![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/APP-102519-Dukakis-Tank.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRUSH: This is Eric in Des Moines, Iowa. Great to have you, Eric. I appreciate your patience. Thank you for waiting.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Rush!<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yes!<\/p>\n
CALLER: I wanted to call and I wanted to thank you because 24 years ago the first time I heard you was right after the Dukakis campaign which I was working for \u2019cause that was my mindset. I was a card-carrying liberal Democrat. And when I listened to you, I was angered and shocked, but it was funny. You were so funny. And I couldn\u2019t stop listening. And eventually I began to get it. Conservatism, as I understood it, I\u2019d never been exposed to any of these ideas of conservatism, individual liberty, until I listened to you. And I\u2019ve been wanting to say —<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
RUSH: Now, wait, wait, wait. This is important. How old were you at the time that this was all happening?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Twenty-four, 25.<\/p>\n
RUSH: At 24, 25, the concept of self-reliance and individualism is something you don\u2019t think you had been exposed to?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Nope. No way.<\/p>\n
RUSH: How is that possible?<\/p>\n
CALLER: I grew up in the Northeast, publicly educated.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Okay. But if you weren\u2019t taught that you had to do things yourself, if you weren\u2019t taught that there was joy in accomplishment, what were you taught?<\/p>\n
CALLER: You were taught the collective. That the government should solve the problems. That there\u2019s an agency that will solve a problem. That there\u2019s a think group that will solve a problem. And it\u2019s very lonely. And it\u2019s very frustrating, until you get it, you have the power within. But I didn\u2019t know that.<\/p>\n
RUSH: That is an eye-opener for me. See, I thought everybody — I thought maybe, if you\u2019re not taught this, you at least have to realize it. I mean, you get yourself out of bed every day, you get yourself dressed, you maybe get yourself to where you want to go, maybe a school bus is involved. See, this was something front and center for us growing up as breathing was, self-reliance, accomplishing things yourself, that nobody can do it better than you can because nobody cares as much for yourself and you as you do. This is stuff that was part of just the natural growing up and maturation process. And that you never were exposed to it, that\u2019s just —<\/p>\n
CALLER: No. In fact, Rush, when I graduated high school, I really didn\u2019t have much going on, and I talked about going into the military. And my mother told me that only people of color and poor people did that.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/APP-011218-Open-Line-Friday.jpg\")
RUSH: Well, that\u2019s what a lot of liberals think of the military, that it\u2019s a place to go for the hopeless. It\u2019s a place for people that don\u2019t have any education, don\u2019t have any future, don\u2019t have much smarts, minorities, it\u2019s where they go, that\u2019s what it\u2019s for.<\/p>\n
CALLER: That\u2019s so terrible.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, it is. I mean, that I understand. To this day they talk about the military that way.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah. Yeah.<\/p>\n
RUSH: As a repository for the hopeless. They use people that volunteer to the military as examples of how America is a failure. “These people\u2019s only hope, Mr. Limbaugh, is going into the military, it\u2019s the only way they\u2019re gonna get a fair shake. America sucks. Capitalism\u2019s unfair.” That\u2019s what the left still teaches today! Well, Eric, I appreciate the call.<\/p>\n
Yeah, the Dukakis days were funny. We had more fun — hell, he was the one funny, wearing the Beetle Bailey helmet sitting in the tank trying to prove that he wasn\u2019t a military wuss. Yeah. Our nickname for him was The Loser. Michael Dukakis. This is the guy in a debate, the old CNN info anchor guy was Bernard Shaw. And he asks a hypothetical question to Dukakis. \u201cIf your wife was raped, da-da-da-da-da-da, what would you do?\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/dukakisShaw.png\")
<\/p>\n
And Dukakis gives a professorial answer about being open and fair to rapists and making sure we don\u2019t prejudge \u2019em. And even the liberal media couldn\u2019t believe that he didn\u2019t have one additional ounce of energy answering the question, what would you do if your wife was raped? Then we found out his poor wife was drinking lighter fluid when she couldn\u2019t find any scotch in the house, his wife\u2019s name was Kitty, and then we said, ah, that was horrible to find that kind of stuff out.<\/p>\n
But it made sense, your husband hears that you just got raped and you get into a professorial think tank faculty lounge discussion about the future of rapists and fairness in the criminal justice system. So, you know, the humor was kind of handed to me by the Dukakis campaign. Eric, I really appreciate your honesty there.<\/p>\n
Folks, this is what I mean. I\u2019m 68 and I still learn things. You might think, \u201cRush, everybody should know this.\u201d I just assume that self-reliance, whether you like it or not, you at least are aware of it. How do you get out of bed every day if you don\u2019t do it yourself? I mean, even if you live in a welfare state, you sometimes still have to make the transaction. The idea that you can reach age 24 and not learn or be exposed to self-reliance?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not talking about rugged individualism. I\u2019m simply talking about doing things for yourself. Now, today I understand it because self-reliance is criticized as selfishness, unfairness, because some are better than others. One of the greatest atrocities to happen to American culture is the elimination of competition. And we\u2019ve been doing that in kindergarten, grade school, high school for 30 years. And the reason that the left wants to breed competition out is because they want to get rid of the notion that there are losers. In competition somebody\u2019s gonna lose. It\u2019s not fair. Not fair. Everybody wants to be a winner.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/APP-Limbaugh-Institute-CONSERVATIVE.jpg\")
So now everybody gets a trophy for participating. And they\u2019re so ill-equipped for life outside the bubble that they become snowflakes and start using things like political correctness to shield them from ever having to really grow up. But self-reliance, I mean, that was taught right along with you don\u2019t lie, here\u2019s some good manners, you say, \u201cYes, sir. No, sir. Thank you.\u201d You take care of yourself. It was just part of it. It was part of the equation. I can\u2019t imagine not having that emphasized and spoken about growing up. But apparently it happened to a lot of people. It explains a lot too.<\/p>\n
And yet again we have run out of time, and I failed to get to the Trump sound bites. It\u2019s okay. It\u2019s okay. We still have plenty of time to try to get to the Trump sound bites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CALLER: I was a card-carrying liberal Democrat. And when I listened to you, I was angered and shocked, but it was funny. You were so funny. And I couldn't stop listening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":326608,"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