ELIMINATING THE LIBERAL POSSIBILITIES

I read a critique of John Rawls at Open Left and the discussion of the subject of political consensus and I read a little more about Rawls in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Here's a key point:

Similarly, citizens should be able to justify their political decisions by public standards of inquiry. Public standards are principles of reasoning and rules of evidence that all citizens could reasonably endorse. So citizens are not to justify their political decisions by appeal to divination, or to complex and disputed economic or psychological theories. Rather, publicly acceptable standards are those that rely on common sense, on facts generally known, and on the conclusions of science that are well established and not controversial.

What the conservatives want to do is destroy this pillar of liberalism by appealing to the populism (and narcissism) of ignorance. That's exactly what Limbaugh does and why he has so many listeners.