The press has chosen to exercise their First Amendment freedom via cowardice and Drive-by hits against conservatives to protect their liberal, Democratic Party ideological allies. Big Business, including the NFL, and too many Republicans have also chosen the easy, cowardly path for too long as well, lest they become the focus of the PC-police.

The result of the above is a morally obtuse culture mostly devoid of men with chests, in which those that dare challenge the racial/social orthodoxy have their characters assassinated at the first sign of chest puffing.

Rush Limbaugh has a chest and Courage is the most important virtue

The latest victim of the leftist racists and the cowards is Rush Limbaugh, who dared to dream of being a minority owner of the St. Louis Rams. False quotes were disseminated by the Drive-bys with CNN and others to justify their character assassination but, make no mistake, the real animus against Rush were accurate, non-racist quotes that didn’t comport with the Left’s transmogrified definition of “racist” that dare to treat blacks as the equals of whites, i.e. fair game for fair criticism, parody and satire.

The cowards in this case were NFL owners, their league’s commissioner, and, especially, Dave Checketts, the majority partner in the group seeking an NFL franchise, who had sought out Rush’s participation in the first place knowing that a controversy was likely to arise but who had assured Limbaugh that he would stick with the effort despite same.

Checketts is a man without a chest and it appears that had he shown even the slightest staying power, given the defenses of Rush from many prominent black men, including liberals like Juan Williams (man with a chest), it is very likely that the controversy would have faded.

“One man with courage makes a majority” – Andrew Jackson

It doesn’t take much to win over a majority of We the People, as Rush’s history and that of precursor’s to past conservative Republican victories (but I repeat myself as there are hardly any non-conservative GOP victories).

The Silent Majority carried Nixon to victory, and re-election in a landslide, when he dared to challenge liberal orthodoxy and take courageous actions to push back the communists in Vietnam.

Ford, Bush41, the late-90s GOP and the mid-2000s GOP lost when they moved to the center.

Reagan had the courage to identify evil empires, tax collectors for the welfare state and welfare queens on the way to landslides; Gingrich attacked corrupt Democrats to take over the Peoples’ House for the GOP the first time in forty years; and Bush43 overcame the Bushlied Era to re-election while killing terrorists by the thousands after tax rate cuts.

Rush, attacked as a racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe since going national in 1988 played a major role in the Gingrich Revolution and Bush43′s re-election, all the while increasing his record-breaking radio audience every year despite health setbacks and ubiquitous attacks.

Conservatives win when then show courage against the Left in the media and against the Democratic Party. They lose (see McCain) when they surrender to their dishonorable friends on the left. A large percentage of Democrats will vote for Republicans with chests puffed against liberal democrats.

Has the Democratic Party no shame?

The two parties are not interchangeable, even on issues that the GOP has failed on. ObamaDems first budget deficit of $1.8 TRILLION is three times as large as Bush43′s worst of $400 Billion. (Moreover, Bush43′s worst deficits were passed by Democratic majority congresses – including then Senator Obama – after they re-took control in 2006).

The shamelessness of the Democratic Party has no equal, whether it pertains to their embrace of murderous Mao supporters and/or 911-truthers in the Obama administration; race-baiting poverty-pimps that pretend 21st Century America is barely removed from the Jim Crow South; pretending to be hawks on Afghanistan just to win an election and discredit the Iraw War most all of them voted for; re-defining coup d’etats so they can back despots in Honduras, Cuba and Venezuela; or lionizing Bill Clinton as some sort of moral giant, never once asking him any tough questions about his moral failures.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin and “courage”

One of the main themes of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic, which echoes Burke and MLK, is that the “good” plantation owners enabled the longevity of the evil institution of slavery as the best example of how evil triumphs not primarily due to the acts of evil men, but rather due to the inaction of good, yet cowardly men.

Otherwise, how could the concept of courage that required courage in 1860 to speak out against slavery some how, in 2009, require that one have courage to speak out against false race-baiters or to make obvious criticisms of wicked, criminal behavior?

The NFL says that Rush’s statements are too “divisive”, including ones that merely cited obvious media bias that a black quarterback do well and that thuggish behavior hurts the image of the league. Yet, wouldn’t it have been good for the league had Falcon’s owner Arthur Blank made some “divisive” statements to Michael Vick years ago objecting to his posse of lowlifes accompanying him to his late arrivals at training camp and on game days?

Blank was afraid to criticize a black man for behavior that would have gotten a white man suspended.

We saw in the Limbaugh affair an exercise of arbitrary power akin to what we fear from a too powerful government. Our culture is sick, and the only way in can be cured is thru courage.

Courage is the indispensable virtue required to stop America from Slouching inexorable towards Gomorrah. Absent courage, the majority of We the People will continue to settle for filing mere Minority Reports.

More DeVine examinations on race.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson