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The Dismaying RINO Co-opting Of Rush Limbaugh
by Lester Jackson, Ph.D.
He effusively praised an egregious phony, Marco Rubio.
The purpose of recent articles about RINO Speaker John Boehner and his supporters (here, here, and here) was to make clear that the biggest problem conservative voters face is betrayal by candidates who lie about what they will do if elected. Because the United States leans conservative, RINO conservative poseurs have the greatest need to lie in order to win elections. Apparently, this is still not clear.
On April 14, Rush Limbaugh effusively praised an egregious phony, Marco Rubio. The next day, Limbaugh astonishingly defended that praise with toxic acquiescence in preemptive surrender to contempt for the Constitution and rule of law.
Fool-Me-Once/Fool-Me-Twice
The gist of Limbaugh’s initial commentary was that Rubio is a “serious” candidate with a “powerful message.” How depressing! Where has Limbaugh been? How many times have true conservatives been betrayed by “serious” people who abandoned their “powerful messages”? Powerful messages mean nothing if never acted upon. Elections then become farces as meaningless as those staged by any totalitarian regime.
Marco Rubio is a painful case in point. The first thing he did when he got to the Senate was to give the finger to his supporters by trying to grant amnesty to alien lawbreakers, teaming up with the likes of Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Richard Durbin, and Charles Schumer — yes, Charles Schumer! (That’s the very same Charles Schumer who is a poster-boy for Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism. The very same Charles Schumer so fanatically opposes freedom of speech for conservatives that he zealously advocates eviscerating the First Amendment. A shocking 48 senators supported his assault on the right of the right to criticize the left.)
Limbaugh repeatedly rails against bipartisanship and “compromise,” which, he correctly says, comes down to giving leftist Democrats whatever they want. Conservatives give; they take. In joining the Gang of 8, Rubio demonstrated that he is infected by this mindset.
Moreover, Limbaugh has often claimed to oppose both illegal immigration and amnesty for this law-breaking. He has argued it would be the death knell of often antonymous conservatism and the Republican Party. Yet he disregards the broken clear and well-documented anti-amnesty promises made by Rubio in order to be elected senator. Did Limbaugh believe the strident gaseous fulminations against amnestyemitted by John Boehner?
It was no surprise when Boehner caved in. By contrast, Rubio actively, publicly, and aggressively promoted the very amnesty he opposed as a senate candidate. Does Limbaugh expect a senator who breaks his promises on a major issue to be different as president? Does one have to be a proverbial rocket scientist to understand that pledges by a candidate with a record of insincerity and lack of integrity mean nothing? How often are conservatives going to let themselves be fooled by the faithless elected? Shouldn’t they declare that candidates who betray them on major issues will never again have their support, no matter what they profess?
Let this “powerful message” ring out: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!”
Let’s Make John Roberts an Honest Chief Justice
If Limbaugh’s initial Rubio praise was disappointing, his next day’s rationalization of that praise should appall anyone who believes in the rule of law and the Constitution. Limbaugh gushed over Rubio’s
prescient prediction …. in part an explanation for why he was participating in the Gang of Eight [amnesty bill]. …Rubio said that … if there is an executive [Obama] amnesty granted to millions and millions of illegals … he could not envision a new Republican president being elected and rescinding it.
How can Limbaugh call “prescient” and “spot-on” a prediction about what a Republican president would do before any Republican president takes office? Has he turned from optimist to pessimist? Is he now on the side of defeatist hopelessness and despair? With this kind of thinking, there may never again be a Republican president–and it would make no difference if there were. Notwithstanding Limbaugh’s Republican cheerleading, conservatives are unlikely to vote for a candidate promising not to reverse his predecessor’s unlawful and unconstitutional acts. (On April 17, days after Limbaugh praised Rubio, the latter pulled the rug out from under the former by making just such a promise!)
If the coming contest for the Republican presidential nomination is to mean anything, primary and caucus voters should have a choice between RINOs who see anything done by a tyrant as a fait accompli and at least one candidate who unmistakably rejects the notion that tyrannical acts must be accepted as irreversible.
It has been argued that Chief Justice Roberts slandered American voters by suggesting that they voted for ObamaCare:
[O]ur Nation’s elected leaders … can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.
The voters were given no choice prior to the imposition of ObamaCare against the wishes of clear majorities in poll after poll after poll. When they were given clear choices, in 2010 and 2014, numerous incumbents who voted for ObamaCare were ousted by opponents who promised to repeal or defund it. The promises were promptly broken, showing the futility of “throwing leaders out of office” and, hence, the futility of elections.
Isn’t making Chief Justice Roberts’ statement honest long overdue? Isn’t it long overdue for the Republican Party to give the voters a genuine choice by nominating an honest presidential candidate (or at least one not demonstrably dishonest)?
An honest Republican nominee would elevate this issue above all others: whether to ratify or reject lawless and unconstitutional tyrannical presidential malfeasance.
Encouraging and Defending Lawlessness
The essence of Limbaugh’s Rubio defense is that it would be unimaginable to take away unlawfully and unconstitutionally acquired plunder. That is contrary to the bitter lesson of ObamaCare. It was never inconceivable to President Obama and Speaker Pelosi to unconstitutionally deprive millions of their doctors and insurance. What was inconceivable to them was to tell the truth about it. Amnesty is doubly offensive. First, illegal aliens broke the law to get ahead of law-abiding potential immigrants. Second, Obama violated both the law and the Constitution to grant them amnesty.
Limbaugh advanced his defense of Rubio’s amnesty betrayal on tax day, April 15, when millions of Americans were having lawfully acquired money and property confiscated by government — in order to bestow unmerited benefits upon those for whom Limbaugh and Rubio contend it would be inconceivable to cease providing.
It is, of course, no surprise that the Supreme Court has expressed contempt for those who follow the law in good faith. When a retroactive change in law relied upon by Jerry W. Carlton cost him over $600,000 (page 39), the Court effectively declared him to be a fool (33, 34):
Tax legislation is not a promise, and a taxpayer has no vested right in the Internal Revenue Code. ….a taxpayer should be regarded as taking his chances of any increase in the tax burden which might result from carrying out the established policy of taxation. [Internal quotation marks omitted.]
Going further, five justices have not found it inconceivable to throw an 88-year-old lower middle class lady out of the only home she ever lived in. They unconstitutionally approved government confiscation of that privately-owned property not for “public use,” but to turn over to a huge corporation for private use. (The corporation ultimately abandoned it.) Now, frequently corrupt local politicians can seize lawfully-held private property from the less well-off and turn it over to influential private parties, often much better off, who did nothing to deserve it.
Right now, the Supreme Court is considering whether government bureaucrats may “constitutionally” steal raisins from private citizens who lawfully produced them.
If the Limbaugh/Rubio view prevails, nothing can be done by Americans to avoid living in a country where, with the approval of any five U.S. Supreme Court justices, tyrannical and corrupt government officials, often unelected, can confiscate what ordinary people lawfully obtain and earn on their own–and prevent use of the doctors and insurance obtained by responsible individuals.
In sum, the United States would be a country where people are penalized for responsibly complying with the law and rewarded for breaking the law. Once upon a time, in the not too distant past, some might have been unable to “envision” that.
Can there be greater invitation to lawlessness and unconstitutionally despotic actions by government officials, as well as by ordinary people, than to say that it would be unthinkable to take away anything unlawfully or unconstitutionally obtained? Such actions would never be undone, regardless of what voters want. That is the import of a Rubio presidency. Voters should think long and hard about whether they want to elect a president who won’t reverse what a prior president had no constitutional right to do in the first place. We have already seen the consequences of electing Republicans promising to repeal or defund Obamacare, only to shrink from the task in cowardly fear. So far, contrary to Chief Justice Roberts, “throwing the bums out” is no meaningful choice at all.
Are Conservatives Gullible Turtles?
An example of the fool-me-once adage is the ancient parable of the turtle and the snake. A snake persuades a turtle fearing a lethal bite to give him a ride across a river, arguing that for the snake to bite the turtle would cause the snake to drown along with the turtle. Whereupon, the snake bites the turtle with poisonous venom, explaining that he could not help himself because he was, after all, a snake–and that was his character.
Conservatives are almost benumbed by the bad faith of those who deliver “powerful messages.” Nevertheless, the primary 2016 goal of conservatives must be to seek the candidate who is least likely to betray them. Although there can never be 100% guarantees, at a bare minimum, they cannot be turtles succumbing to smooth-talking snakes.
Of course, a candidate with a conservative message must be sought. It is to be expected that anyone seeking the Republican presidential nomination will at least repeat conservative lines. But that should be just a start. It is much more important to find someone with a record of honesty and integrity. Not just important, but critical — critical because the next election will probably be the last chance to repel the relentless march toward complete leftist tyranny.
Flip-floppers and promise-breakers need not apply and must be rejected if they do. Conservatives must exclude from consideration anyone with a proven record of major dishonesty.
Conservatives must exclude Marco Rubio.
Copyright © 2015 by Lester Jackson, Ph.D., a former college Political Science teacher who views mainstream media suppression of the truth as essential to harmful judicial activism. His recent articles on the U.S. Supreme Court, capital punishment and American Politics are collected here and here.
The views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of their author. Reprinted with permission. The article first appeared on Western Journalism.
