MY NEW HERO
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA)
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) on Thursday said that if the sponsors of Rush Limbaugh’s radio show continued to support his “hate mongering” then women should boycott those companies…. “I rise this morning to say to Rush Limbaugh, shame on you,” she said on the House floor. “Shame on you for being the hatemonger that you are. Shame on you for being misogynistic.”…. Limbaugh on Wednesday called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke a “prostitute” and a “slut” because of her testimony in Congress about contraception…. [O]n his show, Limbaugh accused Fluke of not being able to afford contraception because she was “having so much sex.” Then on Thursday, he demanded that women post sex tapes online if they use insurance-covered birth control.
I’ll begin this by saying that I firmly believe in the 1st Amendment. It’s what allows me to do what I do on a daily basis, and for that I’m grateful. Free speech can be a messy and ugly proposition. Free speech can also be, and very often is, offensive and hateful speech. We can hate that sort of speech, but we cannot and must not think that we have the right to stop those who engage in that sort of speech.
That said, it’s not exactly a stretch to say that no reasonable person would believe Rush Limbaugh to be anything but a miserable excuse for a human being. I promised a long time ago that I would never write about him again. I’m breaking that promise because this really isn’t about Limbaugh; it’s about Rep. Speier and her call to boycott those companies who support Limbaugh’s radio show by purchasing advertising. It’s an idea whose time has come, especially in light of his hateful, piggish, misogynistic insults of Ms. Fluke. No human being should have to put up with that sort of gratuitous, hate-driven sexism from anyone…yet Limbaugh is guaranteed the right to spread his verbal vomit by the 1st Amendment.
Fair enough…but if companies are going to support Limbaugh, then people who want to traffic in respect and decency have every right to decide to boycott those businesses. Personally, the idea of any business supporting Limbaugh’s trash, whether overtly or implicitly, offends me to the core. If they can’t support decent, respectful public discussion, then why should I patronize them?
“Shame on you for calling the women of this country prostitutes,” Speier said. “Ninety-eight percent of the women in this country at some time in their lives used birth control.”
“So I say to the women in this country, do something about this,” she continued. “I say to the women of this country, ask Century 21, Quicken Loans, Legal Zoom, and Sleep Number to stop supporting the hate mongering of Rush Limbaugh and if they do not do that, then I ask them to boycott those companies.”
I suspect there’s every chance that a boycott will only serve to feed Limbaugh’s grandiose sense of self-importance and provide him with a pretext to claim persecution. So be it. If enough of us commit to boycotting Limbaugh, we’ll eventually hit him in the only place he truly understands and cares about: his wallet. With any luck, he’ll end up managing a Dairy Queen in Devil’s Lake, ND.
I’m not going to tell you that patronizing businesses that support Limbaugh is condoning hate speech. I’ll leave it to you to come to that conclusion. If you believe in respectful, decent public speech, I suspect you’ll pitch in. If you think Limbaugh is spot on, you’re beyond help…and odds are that you’re not reading this, anyway.
UPDATE: It appears that the burgeoning boycott is beginning to catch the attention of some of Limbaugh’s advertisers. Sleep Train has pulled its advertising, as has Quicken Loans. Pro Flowers is “re-evaluating”…whatever that means. This is progress, and with any luck perhaps it will give Limbaugh pause when he realizes his bottom line is taking a hit.
Free speech? Yes, by all means. Hateful, misogynistic, disrespectful speech? Hell, no. Not when half the population is female and deserving of being treated with dignity and respect.
