I Love Issues, Etc. but…
Friday, March 27th, 2009
I just got around to listening to Monday’s segment on “Rush Limbaugh’s World View.” All I can says is they whiffed on that one like it was a Tim Lincecum changeup. I agree that Limbaugh’s worldview is not thoroughly Christian in that he has too high a regard for fallen man. Beyond that most of what was argued against was a characature.
The guest, Dr. John Mark Reynolds, started with this:
Too often Rush sounds as if tax cuts are the solution to every problem. And that government can become infinitely smaller.
This is clearly a misrepresentation of Limbaugh’s stance on both taxes and the size of government. Limbaugh subscribes to the Laffer Curve theory which basically says there is an optimum tax rate and higher tax rates don’t necessarily equal greater income to the government. As for the size of government, Limbaugh has never advocated anarchy, an infinitely small government. This is flat out disingenuous and is hopefully more hyperbole than his opinion.
Then, talking about a Rush’s lack of a Christian worldview, Dr. Reynolds says:
JMR: If we don’t understand some basic concepts like, individuals need some check and balance on their own behavior. Will ultimately make bad decisions in the long term.
Once again Dr. Reynolds equates Limbaugh’s view of limited government with anarchy. What checks and balances is Dr. Reynolds talking about? Limbaugh is a big supporter of the objective system of checks and balances, the rule of law.
Then this exchange regarding big business:
TW: I often hear Rush Limbaugh talk as though government needs strong checks and balances. But business, especially big business, doesn’t need any checks and balances.
JMR: Let’s look at the example of food. American food is much cleaner now that we have some government intervention making sure that we’re not being poisoned and being fed food that literally is killing us today. My grand father was killed by a company that decided that he should cut asbestos without a mask back in an era when they knew that cutting asbestos without a mask would be bad for him. They didn’t inform him of this fact. They didn’t provide him proper safety equipment. And business was big enough that they could ward off anything other than some government intervention.
The death of Dr. Reynolds’ grandfather is a tragedy. But sadly is a ruse used by Dr. Reynolds. How is the death of a man due to criminal negligence by a company proof that food quality is improved by government intervention? Maybe it was technological improvements and demands by the consumer that improved quality, not government standards.
JMR: But to pretend that, for example, the world would be a better place if there was no government regulation of food, to pick a very simple example, is I think utopian in the extreme.
Once again, I fail to see how government regulations improve the quality of food. I know the point Dr. Reynolds is trying to make without saying it. He is saying that without government regulations, big business would try to maximize profit by providing low quality that is potentially lethal. I’m sorry, but I’ve never heard that espoused as a good way to do business. The free market will decide what is acceptable quality and what price it will pay for that quality and what it will pay for greater quality. As far as the harm done to individuals, applying the law to those responsible for the harm might be a good place to start instead of regulatory bodies just as prone to corruption.
JMR: We know what food looked like before the government intervened. And what city people had to eat. And it wasn’t some perfect, self-interested utopia. We were lied to and often poisoned. And businesses often poisoned their employees or harmed them.
…
Some government is necessary to check big business because people aren’t powerful enough to do it themselves.
Getting back to Limbaugh, this is once again a mischaracterization of his stand. Dr. Reynolds continues to equate Limbaugh’s call for limited government with a call for no government. To me, it is quite evident that Dr. Reynolds’ grandfather’s death is a big contributor to his perspective. And he has gone off the tracks of making this an argument about a Christian worldview and turned it into a view of the role of government which Christians are free to disagree upon. The view that people aren’t powerful enough to protect themselves from big business has nothing to do with your view of fallen man.
JMR: So it’s not even enough to have big business and big government checking each other. We need strong families, we need strong churches, and we need strong civic institutions, like the old women’s club that can check government and business. I’m afraid too many of those structures have become too weak to exercise too much force.
This is where Dr. Reynolds really misses the mark on Limbaugh. It is the same institutions, families and civic institutions, that Dr. Reynolds advocates for that Limbaugh advocates for. It is Dr. Reynolds confidence in regulatory bodies that is the real difference.
I want to close with some rare criticism of Pastor Wilken. As a follow on to Dr. Reynolds discussion on trust in big government vs. big business, Pastor Wilken asked:
I wonder, would you go so far as to say, obviously with some qualification, that just as the socialists would pin their hopes upon unfettered government as the answer; as a mirror image of that, Rush Limbaugh conservatives might pin their hopes on unfettered markets?
Pastor Wilken just talked about the biggest lesson he learned from Jeff Schwarz which was to be specific. Well this question was so vague as to be pointless. The “qualification” and definition of “unfettered” are central to answering this question. A truly unfettered government would be an oligarchy and a truly unfettered market would be anarchy. What’s missing is that “Rush Limbaugh conservatives” would include the rule of law whereas the socialists would put the elites above the law.
What was really missing from this whole interview was the place of the first use of the Law (shame on you Pastor Wilken). Limbaugh was characterized as believing that the “curb” was embodied in the free market. As he comes from a family of lawyers, I doubt this is his position. I think he sees objective laws as the curb. It is true that Limbaugh sees human progression more like an American than a Christian, but to characterize him as believing in free markets without the restraint of law is way off base.
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