Become a Clash Insider!
Big Tech is clamping down on conservative media big time. Don’t let Big Tech pre-chew your news. Sign up for our free email newsletter, and we’ll make sure to keep you in the loop.
Follow Doug on Parler @TheGilesWay.
Rush often said that his talent was on loan from God. It has now been returned, but it certainly bore fruit while he was using it.
My ClashDaily colleagues, Wes Walker and Steve Pauwels, wrote some beautiful pieces honoring Rush after once it was announced that he had moved on from this world. You can check them out here:
- Conservative Broadcasting Legend Rush Limbaugh Dies At Age 70 — Rest In Peace, El Rushbo
- Rush Limbaugh Had Consequences — It’s Why So Many Leftists Hate Him
They said so many things that needed to be said about Rush — that he was a broadcast legend and inspired many, can rightly be considered the father of conservative media as it is today, and noted his faith. But I still want to put my own words down as a conservative woman who has been a fan of Rush since I was a senior in high school.
Rush was always talking about cultural issues and the things that affected day-to-day life for Americans. When he announced his lung cancer diagnosis, he started speaking about his battle with cancer — something that so many of us have dealt with in our families.
- Rush Limbaugh Gives Cancer Update … Gets Uncharacteristically Candid About ‘Death Sentence’ Prognosis
- Rush Limbaugh Signs Off Final Show Of The Year As Only He Can
In October of 2020, Rush did something that he rarely did — he opened up about his faith and what it meant to him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbiL7HlPhrU
You can read more about how his friend and former work colleague for 28 years, Joel Rosenberg, spoke about Rush’s journey to a living relationship with Christ here:
His famous one-liner, “Talent on loan from God” took on a whole new meaning.
I know I’m not the first to note that this, but it did make me think of the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25.
4 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants[a] and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents,[b] to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.[c] You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Source: Matthew 25:14-30 (ESV) via Biblegateway
Love him or hate him, there is no denying that the man was hardworking and had a tremendous amount of talent. He resurrected a dying media form, had millions of faithful listeners, and was one of the most well-respected thinkers in the conservative movement.
Because Rush paved the way and took the hits, we have an alternative to the lecturing corporate media — one that reflected the voices of conservative Americans. He wisely invested those talents that were “on loan” to him, and because of that, more conservative media has sprung up to combat the consensus media that constantly pushes an overt left-wing ideology and denies that they do.
I have never met the man who sat behind that golden microphone, but like many of the millions of “Dittoheads”, I felt like I knew him.
Unlike many other Rush fans, I wasn’t introduced through his radio show. First, (of course,) I heard the many things that were said about him — that he was a Racist-Sexist-Bigot-Homophobe, and whatever other unflattering adjectives that could be used against him (and all conservatives, for that matter.)
I grew up in Canada and it wasn’t until I moved to Florida in the early 1990s that I first encountered Rush Limbaugh. I was a senior in high school and one day, as I was flipping through the channels on a Sunday afternoon, I stumbled upon his tv show. He was nothing at all like I was told he was. He was entertaining, intelligent, surprisingly funny, had a trained radio voice that was “like buttah.” On top of all of that, he said many of the things that I thought but was too timid to say. I was riveted.
Here’s a clip of the old show that’s a real blast from the past. Check out his comments about Murphy Brown at around the 2-minute mark.
He called out the media for what would now be called their “implicit bias” against conservatives that they deny that they have. He just wanted openness and a willingness to debate the issues instead of smear campaigns and vilification. Lay out the bias on the table and let the people know what it is you’re peddling. This is what he said that resonated with so many people.
Did Rush say some things that make me cringe? Yep. But then, so has my husband. So has my pastor, and my kids — even my mom. Heck, I’ve said some things that make me cringe when I look back on them! Rush spoke for three hours a day, five days a week in an era of polemicists and shock-jocks. He was the one guy standing up and shouting back at the entire liberal establishment that the liberal establishment denies exists. He had had enough of the polite conservatives that put up with the name-calling and fear-mongering and gave it right back to them — “Feminazis”; “Drive-By Media”; “Chuck U. Schumer” — and he called out their bias in labeling all conservatives bigots.
He made the case daily that conservatives aren’t evil, and yet, he was called evil when he was on the air, and vile people are still saying it today all over social media.
Rush’s 2009 CPAC speech explaining who conservatives really are is the stuff of legend.
The entire thing is masterful, largely extemporaneous, and certainly worth the watch — not just for right-wingers, but also for the “drive-by media” and the wokescolds on the Left. It is arguably more relevant today than when he gave the speech a dozen years ago.
I’ve been listening to Rush on and off for almost 30 years now, and reading the transcripts if I don’t get a chance to listen. He called himself the Professor of Advanced Conservative Studies at the Limbaugh Institute, and he certainly was that, at least for me. I learned so much from him, and so did millions of others.
Conservative media would not be where it is today without Rush Limbaugh.
I hope when he brought those talents that were “on loan from God” back to his Maker, that he heard, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your Master.”
Rest in Peace, Rush. Your gifts may be gone from this Earth, but your legacy lives on.
