Limbaugh Held to Higher Standard!

What to say about Rush?

Mr. Limbaugh does not need me to defend him, that’s for sure.

But, I must tell you something that I know from personal experience. If you have never dealt with long-term chronic pain, then you have no place in the discussion surrounding what has happened to Limbaugh.

Now, add to that the fact that Mr. Limbaugh was/is in one of the most unforgiving businesses on the planet and you begin to see the stress he was under.

As a 30 year member of the broadcasting world and one who deals daily with chronic pain, I can tell you unless, and until, you do, you just might want to withhold judgment.

In the broadcasting business, no matter how hot you are, no matter how good you are at your job, the company always asks for more. Thanks for a job well done is seldom heard. And, in the smaller markets, the better you are at your job the more of a liability you become to the supervisors and managers over you from the program director, through the operations manager, to the general manager. You are perceived as ready to take their jobs at any moment. As a result, you stub your toe… and you are gone. Give them a reason, any reason, and you are gone. It’s “What have you done for me lately” all the time.

I tell you this so as to point out the terrible stress even on the “stars “ of a broadcasting station… or network.

Take a young broadcaster whose skill and talent are off the scale and you have instant stress. He is immediately on the bull’s eye. In the broadcasting business, paranoia is just damn good thinking!

The stress, of course will eventually bring on the chronic pain. Now, getting treatment for chronic pain usually requires 4 to 6 weeks in a hospital or pain clinic. For a broadcaster to stay away from his job that long is simply to kiss his job goodbye. His career can be ruined by that prolonged absence… even if it is for medical treatment.

Listening audiences are fickle… and no matter how big a star you are, if you are gone for four to six weeks… your listeners will find another personality they like and they will abandon you.

That means the station’s numbers take a nose dive and they can’t have that, so, you are gone and they bring in another rising star eager to take you job for about half what the company was paying you.

So, you are now a “has-been” in a lot of pain! Depression anyone?
Then… there is the pain itself.

In the USA, doctors are scared to death to write a prescription for pain medications. The DEA is all over them in no time flat.

There is no reason for any American to suffer pain. We have the meds and the treatments to stop pain. It is a medical fact that healing is faster when the pain is controlled. Yet, our government places such stringent controls on our doctors that the doctors allow their patients to suffer, in pain, and drag out the healing process rather than face an angry government, which just might yank their license and end their careers.

Many, millions of people in the USA suffer daily with chronic pain, and will for the remainder of their lives, all the while KNOWING there is medication to ease their suffering but the government dares the physician to write the script for it. How’s that for torture?

And then… there is the burden of being a political conservative. Conservatives are held to a higher standard in America. There is simply no question about it. We preach family values, and faith in God, and loyalty to ones country, but we conservatives are subject to the same foibles, the same temptations, as leftists are. Yet, when we slip and fall, as we frequently do, we are hailed as hypocrites and liars and conmen instead of what we really are… human.

I live in a county in which Democrats outnumber me 13 to 1. For nearly 30 years I was in a position in which I was in the public eye constantly. Everyone knew I was/am a conservative. And even though I am retired, I know there are some things I cannot do, and some places I cannot go, simply because I am held to a higher standard by the public in which I am heavily outnumbered by leftists.

I’m a political activist, a conservative, and a former public figure and I know whereof I speak.

If Limbaugh did what he is accused of doing… I can readily understand why. Pain even caused Jesus Christ himself to cry out in agony and ask his Father why He had abandoned Him!

No, I will not condemn Mr. Limbaugh. I can’t. I’m not righteous enough. Maybe you are. If so, then, more power to you. As for me, well, I’m just an old sinner, an old Pharisee, who will muddle along doing the best I can with all my human frailties hoping, all the while, that I don’t screw-up until my days on this hunk of dirt are over. Then, I’m going home where I know I’ll get comfort from the pain.

I the meantime, our prayers are with Mr. Limbaugh.

Longstreet