While he had some controversial views and opinions, that's quite a blanketed statement. Painting everyone you don't like with arbitrary claims is not how you deal with polarizing individuals. I did not agree with him on ~70% of what he had to say but will defend the fact that a lot of things he said were taken out of context.
Such as? Every time I heard a Limbaugh quote that sounded absolutely outrageous, then listened to the audio in context, it was as bad if not worse than the summary.
Was broadcasting this to an audience of mostly old impressionable people who looked up to him 'taken out of context' as well?
Do you really think saying the below did not result in greater illness and/or death of at least some people and greater spread?
>RUSH: Folks, this coronavirus thing, I want to try to put this in perspective for you. It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump. Now, I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus. (interruption) You think I’m wrong about this? You think I’m missing it by saying that’s… (interruption) Yeah, I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks.
OP was talking about "sowing hate"; the topic was not on unpopular opinions or view points. "...mostly old impressionable people" is a bit of an oxymoron; it's a bit arrogant that you would try to assert that "old" people are not capable of forming their own opinions or seeking out others. There will come a point in time where applying labels where they don't belong will no longer work to silence opposing views that you don't like.
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RUSH: Folks, this coronavirus thing, I want to try to put this in perspective for you. It looks like the coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump. Now, I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus. (interruption) You think I’m wrong about this? You think I’m missing it by saying that’s… (interruption) Yeah, I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks.
Your quote from Rush is actually one of the few things that I actually agree with. The better response to this would have been to do absolutely nothing at all.
>it's a bit arrogant that you would try to assert that "old" people are not capable of forming their own opinions or seeking out others. There will come a point in time where applying labels where they don't belong will no longer work to silence opposing views that you don't like.
It's a fact that older people tend to fall victim to false information disproportionately at higher rates than younger people.
>Your quote from Rush is actually one of the few things that I actually agree with. The better response to this would have been to do absolutely nothing at all
Ironic given the above, because now you're saying it's worth killing a lot of old people for some economic gain, not to mention hospitals getting overloaded resulting in deaths of younger people from road accidents and other treatable illnesses etc.
The link you provided does not support your statement.
It is about financial scams, and not disinformation per se. Specifically it reports, "Older adults were the least likely of any age group to report losing money to scams. But when older consumers experience consumer fraud, their reported financial losses were greater than what younger consumers reported.".
They also report on the specific scams older people tend to fall prey to, namely: "older adults were more likely than younger consumers to report losing money on tech support scams, prize, sweepstakes & lottery scams, and family & friend impersonation. Phone scams did the most financial damage. And while gift cards became the payment of choice for scammers, wire transfers still take the top spot for total dollars paid.".
How did you generalize all of this into saying that "older people tend to fall victim to false information disproportionately at higher rates than younger people."? Do you have direct evidence for that?
I think we have to be careful when trying to paint an entire group of people in this discriminatory way, especially without evidence, which is probably what parent comment was getting at.
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Ironic given the above, because now you're saying it's worth killing a lot of old people for some economic gain, not to mention hospitals getting overloaded resulting in deaths of younger people from road accidents and other treatable illnesses etc.
It's not "...worth killing a lot of old people for some economic gain..." and it was never about that. The unintended consequences of this circus brought on by both parties has resulted in more death. We've allowed politicians and prominent figures to make negligent decisions that have resulted in deaths that could have been prevented.
People die from a wide range of things, some preventable and some not so much. Keeping everyone inside and preventing them from socializing has resulted in more deaths than a virus with a significantly low mortality rate. Why don't we shut the world down for other causes of death that have been happening in greater numbers? The sensible thing would have been to isolate populations with compromised immune systems and maybe make vitamin D supplementation a priority.
"I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."
I've heard plenty of him due to close relatives refusing to turn him off in my presence. They called it "education".
The most specific thing I remember was somewhat subtle, and incredibly insidious: Almost always, he would refer to Barack Obama using first and last name. However during one show where Muslims were in context (probably terrorism, but I don't remember specifically), he consistently used "Barack Hussein Obama". I don't remember him actually calling Obama Muslim directly in that episode, but he clearly wanted to both paint being Muslim in general as evil, and associate the (then current) president with Muslims.
This is a man who not only spread hate, but did so intentionally and effectively.