The Right or Just Wrong?

It is bad enough that our country’s lawmakers no longer have any regard for the rule of law and the American people. However, how are we to overcome this problem when some of the leading voices on the conservative side are ignorant to the actual issues. I bring this point up because of a segment of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show that I happened to tune in on the other day. I would first like to say that I agree with a good bit of what Mr. Limbaugh has to say. That being said, he also has a responsibility to make sure that the information he provides to his listeners is factually correct. This is where Mr. Limbaugh failed the other day.

In an effort to play party politics, something the Mr. Limbaugh is very accustomed to doing; he made a statement claiming that it was the Democrats who caused the current economic recession. One could make this claim, however it was in the details that Rush fell short. According to him the “Democrats tried to talk [the United States] into a recession in 2005. They tried to talk [the United States] into a recession in 2006. And in 2007 they talked us into a recession.” Mr. Limbaugh elaborated by asserting that it was their intention to do so. This makes no rational sense what so ever. Not that the Democratic party is above doing anything like it, but just the notion that any group of individuals can “talk” a recession into happening in the first place. This shows a clear ignorance by Mr. Limbaugh of not just economics in general, but of how the financial system in this country actually operates.

Our current recession was no more caused by the Democrats talking about it; then illness is caused by a surplus in blood and bile! No amount of talking causes the large quantity of malinvestment that is required to send an entire economic system into a depression, unless the people talking are the governors of the Federal Reserve Board discussing whether or not to increase the money supply. That is the true cause of the financial disaster that our country just faced and it is what Mr. Limbaugh should have said if he wished to address this issue. He had the opportunity to discuss how an increase in the money supply does this by distorting the information that entrepreneurs use to determine what the consumers’ time preference is, i.e. interest rates. He could have spoken abstractly about business cycles and their existence. Besides, even if he honestly believes in his statement it fails to explain the fact that it is not consumer goods that fail to sell, but is rather in sharp decline in the purchase of capital goods. Instead Mr. Limbaugh was too busy trying to take a cheap whack at the Democrats or was just too thick to realize that he should not speak of things that he has no knowledge of. Either way is just as bad.

Only a well informed populace will have the ability to reestablish the American Republic. If we the American people ever hope to take our government back from the political hack jobs in Washington then we need to hold the political talk show figure heads accountable. Their misinformation is just as bad as any terrible piece of legislation that our government can pass. They also drive away any intelligent citizens who are sitting on the fence trying to see which side actually has solutions to our countries problems. Conservatives must realize that men like Rush Limbaugh are not the leaders of their cause that they should desire. They only serve to isolate the conservative movement from mainstream America very much like what Keith Olbermann does to the progressive movement. So when you hear Rush Limbaugh makes these blatantly incorrect claims, write to him expressing your displeasure as I have done. Although next time I hear him say something so sickening I might just have to resort to bleeding!