Rush in Denial

Rush in Denial: An Intervention

by James Ostrowski by James Ostrowski

Rush says he is not a victim. He is in denial about that, very common for an addict, a person addicted to what Lew Rockwell calls "lap-dog Republicanism."

Let’s see. One day Rush is on top of the world, host of the most popular radio show in the country. He is wealthy, respected in many circles, and he hobnobs with the rich and infamous.

The next day, he is an inmate at a drug re-education camp, getting his psyche ripped apart by self-appointed experts on addiction. He is off the radio, indefinitely. His career has been irreparably damaged. He is now a national laughingstock, the object of scorn and ridicule from his worst enemies. All this because he was forced to reveal the most intimate details of his personal life.

But he is not a victim? Sometimes when an addict is in denial, an intervention is required to bring him back to reality. Rush, this is that intervention.

You are a victim of the War on Drugs (war on people who use drugs different from the ones we use). The only reason I can discern why you went public with this revelation, suspended your show, and checked into some clinic, was in response to allegations that you illegally procured drugs through your housekeeper. This was necessary because an adult cannot buy, possess or use chemicals without permission from the Nanny State.

It is true that the scandal sheets would be interested in your alleged heavy drug use, regardless of its illegality. However, they wouldn’t know about it as it would be a routine and very private capitalist act between consenting adults.

The other main reason for your public humiliation and destruction is obvious to me as a criminal defense lawyer. No doubt your renowned lawyer has advised you to quickly get into "rehab" to curry favor with the Florida persecutors, I mean, prosecutors, who apparently have enough evidence to imprison you until the war on drugs is repealed.

Rush is a victim by any objective standard. He can’t admit it of course, because of his own mixed record of pronouncements on drug policy; because his hero Ronald Reagan was a drug warrior extraordinaire; and because many of the ditto heads are "lock ’em up and thrown way the key" types.

But I am not restrained by any such foolishness. I voted against Reagan. I don’t care about the ditto heads and I have opposed the war on drugs for thirty years out of a mere forty-five on the planet.

Rush is a victim! Rush is a victim! Rush is a victim!

Rush. This must have happened for a reason. Please use that megaphone mouth to help us end the barbaric war on drug users. Remember, a conservative is a liberal who got mugged, but a libertarian is a conservative who got arrested for a victimless crime.

October 16, 2003

James Ostrowski is an attorney practicing in Buffalo, New York. See his website at http://jimostrowski.com.

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