Verbal Narcissists
Narcissism (nahr-suh-siz-em)- noun: Inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity. Synonyms: self-centeredness, smugness, egocentrism.
I didn’t want to write about this. I just wanted to ignore them. But, I couldn’t. Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh are very good at getting publicity. This is how they help maintain their respective empires. I don’t mean to give them even more attention.
But when Pat Robertson concludes the people of Haiti deserved what they got because they made a deal with the devil; when Rush Limbaugh criticizes President Obama for acting too quickly on Haiti-I have to add my two cents to much that has already been said about this.
First the record. Here’s Pat Robertson on the 700 Club Tuesday:
Something happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about. They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.’ True story. And so the devil said, ‘Ok it’s a deal.’ And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another.
Is he trying to impress us with his facile grasp of world history? Let me get this straight. The Haitian people made a deal with the devil to get the French to leave and are bad because they rebelled against the system of slavery? Exactly what is he trying to say? Is there a hidden message here about practitioners of voodoo? Does anyone really deserve to be crushed by collapsing buildings in a massive earthquake, let alone tens of thousands? Do children deserve to die in their school uniforms because their descendants kicked the French out? What kind of man, what kind of representative of faith and God, reaches such bizarre and cruel conclusions?
Here’s Rush Limbaugh:
This will play right into Obama’s hands. He’s humanitarian, compassionate. They’ll use this to burnish their, shall we say, “credibility” with the black community–in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It’s made-to-order for them. That’s why he couldn’t wait to get out there, could not wait to get out there.
The worst humanitarian disaster of the last half-century strikes the hemisphere and there’s something suspect about a quick reaction from the United States government- while people lay injured in rubble, and there’s a desperate race against time to save their lives? I ask again- what kind of man reaches such conclusions?
In both these cases, I believe we have the kind of men who are in love with the sound of their own voices but oblivious to the content that actually passes their lips. It’s verbal narcissism. It’s the only way to explain it.
Yes, they are narcissists. but they are also far worse. They are mean, small-brained, heartless racists who look to profit from spreading fear and hate and falsehoods instead of truth and compassion in a time of need.
I agree that what they said is wrong, but they are not bad people for simply being capitalists. Regardless of the ethics of their profiteering, you can’t ignore the fact that these men are successful at sowing fear and hate because their viewers allow them to do so. The real problem is that Americans don’t think critically enough. I’m not saying that people should check the facts – all they need to do is question the baseless drivel that is spouted by political talking heads (from either side of the political spectrum): phillipmiller.wordpress.com