Money Matters

If he broke the law re money laundering, then, by all means, he is accountable. Just like anyone else would be. Of course, it will be more newsworthy if he is charged with this crime than if the average person is.

And, if I may be permitted a wee aside, how sweet it would be if that hypocrite were hoisted by his own petard...

[Edited for very embarrassing typo]

Other.

1) I see this incident as just one more example of how the war on drugs has gotten out of hand, and why it should be ended as soon as possible. If Rush Limbaugh, or anyone else, wants to binge on pain killers, that's his own private decision. The government has no business interfering with it.

2) Given that the laws are what they are, Limbaugh should be held accountable to them like anyone else. If the courts treat drug laws with benign neglect for other people, they should treat them with benign neglect for Limbaugh. If they don't, they shouldn't.

3) Rush Limbaugh is an ill-informed, fanatic, and abusive jerk. The most disgusting political agitator the world has seen since Joseph Goebbels in my opinion. But this doesn't make him any more or less accountable to Anerica's drug laws. Nor does it make the laws any more or less screwed up.

I agree with Thomas that the laws about drugs are idiotic, and need to be changed. Limbaugh wasn't stealing hubcaps to get the drugs.

I am very curious as to what is going to come of this. If an example is made of Limbaugh, it may create a political brouhaha that could be far reaching.

I will sit and wait and watch this all unfold, with baited breath!

Not sure what is meant by making an example of Limbaugh. Others who do what he did go unpunished? It just so happens that he's a lot more famous than most others who do the same crimes. Same as for Martha Stewart...

Though for the record, I agree that our drug laws are absurd...

This is all very muddled in my mind. I think that the law is absurd. Limbaugh hurt no one but himself. He has gone to rehab. I see nothing to be gained by society by putting him in the pokey. If the law were even handed, the cops would raid Betty Ford weekly, and haul in all the bigwigs who have, after all, broken the law too.

I think that if there were an agressive campaign to convict Limbaugh, to many it would seem a political act. And then I believe that there would be a backlash, big time.

IMO, the government should let this all go away quietly.

~wundrin' where that hypocrite part came from, probably from left field...
Funny, that's where most of my parts come from too. oh, that didn't come out quite right did it...

Anyways, not to play the moral high-ground or anything, well, actually, yes I will play the moral high-ground, what makes what he did any different from what we do. We each have issues and struggles, and he has admitted them and dealt with them. It took some pressure (and believe me, there's lots of pressure up there), but doesn't it usually take pressure of some kind to cause us to 'air our issues' and deal with things that feasibly could have been dealt with privately with a lot less pain?

If he's responsible for committing a crime like money laundering, by all means throw the book at him... but how does that make him a hypocrite?

As I understand it, one of the issues he likes to rant about is how drug users escape jail. And that's why I call him a hypocrite.

Oh, and yes, Ditto (heads) on the drug laws. Why not simply let the coppers-narks (cops to you yankees) focus on real crime like robbery (and its permutations), violence (and its ugly cousins), and murder (and its feindish friends). Then simply add a little extra penalty for committing a crime which imbibing or sniffing or however they've dreamed of getting the chems inside themselves these days. Give extra penalty for crimes committed while under the influence of mood or mind altering drugs, because, presumably, the person is aware of the changes that take place in their disposition due to those drugs.

This solution would also help the nasty drunk-driving issue...

Then those who've really not hurt anybody (like Rushy) will simply get fixed (with detox, or was that botox, anybody want to know how he lost all that weight...), and those who've really done it bad (like the sky-high child abuser) will get the book on the nose like they deserve.

I'm all for decriminalizing drugs. I am not, however, interested in seeing Limbaugh be the poster child for drug legalization--not after all this capital he's made from bashing others who have the same life style.

D'artagnan - I hear ya, but I never knew that there was a law against being obnoxious and hypocritical.

I like the way radio host Alan Colmes refers to this situation. As I understand him, he has compassion for ANYONE with a drug dependence problem; regardless of who that person is or what that person's political position is, or what that person has said about other people with drug problems. That decision is based on what Colmes believes about addiction, not what he thinks about the individual addict.
It is immaterial whether or not Rush Limbaugh is a hypocrite, in the decision to have compassion for his problem.

There now appear to be accusations of money laundering, which is the original topic of this thread. Are we also to be compassionate toward Rush in this regard?

I believe we ought to be as compassionate to Rush as he has been to others with his addiction.

J

Hey Joe!
High Five!

"It's only justice we seek, my friends of the EIB network, only justice, nothing more. And if we sense that our rock-ribbed conservative brethren believe that there is a hint of vengeance here, I am here to tell you (rattle papers for effect) that is their guilty, guilty minds speaking. I, on the other hand, speak to you only with the truth. More in a moment after this"

With apologies to Mr. Limbaugh. Style is everything after all.

Joe Nation