Around The Radio
All over America on any weekday they can be found at the shallow end of the gene pool, listening to conservative (sic) talk radio. They are the core of the new Republican Party who have pushed aside the true conservatives who once carried the conservative voice. With the help of a liberal press, happy to brand a brain-dead far right as conservative, they have reinvented conservatism to mean something nearly opposite of its roots.
Why It Flies
The success of this Republican brand of talk radio stems from its believers who, in turn, provide an attractive consumer base to the huge army of companies paying for talk radio. Talk radio is well funded as evidenced by its seemingly unending advertising, occasionally interrupted by talk. The talk itself is carefully tailored to support the new Republican agenda and appeal to a non-thinking but easily excited audience. Not particularly crafty or elegant and apparently uninterested in accuracy, Republican talk radio hosts appeal to the easily angered and shocked who are willing to follow without question, no matter how ridiculous the claims. These are the poor fools who now are solidly behind a pompom girl for vice president, even knowing that her entry into the presidential race has killed the chances of the Republican Party making it to the White House. Why would they believe this air-head neo-conservative is in any way qualified? They believe because talk radio told them so. They have faith (faith: the intentional abandon of all reasoned thought in favor of someone else’s idea) in talk radio.
Followers All
Thanks in large part to talk radio and the religious right wing, we have a large segment of the voting public that believes the implausible, turns its back on the fundamentals of the Constitution and votes for people that don’t believe in the basic freedoms that have made America great. These people still call themselves conservative. Talk radio supports the big corporations whose advertising dollars line the pockets of talk radio hosts to the tune of many millions of dollars, so the talk radio sheep, in turn, also support the big corporations. They don’t complain when a corrupt administration drains the federal treasury and funnels the money (taxpayer money) to the corporations, because talk radio tells them that is a good thing. They believe that cutting taxes (only for the very wealthy) when the nation is nearly bankrupt and will have to borrow money from China to make up the difference, is the right thing to do because talk radio supports that idea. Of course, it is no coincidence that talk radio advertisers will reward talk radio with millions in new contracts in support of the support. The talk radio sheep are comfortable with laws that attack individual freedom, make federal government stronger and people weaker because talk radio supports a large and powerful government even as talk radio rails against government. A non-thinking faithful follower of talk radio will see no ambiguity in that.
Conservatives
We are stuck with a loser. It is too late to dump Palin from the Republican ticket. To do so would leave the Party off balance and in trouble, yet the Party is in trouble. We have abandoned conservative principles in favor of big spending policies that support a powerful central government that intrudes into people lives and directs family affairs. As conservatives, we would look to the Constitution for guidance before we give the federal government power to control the lives of its citizens. As Republicans we have given the federal government more power over its citizens than at any time in history. We are running candidates that want to continue the big spending policies of that current administration and who advocate continuing transfer of wealth to the mega-corporations that have helped devastate our economy. We can't expect to get away with this. The stupidity exemplified by the selection of Sarah Palin as the Vice Presidential candidate signifies a hopeless departure from conservative politics in favor of new era religious right-wing Republican politics that will drive away thoughtful conservative and independent voters.
We should be ashamed of ourselves...
The Whiners
Talk radio has a right to be there, stretching the limits of the first amendment, pretending to provide news, while ignoring its obligation for accuracy and objectivity. It is allowed to pretend. It is nonetheless strange that it attacks the very premise that allows it to be, the right to free speech. It is maybe, not completely fair to say it attacks the right to free speech (though it occasionally does). It is more accurate to say it attacks a free and objective press. In the same way the Nazis and every communist government and dictatorship in the world has attacked objective reporting of facts, talk radio attacks the media as biased and liberal. Now, I think that overall, the press shows a bias toward liberal ideas in the shadow of an over-the-edge right wing administration, just as it tended to lean to the right when we had liberal administrations. The press has pointed out the failings of George Bush, the weaknesses of Obama and McCain and the stupidity of selecting Palin. Talk radio, in contrast, whines. Talk radio hosts all seem to miss no opportunity to whine about the facts presented in the press. It is a position easy to understand. When the facts are stacked against you, your only hope is to discredit the facts by discrediting the messenger. When talk radio hosts make up unbelievable stories clearly contradicted by the facts, the only supporting arguments they can muster are based on a condemnation of the press as biased. A free press isn't much of a threat to talk radio because its serious believer listeners don’t go in search of real news and are generally not interested in facts. They are followers of talk radio and that is their reality. Like children wrapped up in a giant video game, they believe for a moment that it is real. The only problem is, their moment is unending.
Talk radio whining doesn’t stop with the free press. Talk radio hosts are fond of whining about how they themselves have been attacked. What better way to condemn the press and bolster one’s own status while obscuring the facts than to say, “They attacked me because I exposed the truth!” Of course, the attack always seems to be a simple pointing out of the falsehood put forth by talk radio, but the whining brings the unquestioning non-thinking sheep even closer to the talk radio host as they begin to feel attacked too.
The People You Know
If you have the time and can suffer through the endless commercials, listen to so called conservative talk radio. If you are a true conservative, you will be appalled. Surely, you know people who listen to talk radio. They are easy to spot. They are diehard Republicans. They are not swayed by gross inconsistencies in ideology. They are not interested in facts or truth. They know they are right no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary. They probably believe in intelligent design. They probably think conservatives are liberals. They call themselves conservative. They will argue for laws that empower the government to control people’s lives. They favor laws against gay marriage, a woman’s right to choose and laws that attack non-Christian religions. They will argue for cutting taxes while they look stupid when you talk about the huge debt. They are the very people who, in large part, have destroyed the principles of the Republican Party. They, with the help of talk radio and the religious right wing political movement have taken the conservative out of Conservative.
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The man who brags that he is an idiot is a man in touch with himself . - Jenny Jerrome
