Rest In Piss: The Passing Of Rush Limbaugh Underlines America’s Single Most Prominent Moral Issue

This week, American icon, Rush Limbaugh passed away at the age of 70 after an inarguably extraordinary career which changed the nature of political broadcasting forever. 

Many liberals including celebrities and members of the blue check mark army decided to make the phrase and hashtag “Rest In Piss” trend in relation to the death of Rush along with all kinds of nasty notes indicating their celebration of his death and implying his presence in Hell. They all thought they were the cleverest flower in the field but of course were all very repetitive, uninteresting and unfunny as usual. 

On being called out for their absolutely monstrous behavior – totally lacking in dignity, compassion and humility – these leftists justified their behavior by saying Rush Limbaugh was a very bad man who deserves to die and therefore we should be so glad of his death. They cite ridiculous fake news about comments made in the 1990s and give generalizations and conservative hypocrisies all to prove how this man, more so than them, deserves damnation. 

The reality is simple – Rush Limbaugh was an imperfect human who did hurt people who does not deserve grace. And so are you. And so am I. And so is every single one of the people on their social media platforms. The day we all die there will be something we all have done which is deserving of mocking and vitriol. Our hands are not clean.

But that’s not the whole story. Rush Limbaugh was a generous humanitarian who gave of his wealth, his power and himself to better the lives of those who needed it most. Only after his death do we now know the full extent of his charitable efforts because so much of what he did, he did in total anonymity. 

Country music recording artist, John Rich, informed Fox News on the day after Rush’s passing that many years ago, Limbaugh donated $100,000 to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital at the behest of Rich under the strictest condition that it be totally anonymous. I am confident there will be many more to come forward in the coming days revealing dozens more anonymous donations such as these.

Beyond this act of kindness, Rush is responsible for the founding and financial backing of multiple foundations including Tunnel to Tower (a charity supporting fallen servicemen and women and first responders) and The Limbaugh Foundation.

In 2008, he was one of the top four most philanthropic celebrities in the entire nation donating more than 13% of his earnings to a single charity,  the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation which supports the children of fallen Marines and police officers in the line of duty. He has raised almost $50 million (as of 2016 – so much more as of now) for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. 

Everytime he was under fire – every controversy he created, he used to do good. When he was in trouble with Congressional democrats for comments he made about soldiers who oppose war, he took the letter they’d sent to him and auctioned it off raising $4.2 million dollars – which he subsequently matched – to donate to the Marine Corps- Law Enforcement Foundation, showing his unwavering support for our nation’s military even when he disagreed with some of their comments. When he got in trouble for opposing the kneeling at the national anthem at NFL games, he sold Betsy Ross flag T-shirts and raised $5 million for the Tunnel to Towers foundation. 

He also raised millions for the Boys and Girls Club, Adopt-A-Soldier, American Heritage Girls, Toys for Tots, The Navy SEALS Museum, the Prostate Cancer Foundation, and more.

A man or woman of this world is made up of more than a single moment in time. There is no amount of good or bad we can do to balance the invisible scales of our moral judgement but one thing we can do is stop believing we are worthy to hold those scales. If Rush Limbaugh, for all the good he did and all that he gave of himself is not worthy to hold those scales I promise you that none of the people telling him to “Rest in Piss” are worthy either and certainly neither am I. 

The crisis of American morality isn’t that we no longer are capable of good, it’s that we believe we, as Gods ourselves, we are qualified to weigh someone else’s soul while never once testing the scales on our own.

We find it so easy to determine what makes someone bad that we have forgotten how to ask ourselves: What makes you good? 

So before you throw some snide comment out upon the death of someone you don’t actually know that much about (or even if you do) try asking yourself: if humanity – instead of God’s infinite grace – is weighing your soul, how would those scales tip?