By Jim Ridings -
As Rush Limbaugh battles cancer, I’d like to offer an appreciation and an explanation of at least one of his statements that is misunderstood.
What Limbaugh says is plain and forthright. Some people love him, some people hate him, but he is never misunderstood if you hear him directly. The controversy comes when his enemies misrepresent his words.
Yes, Rush Limbaugh has a large ego. That is part of his charm for his fans, and it is a big reason why others dislike him.
What this leads into is an observation I made when an acquaintance (who does not like Limbaugh) started to get irritated talking about the ego. The most egregious example of unbridled ego, he said, was Limbaugh’s motto that he has “talent on loan from God.”
I’m not sure if it was because a liberal squirms when the name of God is invoked, or that he thought Limbaugh believes he possesses special powers directly from the Creator that somehow links his opinions with those of the Almighty. In any event, this statement was over the top for this person.
I had a different opinion. I suggested that this claim was Limbaugh’s least egotistical statement.
He was baffled. I explained.
It is a very Judeo-Christian belief that everything we have comes from God. Our possessions, our property, even our lives. They are on loan from God and someday they will go back to Him. To admit that the talents and abilities we have, and even our lives, are not ours but come from God, and are loaned and not possessed, is a very humble statement. It is the opposite of ego.
How times change. During the Great Depression, when many people lost everything and were starving, they still had hope. Even Hollywood had hope; the happiest movies came from that era. Now, when things aren’t even remotely as bad, people whine and complain and give up. The government gives “disadvantaged” people more than most rich people in other countries have and they still complain it is not enough.
“Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries” is one of many optimistic songs from the Great Depression era, when life was anything but a bowl of cherries. People didn’t have much but they had hope, faith in their ability and hard work, and faith in God and in America. A line from the song goes, “The sweet things in life/To you are just loaned/So how can you lose/What you never owned?”
Our lives, our talents, our abilities are all on loan from God. I think that is what irritates liberals the most. Liberals want everything to be gifts from a soulless government. They don’t like the idea of something that comes from God.
Rush Limbaugh’s statement is one of humility, not ego. Liberals either don’t get it, or they deliberately misrepresent it.
