Contraception

This.

And this.

I think this pretty well addresses the situation itself.

And this pretty well addresses the arguments against boycotting his sponsors. I am a consumer. I choose what I buy. If your company is involved in what I consider to be repugnant practises, I have the right not to buy your product. How is that censorship???

Really? We really need to go back to remedial day on the First Amendment and boycotts? Because saying something's not a good idea or sets a poor precedent is the same as saying that it violates even the spirit of the First Amendment? Also, I thought--and perhaps this is my mistake--that I was clear in saying one of my major problems with this boycott is its ongoing nature, the unstated goal of it seems to be to get him thrown off the air, despite getting the (admittedly insincere) apology at first desired. So what is the goal? What would satisfy boycotters at this point?

Here's a couple of things I think are problematic about this:

1) The boycotters are not his audience. Despite Rush still having a large audience that wants to hear what he has to say (as disturbing as that is), he may be barred from being on the airwaves (yes, he could always go to satellite, which a cost to listen and a much smaller audience pool) because of pressure by people who don't listen to him and don't like him anyway.

2) The goal started out as an apology, which has been delivered. Yes it was insincere, but as at least one columnist pointed out, just like a little kid, if you force someone to apologize for something they don't think is wrong of course it will be insincere. At this point I don't know what Limbaugh could do that would satisfy his critics (and he's shown little willingness to do anything) other than him getting fired or his show getting canceled. I don't think reasoned discourse is or should be a bar to broadcast. (This is a spirit of the First Amendment v. letter of it issue)

3) Clinda quoted Maher talking about libel. If Fluke wanted to pursue civil action against Limbaugh I would see it as totally within her rights and--I'm not lawyer--I would reckon she probably as a decent enough case. I don't understand why the focus is on that instead of boycotting.

4) The "boycott" such as it is doesn't actually seem like a boycott. It seems like a lot of angry letters to a lot of companies. As in point one, are all the people emailing/calling/writing/"boycotting" all these companies actually engage in boycott? How many people were on the fence about buying a Sleep Number bed and didn't? How many people got rid of Sleep Number beds they had? Bluntly, have these companies actually seen sales go down?

5) Just like the apology (and absent actual lose of sales), what expectation is there these companies are boycotting because they actually give a shit what Limbaugh said? How many of these companies are done with Limbaugh and how many of them are just waiting for the storm to blow over before the costs of not reaching his audience outweigh the costs of publicly supporting him?

My philosophical problem overall is that absent abandonment of audience and lose of sales of sponsors, this isn't a boycott in the truest sense. It's a bunch of angry email/letter writers being temporarily placated in a patronizing way by both Limbaugh and his advertisers, and it does nothing to advance any actual conversation. The media cycle is doing what the media cycle does (Who's worse Rush or Keith/Bill/Ed? Is the "War on Women" tactic working for Obama? Are liberals hypocrites), there's no real discussion of issues. So we get the loudest voices (in this case, the anti-Limbaugh crowd, whom I broadly agree with) being the most effective. Not the most persuasive, or reasonable, or even largest. Just loudest. And, frankly, Limbaugh himself is a product of that trend. Why perpetuate it?

The dangerous part is I'm affecting someone else's media. If I can affect the conservative stations, they can affect my stations. And I think that the Christian Right wing has shown a much stronger ability to throw themselves into a fervor than the left wing.

And its a socially conservative, reactionary, base that gave us rating systems like the MPAA. While they perhaps serve a proper function, they also create censorship and form what films the American populace views, which ultimately also affects our perceptions of reality.

I don't think in the case of Limbaugh, nor even in the case of Doonesbury, was this uncalled for.

I honestly can't say whether or not it's appropriate for people to be writing or e-mailing these sponsors with their displeasure, but it is fully within my rights as a consumer to pick and chose what companies I want to deal with. If I feel that a company I typically deal with has crossed a line by sponsoring anyone (or using someone I disagree with to sponsor them), I'll not give them my business any more, it's that simple.

The discussion makes me wonder though, in a culture that's becoming more and more about money, scare tactics, and shock effect, if these boycotts aren't just people's way of saying ENOUGH, ALREADY! It was mentioned that if we, as non-listeners, boycott Captain Douchebags' sponsors, his listeners can quite easily affect our media the same way (and I'm quite sure they already have, many times before). Maybe that's not a bad thing. I'd like to think that the majority of the population is reason-minded and able to follow logic - if that's the case, some of these assholes who get/stay rich preying on and feeding people's fears and hatred might just shoot themselves in the foot. Then perhaps we can get back to worrying about things that actually need to be dealt with, instead of dealing with issues that are being invented strictly to strike fear in closed-minded people.

Dude, you called it a "trap". That implies pretty strongly that it somehow wasn't Limbaugh's fault. There was no trap, there was simply a nation--including some of Limbaugh's own party of choice--getting fed up with his bullshit and finally doing something about it. The backlash wasn't simply a response to his comments alone--it was a response to the racist, misogynist, hypocritical, religiously oppressive, hateful, hurtful bile he has been putting out on the air for like three hours a day over the course of decades. If you want to start an ad boycott against Bill Maher, I'll be right there because the man is a bag of cocks. But Limbaugh, by comparison, is a fucking repurposed oil tanker loaded with cocks, with a pile of more cocks covering the deck.

Too ridiculous for a new thread, but too idiotic not to be noted somewhere, I figured this most recent bit may as well go in the last thread about Rush Limbaugh's at-this-point utterly cartoonish stupidity:

Limbaugh: Hurricane is Obama Conspiracy to Disrupt GOP Convention

Yeah...

He's obviously a Kenyan witch doctor.

I'm afraid Obama's supernatural powers are restricted to only annoying maligned Republicans... (redundant?)

Now when it's God behind the elements, it's because of his wrath against liberalism and the gays.

Well, he is from Kenya, after all.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

He obviously forged it with his magic witchcraft powers.

Limbaugh: Penises now '10 percent smaller' because of feminazis.

At this point, after all the surreal idiocy voiced by Limbaugh, it's worth noting that this nonsense is not just the ravings of a lunatic fringe voice within his party, nor merely the words of an "entertainer" as party bosses claim when their backs are against the wall.

It matters because any conservative politician worth his salt knows he oughtn't dare cross Limbaugh. Yes, it's hilarious, but savvy Republicans have long realized if you say a word to contradict Rush as a mainstream Republican, you better be planning on switching parties tomorrow. For decades, he has been the de facto leader of the Republicans - this is the kind of "thinking" the Republicans in 2012 have decided to embrace.

People still say "feminazi?"

"Does the person who initially brought the term into popular usage still use it?"

Not surprisingly, the answer is "yes."

Although we could say that since it's Rush, "people" don't use it.

You gotta be human to be "people."

Yeah... Rush is not the only one who uses the term "feminazi", as anyone who's had the misfortune of reading the "A Voice for Men" website or Paula Kirby's "Sisterhood of the Oppressed" knows. "Feminazi" is still a very popular slur these days...

I'd totally vote for the guy who can control the weather.

Just saying.

Better remember this, guys; treat a female well and your penis will get smaller.

Who needs all those pumps and pills, if you want your penis to get bigger smack a bitch up! (It must work the opposite way, too, right?)