Rush Hudson Limbaugh III has his very own conservative radio show which features, but is not limited to, political commentary. Google him and the website will also offer searches for Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Anne Coulter, and Bill O’Reilly. Follow his Twitter and you’ll discover that he’s written a fictional history book for children reimagining himself as Paul Revere. Visit his website and you’ll be greeted by a photo of him smoking a cigar. The website also features a ton of ads, all featuring photos of Rush sponsoring products. This is all a bit unusual, but barely harmful, at a first glance. Dig deeper by actually listening to his daily broadcast and it becomes clear that something isn’t right here.

“Hate speech” is a word use to describe language that attacks people based on race, sexual orientation, gender, religion, etc. Often it refers to statements that are dehumanizing or dangerous to its victims. Plenty of groups have practiced and continue to practice hate speech. The Ku Klux Klan and the Westboro Baptist Church are just two well-known examples of such groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center keeps tracks of these groups, known as “hate groups” and reported that in 2011, 1,018 were still active in the United States. Prosecution of hate crimes has been on the rise in recent years, but what about hate speech? The first amendment to the United States Constitution clearly lays out the rights that every American citizen can enjoy on a daily basis. We can practice whatever religion we want, have a jury if being tried for a crime, not be subject to housing soldiers without consent, etc. All of these are important, however, there is one right that seems to reign supreme above all others. Freedom of Speech is necessary to the freedom Americans pride themselves on. This right guarantees anyone can say pretty much whatever they want with no consequences from the government. So what happens at the intersection of hate speech and freedom of speech?

I’m a super opinionated person. So is Rush Limbaugh. However, we express our opinions quite differently. I generally offer facts, anecdotes, and common sense to support my arguments. He uses shouting, racial slurs, misogynistic comments, etc. to get his point across. To anyone who respects other people, it is painful to listen to him declare his right to say “nigga”, refer to a congresswoman as “the botox filled Nancy Pelosi”, and ask a caller with a thick African accent to “take the bone out of your nose and call me back.” These statements can sway people who are not extreme thinkers to think in a way that’s hurtful to others. They can encourage blatant racism and sexism. They are comments that are toxic to American society. That’s why I’m going to attempt to persuade people that he should no longer be allowed to host his own radio show.

“But Sarah,” you’re thinking, “this is America! We have freedom of speech here!” You’re absolutely correct. It is Rush Limbaugh’s constitutional right to spread hatred and ignorance across the land through whatever medium he chooses. This is why I’m not arguing that it is the government’s job to remove him from the air. It is the people of the United States’ job to ask the people who fund his show by advertising on it to pull their advertising, thus putting him out of business. There are already dozens of change.org petitions and Facebook groups (Flush Rush!) dedicated to this cause. The people who sign these petitions and participate in these groups prove that there are people who cannot stomach Rush’s right wing ignorance and hatred and recognize that he needs to take his opinions somewhere less public. As part of this essay and advocacy project, I plan to create my own online petition and encourage people to call or write to his advertisers and ask them to pull their funding. This is the most effective way to “Flush Rush.”

If you’re skeptical at this point, I have a really great example of the problematic nature of his show. In 2012, Sandra Fluke, a young women’s rights activist and then Georgetown Law student, testified in front of a Government Reform Committee that health insurance agencies should have to cover birth control for women. Rush Limbaugh then spent three days doing this. He called Sandra Fluke a slut, suggested that she was having “so much sex she couldn’t afford birth control” (demonstrating his ignorance of how birth control pills work), called her a prostitute, and worst of all, suggested that if taxpayers were “paying for her to have sex” that she should “post the videos online for everyone to watch.” To me and many other people, this is unacceptable and his halfhearted apology can’t make up for it. Nor can it make up for the other hateful things he has said and continues to say. It’s important that we take him off the air.

My position as a moderator was really subtle because my group was really great at keeping the conversation moving and changing topics by bringing up the different solutions for each option and giving anecdotes that supported their points. I didn’t do much beyond introducing myself, laying out the guidelines for deliberation, and keeping an eye on the time to make sure we moved towards discussing real solutions. While I would have liked to have been more active, I was glad that my group was open, candid, and there were few pauses in the deliberation.

I imagine that if the opportunity came up for me to moderate again (and it was optional) I would opt out. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy moderating, but I much prefer being able to take a stance, offer opinions, and be very active in the conversation. Should it be required for me to moderate, I would like to pose more questions and push the group towards coming up with a really solid solution if time allowed.

My favorite classes so far have been the sort of classes with an open “discussion” about the material we’re reading for the week. I say “discussion” because the format we use is more similar to a deliberation in that every keeps an open mind, offers several solutions to the issues at hand, and respects each others opinions. While we don’t often come to a concrete solution, I find that these open forums for deliberating about issues is what works best for me and so I would like to adopt the style of my Women’s Studies 100 Professor. On the first day of classes she established a list of everyone’s expectations for healthy discussion and follows those guidelines each time we discuss the material.

These guidelines are along the lines of making sure that everyone keeps an open mind, looks at all possible points of view, and offers any solutions they come up with so that everyone can refine the solutions until we come up with the best one. I’d like to incorporate these guidelines into my moderator style as well as encouraging everyone to participate equally and having my own ideas prepared to share.

I don’t have a personal opinion on the topic of gen eds yet. On one hand, I know that gen eds ultimately make us more well-rounded people with a knowledge of the world outside of our majors. But I’m also aware that many of us aren’t here for that. Many of us are shelling out thousands of dollars to get a degree in hopes that we will get a job based on our major so maybe we should be taking more classes focused on our majors.

One suggestion I have is to maybe get rid of gen eds but require every student to choose a minor. That way we could get a broader knowledge but that knowledge and effort is still aimed at our degrees. I’m sure this idea has flaws but it’s the first one that came to mind.

I believe in reading. And I don’t mean reading a fluffy magazine article about how to lose weight or please your man. I believe in reading books that take you to far away places, that teach you something about the world or yourself, that make you think in a new way, or even that make you forget about everything happening around you for a few minutes.

I’ve always known the magic of books, from the moment I could read. The school library had to limit my book borrowing, my parents had to beg me to stop reading long enough to hold a conversation, and I could make anything bad magically better by pulling out a book and shutting everything else out. I read under the covers with a flashlight so often I had to have glasses usually reserved for grandmothers by the time I reached the second grade. I’ve matured now and can set my book down to speak to others, can cope with tough situations without a book in my lap, and can be organized enough to return a book I’ve borrowed on time. But I still read avidly, desperately, faster than I can obtain new books. I read with a thirst, I read with a passion, I read until my eyes hurt. I read until my books are dog eared and flimsy and falling apart, I read until the very last page and then pick up a new book and start over. I read until I can quote lines, I read until I’m crying or laughing, I read until the very last page when I set the book down with a little gasp of disappointment.

I do all this because somewhere deep inside of me, I know that reading is special. Reading is powerful because it’s something that separates us from animals and it’s how we communicate with each other. I also know that some people don’t have the same opportunity to read that I do.

It always shocks me when someone says they don’t like to read. My immediate response is that they just haven’t found the right book yet. The right book will suck anyone in and change their life. The right book could teach you something useful, or interesting, or relevant to your own life. The right book could make you a better person, a smarter person, a funnier, happier, more interesting person! Many people can’t see or understand that magic that reading offers.

As Dr. Seuss said, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”