Although the “Crazy Right-Wing Rant” arena is always crowded, frequent entrant Rush Limbaugh wins the Stupidity Overload Award™ for these bizarre non-sequiturs:
LIMBAUGH: And so, now, we find out that there is obesity and all this amongst the poor more than amongst those who are not poor. It’s sort of a textbook case of what happens when we let liberals have their way. I mean, for decades, all over the world, we’ve been beat about the head that there are hungry people out there, that they are starving. UNICEF — how many of you trick-or-treated for UNICEF? Did you “Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF,” Brian? We all did — did you? We all trick-or-treated. One of the biggest scams on the face of the earth. It was — the scam was to get everybody loving the United Nations. The scam was to get everybody thinking the United Nations is feeding poor people. Remember all these stories: “A dime a day will feed 20 kids in some outward place around the world”?
[…]
LIMBAUGH: This is what happens when you let the left run things. We’ve been beat about the head. There are hungry people everywhere. UNICEF got it all started. We’ve seen the babies with the extended tummies, the walking skeletons, told that kids can’t learn unless they’re fed. We’ve been guilted into pouring resources on the problem. And now, now, the latest crisis is that there is obesity among those who are impoverished. Because we are sympathetic, we are compassionate people, we have responded by letting our government literally feed these people to the point of obesity. At least here in America, didn’t teach them how to fish, we gave them the fish. Didn’t teach them how to butcher a — slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter.
There’s lots of things to say about this, but in general, if one points out that
- Regardless of whether food stamps or welfare checks are involved, more affluent people always have easier access to more food than poorer ones do;
- Therefore it appears that well-off countries like the USA, the Divine and All-Knowing Invisible Hand aligns nutrition and lifestyle choices so that it’s cheaper to tend towards obesity—
- Will Rush Limbaugh’s substance-abuse-addled head explode?
Why do you always say what I’m thinking? Good on you Firas, I love your intelligent blogs.
Limbaugh is very confused and seemingly poorly informed. The rising incidence of obesity that we are hearing about is in the middle class in the U.S. and to lesser extent in other developed countries, and extending in those countries down into those at more modest income levels. This situation has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the widespread problem of child malnutrition and sometimes famine in poor countries around the world.
Yes, UNICEF from its founding in 1946 was one of the first voices to bring child malnutrition to the attention of the world. Over the following decades, UNICEF along with the World Food Programme, CARE, Save the Children, Oxfam, Catholic Relief and others have saved the lives of millions of children in famines in India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and elsewhere. They have also helped to bring down the incidence of severe child malnutrition. One concrete indicator of this has been the fact that between 1960 and 2000 infant and young child mortality rates in the developing countries where cut in half.
The “Trick-or-Treat” contributions and many others to UNICEF have indeed contributed to improving child health, nutrition and education of millions of children around the world.
At least here in America, didn’t teach them how to fish, we gave them the fish. Didn’t teach them how to butcher a — slaughter a cow to get the butter, we gave them the butter.
What in God’s name is he trying to say here? Anyone want to try and decipher this? It seems utterly contradictory…
…and has anyone ever bothered to tell him that you don’t slaughter cows to get butter?
Magister Mundi: Hah, to be fair I sort of see what he was getting at—he’s just trying to come up with ways to say that “librulls” undertake policies which tend to decrease self-sufficiency (eg. give a man a fish vs. teach him to fish). Somewhere along the line his neurons sparked randomly around, coming up with the brilliant idea of teaching people to slaughter cows to get butter… is “teach a person to make butter” even an idiom? Where did he come up with that?
Thank you for helping to point out what a slanted, ignorant and loudmouthed S.O.B. Rush Limbaugh is! The only things scarier than an idiot like him are the people that fund him and the mindless masses that listen to his hogwash and take it for the truth.
He is so ran. He says only what he does for ratings you know that shock factor he is like the KKK but instead of doing everything illegal he just push the legal limit with a toe on the line.People dont believe a thing the man says he is just angry his life is such a mess. If we ignore him maby he will go away. He only says the things he does becuse he likes to watch people get upset. Soooo ignore him.
you are right on victoria