{"id":306442,"date":"2019-04-17T16:10:19","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T20:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=306442"},"modified":"2019-04-18T16:06:26","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T20:06:26","slug":"leftists-and-the-notre-dame-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2019\/04\/17\/leftists-and-the-notre-dame-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Leftists and the Notre Dame Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Now, Victor Davis Hanson was on Fox last night with Laura Ingraham talking about Notre Dame. Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist. He is a Peloponnesian War expert, ancient Greece, and that entire era expert. And, as such, he\u2019s also an expert on religions. Not theology per se, although he\u2019s quite learned.<\/p>\n

But he is a perfect person to talk to about the situation with Notre Dame in Paris and what is to become of it. He\u2019s the perfect person to ask to analyze what\u2019s being said about it, particularly the rebuilding. So the question, first question: “Victor, you say there\u2019s an irony in the history here, in the aftermath of this tragedy in terms of what we\u2019ve lost in church history. What\u2019s the irony?”<\/p>\n

\"\"HANSON: After 800 years we were the steward of this iconic representation of Western civilization, Catholicism, Christendom. And of all years, 2019 at the height of our sophistication and technology, we were found wanting. We didn\u2019t protect this icon. And we don\u2019t build them anymore. There\u2019s great churches and cathedrals that go up all over the world, but they\u2019re in Poland, they\u2019re in Cairo, they\u2019re in the Ivory Coast, they\u2019re in Brazil, they\u2019re in India.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost as if the places that are less affluent without the technology of Western Europe and the United States are like we used to be. They still believe in transcendence, they still believe in something other than this world. And so it\u2019s gonna be very hard in our society to ever build a cathedral again, much less to repair them, because we don\u2019t believe in what they represented.<\/p>\n

RUSH: This parallels a note that I got from a guy yesterday said, “Rush, all this talk about rebuilding, they never going to be able to rebuild it, not really. Because that cathedral was built with a searing love, a searing love for Jesus Christ and his mother, a searing love of Christianity, a 100-year project of searing, devoted love.”<\/p>\n

He said, “I don\u2019t care what they do to rebuild this, they\u2019re never gonna be able to put the heart back in it that built it. They\u2019re never gonna be able to restore the heart, the beating devotion and searing love that has been destroyed by the fire, if it has been.”<\/p>\n

\"\"Now, Mr. Hanson, folks, I think this is such an important comment. “After 800 years, we” — meaning Western civilization — well, and even more fine-tuned, we Americans — “we were the steward of this iconic representation of Western civilization, Catholicism, Christendom. And of all the years, 2019, at the height of our sophistication, at the height of our technological ability, we are found wanting. We\u2019ve lost what we had that enabled these great places to be built. We didn\u2019t protect this icon, and we don\u2019t build them anymore. There\u2019s great churches and cathedrals that go up all over the world. They\u2019re in Poland” — and he lists the countries here.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s almost as if places that are less affluent without the technology of Western Europe or the United States, they\u2019re more like what we used to be. They still believe in transcendence,\u201d meaning they believe there\u2019s a lot that is much larger than ourselves out there. Today\u2019s left does not believe in that kind of transcendence. Today\u2019s left does not believe there\u2019s anything larger than themselves. And anybody who wants to believe or does believe in things larger than themselves that you can\u2019t touch, like God, they\u2019re dangerous.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re dangerous because people like that are going to put faith in things the left can\u2019t control and can\u2019t touch. The left wants faith to be placed in their symbols, largely government and the people that they populate to lead the government. That\u2019s who they want worshiped. And they\u2019re scared to death of people who worship something that can\u2019t be seen, something that is transcendent and explains all of this. Liberals want you to believe that everything that is could be explained by virtue of them and their existence.<\/p>\n

I fear he\u2019s right. It\u2019s very hard in our society to ever build a cathedral again, much less to repair them, because we don\u2019t believe in what they represent. Some of us do, but the country is trending away from that. The country is trending away from believing in what these cathedrals represent.<\/p>\n

Look at the church of the Duomo in Florence, 1,000 years to build, 1,000 years. What kind of devotion would that be? I remember once I was talking after I first saw the Sistine Chapel. I took a trip to Italy back in the late eighties, and I got back and I was talking about the trip and how moved by it I was on KFBK Sacramento, the station I worked at prior to this program. And I said I was in awe of what people will do in worship and belief in their God.<\/p>\n

And I got cynics, “Rush, come on, they did it for money. You try to tell me that Michelangelo — it was all about money, Rush. It\u2019s always been about the money. There wasn\u2019t any devotion that went into that.” I should have recognized then what was happening. But this is where we are.<\/p>\n

\"\"But my buddy\u2019s point last night, yeah, you\u2019re gonna rebuild the cathedral, but it\u2019s not gonna contain what it was. The people rebuilding it are gonna be basically a bunch of atheists or agnostics, is the point. We\u2019ll see. Hope not.<\/p>\n

Along the same line, remember yesterday, my friends, I pointed out to you the way the news media now does things. A story that looks bad for the left is ignored and instead the story becomes the right\u2019s reaction to the bad story for the left. I have some examples here.<\/p>\n

Washington Post. Kathleen Parker, Never Trumper, delusioned, superiorist. This is really what these Never Trumpers are. They just think they\u2019re better than everybody. Anyway. “Notre Dame Burning Was Almost Too Much to Bear. Still, Trump Tweeted.<\/a>” That\u2019s the story? “Notre Dame Burning Was Almost Too Much to Bear. Still, Trump Tweeted.” See? Story that\u2019s so bad, gotta turn it into Trump.<\/p>\n

And the Washington Post, Eugene Scott. “Trump and Pence Tweeted About Notre Dame Fire But Said Nothing When Three Black Churches Burned.<\/a>\u201d See how this works. Trump and Pence tweeted about the Notre Dame fire. No credit for that. “We\u2019re not gonna tell everybody they\u2019re big-hearted. We\u2019re not gonna give \u2019em any attaboys for compassion because when black churches burned, Trump and Pence didn\u2019t say anything.” And this is how it works. Not gonna change. I just want you to be able to spot it. Whatever it is, folks, it isn\u2019t news.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: One more illustration of how the media, when a story is potentially bad for the left or is bad, that story then becomes the right-wing reaction to what\u2019s bad for the left. Republicans seized on blah, blah, blah. Republicans attempted to capitalize on blah, blah, blah. So I\u2019ll give you two sound bites. This is about the Notre Dame fire and how it\u2019s being covered. And we\u2019ll give you one example. Here is Lou Dobbs on the Fox Business Network last night.<\/p>\n

DOBBS: French prosecutors opening a criminal investigation into the cause of yesterday\u2019s devastating fire at Notre Dame Cathedral. One thing authorities are ruling out, however, within just a matter of hours, arson. Perhaps overlooked since yesterday is that 875 Catholic churches in France were vandalized in 2018, 875. In a single week last month, 12 churches were vandalized, including a fire deliberately set, also located in Paris. This is context. This is not speculation. This is the situation right now in France.<\/p>\n