WHAT'S WRONG WITH PEOPLE? Like it or not Rush Limbaugh should be allowed to say what he did on the radio in AMERICA!
[Re:] Rush Limbaugh - Let me dumb it down for some of you. I don't want the GOVERNMENT or ADVERTISERS to control what I listen to on the radio
A lot of you dopes are confused by 'I'm offended' AND 'I'm offended and NO ONE should be allowed to listen to him' THERE'S A BIG DIFFERENCE
A common response to the first sentiment is (and I'll quote an actual comment): "Of course he has the right [to say what he did]. And thousands of people have the right to say, 'You're an ass, we won't do business with your advertisers.'" I take issue with that.
What do advertisers have to do with a radio program, television show, magazine article, movie, etc. in terms of those shows content? Nothing...so I don't get the association. Maybe I'm the weirdo here, but I've never viewed any advertising for any show I've ever watched as somehow connected to the show I'm watching and/or listening to. And I resent the people who insist on making this conflation and then taking their trumped up connection to now threaten advertisers with boycotts and other forms of social shaming to further their agendas. And of course, because of these stupid-ass people, the advertisers now have to act like they are in fact part of the shows and programs upon which they advertise. They'll announce the cessation of their partnerships with bullshit lines like, "Our company no longer wishes to be associated with such&such a show" or mentioning something about their company's "image" and/or "reputation". Really? Neither assertion makes sense to me from the point of view of an advertiser. I can only see such points coming about because of stupid assholes conflating advertising with the shows they advertise on.
The point of advertising is to sell your wares and advertising is more effective on platforms which speak to the most people. I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh, but I know a lot of people do...millions in fact (or not...maybe). Why would you not want to be associated with that? How is walking away from millions of potential customers a rational business decision? It's not even rational to take a boycott threat seriously. While there have been effective boycotts, they're notable for being small in number. The image and reputation arguments are also invalid. How is Honda's or Toyota's image and/or reputation served by Family Guy? How does Survivor hold up the reputation of Doritos? When you think of Desperate Housewives, does Pepsi come to mind? Who's actually making these associations between what is being advertised and the shows they're watching these ads on? And I don't want to hear absent these associations, bullshit ideas like sex toys would be advertised during children's shows because that wouldn't happen and not because of broadcasters forbidding it but because of demographics. A kid watching the Cartoon Express (I'm old) is not going to be contributing to dildo sales so sex toy vendors aren't going to be dropping their advertising dollars on such programming.
Advertising is a necessary evil and will continue to be so for as long as corporations exist that have products to sell and services to offer. They need to remind you constantly of their existence or they will go away. There's a story I remember (but can't find proof of online...) about a soap company that was so successful that the owner deemed advertising of its product an unnecessary expense so he stopped...and business promptly plummeted. Out of sight, out of mind. His rivals did not stop advertising so they got his business (not that this does not happen). My point is that I don't want to give advertisers power over content decisions on the programs which they advertise: it's not their place. Their decision to advertise should only be based on either total readership/listenership/viewership or the demographics of that audience or both, not over what is being written/said/shown because the latter is not relevant to the former. But that's not the way it works because of the bullying tactics employed by people who don't grasp the concept of free speech.
Simply put, if you don't like what is being said...don't listen to it. No one is forcing you to read an article/listen to a show/watch a program you don't like. As Opie correctly points out, there's a big difference between "I'm offended" and "I'm offended and no one should be allowed to listen to him". I don't abide by that kind of censorship.
I also find such pushes hypocritical on the part of the protestors. These are often the same people who want government out of our lives or people who don't want corporations controlling us. It seems that when conservatives get offended (typically the small government type), they want the government to step in and do something about it; and when liberals get offended (typically the anti-corporate type), they want corporations to step in and do something about it (or step out and thus do something about it). But since this stupid post is about the latter, I'll conclude with this: You can't resent attempts by corporations to control our lives while simultaneously wielding them to control the media content we're exposed to.
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