For what is a man? What has he got?
If not himself - Then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way.
-Frank Sinatra, “My Way”
Are you living your life up the standards and ideals by which you judge others? For the vast majority of Americans, their personal dogma is rarely reflected in their actions.
Rush Limbaugh is a prime example of this particularly cruel form of hypocrisy. The very same man that profited from preaching to others the benefits of living a clean and “moral” life was, in fact, abusing a tremendous amount of illegal narcotics. In essence, the most outspoken proponent of the War on Drugs would like to have people like himself jailed (and given a longer prison term).
“In the audio link below, I go into detail about these non-thinking talking points that "you can't tell people what to do with their bodies" and "you can't legislate morality." First of all, we tell people what they can do to their bodies all the time--no cocaine, no prostitution, no throwing yourself off a building. Second, laws are nothing but defining morality!" -- RushLimbaugh.com (6/27/03)
I humbly disagree, Rush.
Laws exist to define the boundaries of personal freedom. They do not define morality. They only give the individual freedom by limiting only behavior that is destructive to other citizens.
Assume his mindset. Who decides what is morally correct? The President? Congress? The judicial system? Mr. Limbaugh? No one can dictate a man's moral code except himself. Each person's morality is completely separate and unique ethos that only he will follow. No man should force his own ethos on another man, nor should an individual blindly follow the ethos of another man.
Imitation is worse than suicide. The government should not be allowed to dictate its own terms of morality to the public with the enactment of laws forbidding behavior that is possibly harmful to oneself.
If an individual wishes to destroy his life by abusing highly dangerous narcotics, that is his own prerogative. I support the right to not only exist, but to make these life decisions free of artificial governmental boundaries.
The state has no right to impose its moral beliefs on a human being - even if the beliefs are popular.
The War of Drugs is an simply example of a latent collectivist policy that still exists in the US. The War on Drugs says to not do drugs for it may be detrimental to the collective good. It should not be the duty of the government to ban potentially harmful substances.
The ban itself is only in place because a proportion of the individuals that try an illicit drug become addicted to it. Yet there are millions of Americans that have tried a drug, enjoyed it, and never did it again. The recreational drug user is something that is inconceivable (or heretical, depending on the party you ask) by the current batch of American politicians.
Not every drug abuser wants to be saved. You cannot help someone who does not want to help himself. The unemployment rate will never go below a certain percentage because there will always be citizens in this country that are unemployable. Similarly, there will always be citizens who are morally unreachable.
One of the arguments I hear in favor of the War on Drugs is that in order to keep the American economy thriving, drugs must remain illegal. This is a fallacy because it assumes that drug addicts are not effective economic producers to the country's overall national product.
They can look to their fallen hero, Mr. Limbaugh, to find a counter-example to this claim. He sold millions of books, hosted a nationwide syndicated talk show, and generated millions of dollars of revenue for his advertisers, and he was popping three Oxycontins before he got into the shower.
In my eyes, Mr. Limbaugh has the credibility of a unicorn. Going further, however, he has the same credibility as the average American citizen. He is a frail human being, just like everyone else, yet somehow refuses to accept his weaknesses (and the weaknesses of homo sapiens). He also wishes to judge his peers on a “higher” form of morality which is obviously not based on his own personal experience or standards. Mr. Limbaugh’s greatest shame is not his hypocrisy, but rather his Ego.
Mr. Sinatra implored his listeners to live their own lives to the fullest. Mr. Limbaugh, implores his listeners that ‘his way’ and ‘your way’ should be exactly the same.
One of these men became the most highly regarded entertainer of his generation while the other buys hill-billy heroin off of his housekeeper.
Just a thought to ponder.
The above work is the opinion of the author,
and not necessarily that of the Prometheus Institute.
