Civility Watchdog: June 27, 2016, Rush Limbaugh

"The story's at Mediaite. They conclude this with this paragraph: "Posner, an influential jurist who has served as a federal judge for thirty-five years, has previously voiced his disregard for the Constitution. "'I'm not particularly interested in the 18th Century, nor am I particularly interested in the text of the Constitution. I don't believe that any document drafted in the 18th century can guide our behavior today,' he said during a 2015 colloquium." He's not a dumb guy by any stretch, but this presents a total misunderstanding of what the Constitution is. It's a profound distortion of what the Constitution is. This is stunning. The Constitution planted the roots of American exceptionalism -- again, defined by the fact that America was the "exception" to the way and the rule of life for humanity centuries before. The Constitution... Well, Magna Carta. Magna Carta. I guess we'd have to say Magna Carta was first, but the US Constitution was the first document to ever limit the government. And that is why the opponents want to get rid of it, because it limits the government. It does not empower government. It empowers citizens. It empowers individuals. The Constitution spends all of its time, the Bill of Rights, defining what the government cannot do. And that just irritates people who think the government ought to be able to do anything and everything, because other people -- average people -- are not competent or qualified to make their own decisions. Or, it's worse than that. It's just people that are totally power mad and power hungry who doesn't believe in representative government, do not believe in republics."

-- Pundit Rush Limbaugh, June 27, 2016, referring to a story that day about 7th Circuit Judge Richard Posner.

Comment: Limbaugh is demonizing people – he doesn't name precisely who, except that they are of a similar mind to Posner – accusing them of craving power for power's sake and of believing "average people" are too stupid to run their own lives.