1 Boring Old Man

Rush Limbaugh berates 10th grader’s school essay

The best story I’ve heard this week by far was told today over lunch.  Apparently, a co-worker of mine named George listens to the Rush Limbaugh show in his car, and yesterday heard him discussing Barak Obama’s comments about similarities between the recent housing crisis and the lead-up to the Great Depression (link goes to transcript).  I imagine the comments were referring to the obvious similarities between those who obtained ridiculous sub-prime loans and those in the 1920s who bought stock they couldn’t afford on margin.  However, Limbaugh decided that Obama’s comments were the result of a crazy “liberal education” – and even remarks how “lucky” he is that he didn’t graduate from college, thus allowing him to escape the perils of actual knowledge.

To prove his point, Rush says he did some Google searches for “Great Depression” and then proceeds to attack each of the results as liberal propaganda.  Because we all know that college professors teach straight off of Google results pages.  So my friend is listening and hears something rather striking… the name of one of our mutual colleagues – Paul Alexander Gusmorino (”The Third!” – I love the way Limbaugh says that).;

Limbaugh found among the top results an essay written by Paul, entitled “The Main Causes of the Great Depression,” (link goes to essay).  He quotes Paul’s essay and refutes each of its claims, dissecting them as if they were part of a Harvard professor’s lecture on the subject.  He doesn’t pull any punches either.  “Mr. Gusmorino, you better check Karl Marx and see if you plagiarized him in putting this piece together.”

Ouch.  Those words would be harsh if they really were for a Harvard lecturer.  But that’s not who wrote this essay.  It was my friend who works as a Program Manager at Microsoft.

When he was in 10th grade.

[hat tip to Crooks and Liars]

I suppose that it’s no different than what any blogger does. Read something in the news you don’t like, or buy, then mount an argument against it. My last post was about energy. We’re running out of oil and heating up the planet. Everyone talks about "alternative energy sources" as the solution. This dovetails with a point that has long been with me. There are too many people for the planet to sustain, and that number is rising. There are no more predators to control the population of humans except other humans. It seems to me that more energy isn’t the point. I think the solution is less people. I’ve always thought that. So, I wrote that post.  How is that any different from Limbaugh’s formula?

• Educated Liberals are fools.
• Obama, an educated Liberal, is a fool.
• Government regulation is bad.
• The problem is greedy freeloaders.

"There are some similarities, though, to the Great Depression, to what happened back in the late twenties and the early thirties and what’s been happening now, and the biggest similarity is how we’ve been dealing with Wall Street and what’s happening in the financial markets.  As your president, my job is to regulate what happens in the financial markets to make sure that people aren’t taking these kinds of risks and that we’re having full disclosure."

• Educated Liberals are fools. They don’t understand the Depression. Limbaugh then refutes the educated view of the Depression put in Obama’s head at Harvard by refuting some paper on the Internet written by a 10th grader.
• Obama, an educated Liberal, is a fool. Obama’s education was false.
• Government regulation is bad. Obama is suggesting we bail out the people who took these risky loans. The problem wasn’t allowing risky loans, the problem was the borrowers.
• The problem is greedy freeloaders. The borrowers weren’t homeowners who took to great a risk. These borrowers were just spectulators trying to make a fast buck. Now they’re trying to make another fast buck by being bailed out.

It’s a good example of Limbaugh-think. Limbaugh says that the borrowers are just a bunch of greedy freeloaders. He’s arguing against the opposite view – that the lenders are just a bunch of greedy capitalists. In the process, he makes an ad hominem argument – attacks the man. Obama is a fool, and the people who educated him are fools. Then he macerates a paper he [or his staff] found on the Internet which he uses as an example. Well, the paper turns out to be some 10th grader’s term paper [actually pretty good]. And Obama wasn’t talking about bailing out anyone anyway. Obama wasn’t attacking the "greedy capitalists" or defending the "greedy borrower." He was espousing a reasonable principle in a capitalistic culture. Greed is everywhere. Rather than decrying it, the correct approach is to put limits on it. Human greed leads people to overlook risk regularly, therefore, regulate risk. Regulate greedy lenders at the top and greedy borrowers at the bottom. We learned that in the Great Depression. We’re learning it again in this mortgaga crisis. It’s a version of a solid psychological principle – there is no freedom without limits. Good thinking, Barack!

Limbaugh is using gross logical fallacies at every turn – on purpose. In this case, he’s exposed as a fool, because even his straw man, efite educated people turn out to be false. It’s a smart high school sophomore instead of a Harvard economist. But it doesn’t really matter. Limbaugh’s agruments are almost all the same. Start with a conclusion. Attack the other person’s worth as a human being with all the contempt you can muster, and solidify your group around a shared hatred. It’s the Ku Klux Klan method. Find something to hate and form a group dedicated to shared hatred. It can’t be done without some powerful charisma and slick rhetoric. And I’ve got to give Rush credit – he’s got both those things [and a large staff].

^{from Limbaugh’s site}