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<\/p>\nRUSH: Here is Clayton in Midlothian, Virginia. Hi, Clayton. Glad you waited. You\u2019re next on Open Line Friday. Hi.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I love your show, and I and my kids, we love your books. Thank you for all of that.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.<\/p>\n
CALLER: You are welcome. The reason I\u2019m calling, I\u2019ve seen Hollywood actors that played roles in movies get called to be experts in front of Congress and I see people like Zuckerberg, and they turn into media bonanzas. And what I would love, is to see you up there sparring with these folks \u2019cause you\u2019re an expert in everything.<\/p>\n
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RUSH: (laughing)<\/p>\n
CALLER: The Republicans should have you up there sparring back and forth with these lunatic Democrats. I\u2019m wondering if you\u2019ve ever been asked to testify before Congress and would you go if so?<\/p>\n
RUSH: I never have been, no. I don\u2019t expect to ever be invited to testify before Congress. I think if you\u2019re asked, you pretty much have to go. If they really want you and you don\u2019t go, they can subpoena you, depending on what kind of hearings they are conducting. But, nope, I haven\u2019t been.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I\u2019m wondering why that is, with all the years that people have been called before Congress that have no authority in anything, that the Republicans in particular wouldn\u2019t call you up.<\/p>\n
RUSH: ‘Cause I\u2019m a media guy. Just like they wouldn\u2019t call me to testify, they wouldn\u2019t call Dan Rather to testify. They did have Howard Cosell testify about something to do I think the NFL at some point way, way back when Cosell was doing — But you brought up a fascinating thing. And it\u2019s more than how the way we\u2019ve always discussed it. You\u2019re right that actors and actresses who play roles, who pretend to be something, have been called up to testify as experts, even though, by definition, they are not who they\u2019re playing, they\u2019re pretending to be people and all of a sudden they are accorded expertise.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s because movie stars are the closest thing we have to reality, and everybody\u2019s a groupie. Alan Cranston was famous for having blonde actresses come up and testify just to be able to ask \u2019em out for lunch or some such thing. I\u2019m not making that up. I could list you some names of the Hollywood actresses that Cranston was slobbering after back in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
But I want to expand on this beyond just testifying before Congress. I want to run something by you all. This is a cultural thing that involves TV shows primarily. I need to ask you all some questions based on the fact that I don\u2019t have kids. I\u2019m gonna run the risk of — well, it\u2019s not gonna make you mad. I\u2019m probably not gonna be running any risks. But it\u2019s coming up. Just thought of this.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Okay. To the Hollywood business. I\u2019ve gotta run something by you. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve observed. And I\u2019m holding it in reserve because I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m qualified to make this judgment. What I\u2019m doing is comparing prime time — well, not prime — television shows that I watch, either on network or cable, whatever, to shows I watched when I was younger growing up, when I was teenager, early twenties, young adult.<\/p>\n
And what I\u2019m observing today, it seems like — I need to really think about how I\u2019m gonna phrase this. It seems like 80% of the plot line in most TV shows is worry and concern and fret over what\u2019s happening to the children. And I don\u2019t mean what\u2019s happening to children in school. I just mean that the lives of the adult characters are totally, totally, totally determined by who their kids are, what their kids are doing, what they don\u2019t want to do.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019m still not getting this right. These shows are portraying — let me put it this way — parents who are just entirely weak and incapable of living their own lives, not governed by their kids. Now, the reason that this concerns me is because images in mass media have a way of influencing and affecting the broader culture. And in the process, kids in TV shows today, are being portrayed as having more wisdom and of having a greater importance and more knowledge than their parents.<\/p>\n
The parents are being portrayed as incapable of treating their kids — the parents are portrayed as being totally — I need to think about — I\u2019ve thought about it in my head, and the words are clear as the day in my head. Now that I\u2019m trying to express them, I\u2019m running into trouble. It just seems that the parents have become wusses, the kids are wusses, everybody\u2019s wusses. And the parents, it seems like the plot of every show is devoted to concern and worry about the kids.<\/p>\n
And I think back to TV shows when I was younger, and, A, there weren\u2019t as many of these family shows as there are now. Of course, there weren\u2019t as many shows, period. Only three networks back then. But it just seems to me that this “for the children” thing has overtaken everything. Now, it could be it\u2019s always been this way and I just have never noticed it because, of course, I don\u2019t have any kids, and there are none living in my house, so I\u2019ve never been a parent.<\/p>\n
But the way all of this is portrayed on TV shows is weak parents who are incapable of doing anything if their kids don\u2019t want them to or if their kids don\u2019t like it. They don\u2019t have lives. The adults in many of these shows have no lives of their own. Everything is about the kids. This still doesn\u2019t get to the point that I\u2019m trying to make, though. This may take me a couple of stabs here, folks.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: I\u2019m gonna keep trying to find a way to express what I\u2019m actually talking about here. The last couple episodes, like Law & Order SVU — well, still not the best example. But it\u2019s just you don\u2019t have any adult-only storylines anymore. Within every adult storyline is a missing kid or something\u2019s wrong with the kid. And the parents in these stories are portrayed as jelly, as incapable of dealing with any aspect of life involving their kids unless it is 100% perfection.<\/p>\n
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The kid brings a report card home from school, got some C\u2019s on it, and it takes over the storyline, becomes a panic attack and so forth. I don\u2019t know. Well, the reason it concerns me is the effect it all has on mass culture. And I love kids like everybody else does. But they\u2019re not old enough and smart enough, wise enough and experienced enough to be running things, by definition. And it bothers me when they are portrayed as being smarter and wiser.<\/p>\n
We see it in the school shooting thing. I mean, it\u2019s part and parcel of the way the story is being covered. “They know more about guns than the adults do. They know more than the NRA!” It\u2019s impossible. They couldn\u2019t possibly. Most of them don\u2019t know what they\u2019re talking about yet, but you can\u2019t say that because they were shot at. They\u2019re traumatized. You can\u2019t talk about \u2019em in that light.<\/p>\n
So when you bring up the kids or you put \u2019em in the story line, you cannot be critical of it. “They\u2019re children, Mr. Limbaugh. You must understand.” That\u2019s my point. They\u2019re being used to shut people up. They\u2019re being used to stop the proceedings of common sense. They\u2019re being used to turn people on television shows into jelly, quivering masses of fear.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Let me try this kids thing one other way, folks. I\u2019m actually gonna have to sit down and rather than do this off the cuff, I\u2019m gonna have to jot down some one-line thoughts so that this makes sense because I have not yet nailed what concerns me. Let me give you an example from a TV show I\u2019m watching. It was Law & Order SVU, and one of the lead characters has an adopted son.<\/p>\n
And the adopted son, of course, stays at home with a nanny or babysitter while the lead character\u2019s out catching rapists and so forth. And one day the nanny calls and says, “Noah this, this, or that. Noah\u2019s very upset. Noah\u2019s crying.” So the lead character says, “Oh, my God, I gotta come home! I gotta come home! Noah is crying! I gotta go home!” I\u2019m saying, “Come on! Who leaves work to go home because the kid is crying — or do they?” That\u2019s what I\u2019m asking. Does that happen now? If you go in to your boss and say, “My daughter\u2019s at home and the nanny says she\u2019s crying.<\/p>\n
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“I gotta go,” does the boss say, “Oh, my God, get outta here! You can\u2019t have that. Your daughter\u2019s crying? You gotta go track that down.” Does that…? Snerdley, if you went in and you told that to me and said… Well, no, we can\u2019t use me because (chuckles) I\u2019d tell you to cram it. But it\u2019s that kind of stuff I\u2019m talking about, that adults are unable, in these TV shows, to deal with their kids\u2019 suffering anything. When it happens, it\u2019s an emergency, and they\u2019ve gotta drop everything to deal with it?<\/p>\n
And if you raise kids like that, they would never grow up.<\/p>\n
They would never learn anything. If you treat them like a baby pet for their entire life, that\u2019s what they\u2019re gonna end up being. (interruption) Snowflakes? Yeah. Okay. Maybe we\u2019re seeing… Yeah, that\u2019s what concerns me. We\u2019re seeing the manifestation. We\u2019re seeing 18-, 19-, 22-year-olds that are in college, and the administrators and the parents are letting them act that way — and the parents and the administrators are acting subservient to a bunch of five-year-old kids that are running around in 20-year-old bodies.<\/p>\n
And you see this on television all the time now. Your snowflake example, that\u2019s exactly what I was thinking about where it leads. If you don\u2019t let \u2019em grow up, they\u2019re not gonna grow up — and if you don\u2019t let \u2019em grow up, they\u2019re gonna still be living with you when they\u2019re 35. And you\u2019re gonna end up making excuses for \u2019em. “Well, it\u2019s really hard out there, you know. It\u2019s tough! It\u2019s a lot tougher than when your mom and I were growing up.” No, it\u2019s not. How are they ever gonna be able to provide for themselves and be self-sustainable if you don\u2019t let \u2019em learn how?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RUSH: Let me give you an example from a TV show I'm watching. It was Law & Order SVU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":271736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n