What does it feel like to have unlimited power? No one will be willing to tell you when you do wrong. Like over doting parents, when you make a mistake, or when you deliberately do something wrong, people will brush off what you have done. In some cases, people will even give excuses for your actions. You will never have to own up to your mistakes. If a situation comes up where people dare to call you out for what you have done, others will be willing to deflect the criticism, pointing out people who may have done things as bad as you have. Even if what you have done is so heinous that you are backed into a corner, if you had unlimited power you could offer a token bit of remorse, all the while condemning those who would dare not understand your complex plan.

Rush Limbaugh is such a man with unlimited power. From his retreat he can spew anything that comes from his brain without worrying about the consequences. This week there has been a firestorm of criticism against him because he called a private citizen a slut and a prostitute. For three days he disparaged Sandra Fluke, saying that people like her should put up video cameras so we could get our money's worth from them and he implied her parents should be ashamed of her. So, what was the great violence, what was the insult that Sandra Fluke visited against Rush Limbaugh? Nothing. All that Sandra Fluke, this private citizen did was argue on a House committee that women should have birth control as standard and free coverage on health insurance. She didn't call for the destruction of the United States. She didn't claim God was dead. She didn't advocate killing puppies. All she did was plead the case that women shouldn't have to pay for a basic service that could help women.

Rush Limbaugh had no skin in the game. He's not a woman. Despite his argument against her she wasn't asking the government to pay for contraception. The woman never attacked Rush Limbaugh by name or association in her talk. Sandra Fluke was not with an advocacy group that may have attacked Limbaugh in the past. This woman was not a threat, either directly or by association, to Rush Limbaugh. Yet he felt so threatened by her that for three days he laid out a tirade on her.

One thing that has to be said about this recent political campaign, and honestly it's not so much about the campaign as it is the discussion climate; comments by politicians and pundits like Limbaugh can be taken to the crazy extreme and that is indeed bad, but what is increasing more disturbing is the reaction of a good number of people to these statements. Any sane person would figure if a national figure called a private citizen, a woman, a slut and a prostitute, there would be complete denouncement of the statement. It would be easy to say, clearly in no uncertain terms that this type of language is uncalled for. That hasn't been the case. The few people who are the side of Rush Limbaugh who have bothered to say anything about it offer tepid condemnation at best, but are very quick to point a finger at the other side of the political aisle and condemn them for making much out of nothing. They are so afraid of Limbaugh, so worried about his unlimited power, they dare not say anything to upset him, lest they feel his wrath. It may be hard to remember, but a few years ago, when complaints of outrageous comments by Limbaugh were made, some commentators of his side did rebuke Limbaugh. In many cases, in less than a day those same people would be on his show, bowing to Limbaugh and asking for forgiveness. At the time they seemed like cowards but compared to the actions today, they almost seem like heroes for at least standing up to Limbaugh before shrinking. In this new wave, people can't even directly condemn the man.

Let me give you a quick story of the world Limbaugh and his people want to live in. My sister had a boyfriend and he wanted to have sex. She felt the responsible thing to do was to get birth control pills. At twenty years old and in college, the possibility of having a baby was not responsible. She went to the school clinic, which was overworked and understaffed. She was asked briefly about her medical history, she talked about my mother and how my mother had a condition when she gave birth to my sister. The staff member took the information down and gave my sister the pills. My sister only took one birth control pill. She had complications, she was taken back to the overworked and understaffed school clinic where she was put in a back room to sleep it off. She never opened her eyes again. She died three days later.

In Limbaugh's world, that story would be used to warn young women about the dangers of sex and the pill. If you take the pill, you could die. The staff at the school clinic didn't do a proper check up on my sister because of cost. A student, my sister, was put in a back room because she was sick and no one looked in after her for eight hours. No one thought with my mother's medical history my sister could have a bad reaction to birth control pills, nor when she came back with symptoms did anyone think instead of putting her in a back room she should be taken immediately to the hospital, because the ambulance ride would cost money. My sister died partially because cost outweighed the needs of the patient. That is what Sandra Fluke was fighting for when she went before the congressional committee. She was talking about ways of saving the lives of women like my sister.

So when Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a slut and a prostitute, I took it pretty hard. In calling her that, he was calling my sister a slut and a prostitute because she DARED to want to make a responsible choice and not get pregnant. My sister died because of that decision, so I guess in Limbaugh's world she got what she deserved.