Rush Limbaugh has advanced lung cancer. Many of you who have just read that for the first time are probably now trying desperately to repress the first thoughts that spring into your mind because you feel bad that you have them. Well, buck up. You are not alone.
I can’t shake the feeling that if I put into writing my first thoughts upon hearing this news I’ll go directly to a hell I’m guessing he’ll also occupy.
I don’t express those thoughts – ok, ok, let’s just say that ran along the lines of hoping he suffers and dies slowly… because I know they are not right to express. They are mean and cruel and, while they may make me feel better for a little while, ultimately they diminish me. I can’t control where my thoughts might go in the spur of a moment but I am adult who can control the impulse and try to listen to my better self.
Even if I want to scream horrible things at Rush I won’t because on the left that level of nasty and mean doesn’t fly. I won’t say it out loud for a lot of reasons but one of them is definitely that I would face the scrutiny and displeasure of those I respect.
This is why all us liberals are doomed. The right wingers revel in the tragedies and pain of those who do not agree with them. They have no compunction about gloating out loud over someone’s illness or loss if that someone is a (gasp! horror!) liberal. And their cohorts praise them for it and go to rallies to cheer the hate. But if a lefty says anything mean about Rush, his followers will scream like stuck pigs and try to have Trump throw that lefty in jail.
I will say the right things about Rush and his illness because I was taught that was the right thing to do. But my thoughts will be very different and that won’t change. I’m starting to understand the level of anger and hate expressed by the right wing because I’m starting to feel it towards them.
I am sick and tired of being told that I have to find a way to communicate with these people and understand them. Let someone else do that. If Rush’s voice is silenced for whatever reason, it’s one more voice of hatred and fear we no longer have to hear. And I’m perfectly fine with that.
Diane Taylor says:
As a nurse, I’m sorry he has to go through this thoroughly human ordeal.
But I sincerely hope the treatment for his illness impacts his pocketbook as much as it does most of his fellow Americans, many of whom idolize him. Frankly, I hope he is bankrupted.