respect we owe to any human being<\/strong>, her\u00c2\u00a0position \u00e2\u20ac\u201d which is what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s at issue here \u00e2\u20ac\u201d deserves none whatsoever. <\/strong>It deserves only to be ridiculed, mocked and jeered. To treat it with respect would be a travesty. I expect there are respectable arguments for subsidizing contraception (though I am skeptical that there are arguments sufficiently respectable to win me over), but Ms. Fluke made no such argument. All she said, in effect, was that she and others want contraception and they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to pay for it.<\/p>\n

To his credit, Rush stepped in to provide the requisite mockery<\/strong>. To his far greater credit, he did so with a spot-on analogy: If I can reasonably be required to pay for someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sex life (absent any argument about externalities or other market failures), then I can reasonably demand to share in the benefits. His dense and humorless critics notwithstanding<\/strong>, I am 99% sure that Rush doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually advocate mandatory on-line sex videos. What he advocates is logical consistency and an appreciation for ethical symmetry<\/strong>. So do I. Color me jealous for not having thought of this analogy myself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is funny how\u00c2\u00a0so many of our debates concern the rules of\u00c2\u00a0our debates.\u00c2\u00a0 Many claim–correctly in my view–that\u00c2\u00a0Limbaugh broke\u00c2\u00a0basic argument rules,\u00c2\u00a0distorting a person’s words to malign her (fallacious ad hominem attacks, straw men, etc.).\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0This fellow,\u00c2\u00a0Steven Landsburg<\/span>, inexplicably, thinks\u00c2\u00a0Limbaugh has\u00c2\u00a0not in fact\u00c2\u00a0done this, but has rather zeroed in on the critical issue–whether\u00c2\u00a0you and I\u00c2\u00a0should pay for this woman to have sex.<\/p>\n

That, however,\u00c2\u00a0wasn’t nearly the point of Limbaugh’s 46 or so tirades<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Here’s one:<\/p>\n

She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Landsburg<\/span>\u00c2\u00a0thinks only the word\u00c2\u00a0“slut” was out of order.<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one place where I part company with Rush, though: He wants to brand Ms. Fluke a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153slut\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because, he says, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s demanding to be paid for sex<\/strong>. There are two things wrong here. First, the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153slut\u00e2\u20ac\u009d connotes (to me at least) precisely the sort of joyous enthusiasm that would render payment superfluous. A far better word might have been \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prostitute\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (or a five-letter synonym\u00c2\u00a0therefor), but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still wrong because Ms. Fluke is not in fact demanding to be paid for sex. (Not that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s anything wrong with that.)<\/strong> She will, as I understand it, be having sex whether she gets paid or not. Her demand is to be paid. The right word for that is something much closer to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extortionist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Or better yet, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153extortionist with an overweening sense of entitlement\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Is there a single word for that?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m\u00c2\u00a0sad for this guy’s students, his department, and his university.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been well over a week since a conservative radio host launched into\u00c2\u00a0a not-uncommon series of misogynisitic ad feminam attacks\u00c2\u00a0against a women\u00c2\u00a0speaking on\u00c2\u00a0an issue of\u00c2\u00a0concern to women.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The woman, Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University Law student,\u00c2\u00a0was invited\u00c2\u00a0by Congress\u00c2\u00a0to\u00c2\u00a0speak on the issue of mandated\u00c2\u00a0contraception coverage for women.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The relevant\u00c2\u00a0part of her\u00c2\u00a0remarks can be read here. Rush Limbaugh has … Continue reading The same basic respect, i.e., none.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[191,1330,132,1329,1328,688],"class_list":["post-3459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-ad-hominem-arguments","tag-misogyny","tag-rush-limbaugh","tag-sandra-fluke","tag-steve-landsburg","tag-straw-man-arguments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3459"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4930,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459\/revisions\/4930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}