DR. JACK R. VAN ENS, AUTHOR

CREATIVE GROWTH INC.

9745 W. 77 TH DRIVE

ARVADA, CO 80005

TEL. 303-420-7416

E-mail: vanensfam@juno.com

Web site: www.thelivinghistory.com

RUSH LIMBAUGH UNCOMPROMISINGLY REJECTS COMPROMISE

Rush Limbaugh loves his political enemies. He knows he can't survive on talk radio without them. His verbal punch turns limp if he can't slug Liberalism and its drive-by media. Rush views life as an epic battle between light and dark, capitalism and socialism, self-made masters and those enslaved to government handouts.

Some of his fawning fans urge Rush to run for political office. He quickly rejects these pleas. If he were on the stump instead of safely behind a microphone in his studio bunker, Rush knows he'd be forced to seek compromise. Politics is the art of negotiation. Rush dismisses compromise as an exercise for the weak and negotiation what bleeding heart Liberals relish. The same way mindless eating makes us fat, the indigestion of Limbaugh's no-compromise rants leads to a top-heavy imitation of what's true.

Talk radio's king would have to temper his words and soften his judgments if he ran for political office. He couldn't only play on fields filled with fans. Safely in a South Florida broadcasting command post, he plays musical parodies, making opponents sound like yokels. He's fond of the razor sharp quip and extravagant hyperbole. Such verbal smears act like crazy mirrors at country fairs that project misshapen images of those standing before them. Rush ridicules such weird, gross figures of the Liberalism he deplores.

He lambastes Hillary Clinton for capitulating to Liberalism that never saw a tax increase it didn't like. He excoriates John McCain for being a sanctimonious compromiser. McCain didn't initially support President George W. Bush's tax cuts. He wants to deal justly with Mexican immigrants rather than wall them out Moreover, McCain really upsets Rush because he has worked to limit campaign contributions. Doesn't this law deny a voter's right to donate big bucks for favorite candidates, Rush rants?

Limbaugh fears Barack Obama as a dangerous candidate because a Teflon shield protects him, much as it did Ronald Reagan. Barbs aimed at Obama don't stick because he's so likeable. Mudslinging won't adhere because his winsome speeches deflect the dirt. Besides, Obama comes partly from Black ancestry. When critics pounce on him, they incur America's wrath. It's not fashionable to throw racist barbs.

Unlike Limbaugh, Obama excels at compromising. He negotiates with opponents. Facing challengers head-on and finding workable solutions, he's a moving target Rush finds hard to hit. Like Obama, the Apostle Paul, who usually stuck to his theological guns, showed flexibility, too. He worked towards compromise, declaring, "I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some" ( I Corinthians 9:22). Paul wasn't an ideological purist like Rush. He'd bend. The Apostle sought news ways of dealing with old problems, rather than molding a made-up mind.

Listening to Limbaugh helps re-affirm my allegiance to Thomas Jefferson who artfully championed the power of compromise. Limbaugh, who lacks a college education, flunks valuable tests Jefferson aced. They are polar opposites in mind and method.

When recruiting the University of Virginia's faculty, Jefferson had to negotiate with suspicious Presbyterians. They wanted only their own religious kind on faculty. These ardent Calvinists, the fiercest nemeses Jefferson faced, thought it odd and ungodly that his campus architectural drawings didn't allow for a Christian chapel. He coyly asked, "Whose chapel shall it be-Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, or Baptist?" Jefferson pointed antagonists toward open land contiguous to the university. Let religious groups desiring chapels of their own theological stripe buy this land and erect houses of worship.

Jefferson invited on faculty Thomas Cooper, a Deist. Today, his affiliation would resemble "Unitarian." Cooper dismissed miracles as figments of overly ripe religious imaginations. He denied Christ's divinity as holy hocus-pocus. Angry Presbyterians leaned on Jefferson to withdraw the invitation for Cooper to teach. Jefferson realized that in order to walk a mile, travelers had to back-pedal an inch. Sometimes hikers walk along a swollen stream before fording it. If they plunge into rapids where the main path leads, hikers might drown. Diverting from a well-worn route saves lives.

Sounding like Limbaugh, Cooper urged Jefferson to never capitulate to religious extremists and scolded him for staffing the new university with a theological chair, Jefferson articulated the value of compromise. "We can not always do what is absolutely best. Those with whom we act, entertaining different views, have the power and right of carrying them into practice."

"Truth advances and error recedes step by step only," Jefferson declared, "and to do to our fellow men ( sic) the most good in our power, we must lead where we can, follow where we cannot and still go with them, watching always the favorable moment for helping them to another step."

Limbaugh and Jefferson clash over the value of compromise. Limbaugh unthinkingly equates compromise with capitulation. He regards every battle as a fight to the finish. Truth, as he perceives it, must be guarded at every turn. He brands compromisers as those who put their arched, moistened fingers to the wind to feel where political breezes blow. Popular political winds makes their political sails billow.