{"id":4486,"date":"2016-01-12T18:45:46","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T18:45:46","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2017-06-13T10:22:29","modified_gmt":"2017-06-13T14:22:29","slug":"how_i_looked_at_the_world_15_years_ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2016\/01\/12\/how_i_looked_at_the_world_15_years_ago\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Looked at the World 15 Years Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: Judith in Houston. Glad you waited. Welcome to the program. Great to have you here.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hello, Rush. I\u2019ve been listening to you since 1992, almost half my life, and today on my 50th birthday I was wondering what your outlook was on your 50th birthday about the future of this country.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Oh, man. You know, my problem is I actually answer questions.<\/p>\n

CALLER: (chuckling)<\/p>\n


\nRUSH: This is why I would fail at politics. I actually answer questions. I don\u2019t take the asking of a question as an opportunity to filibuster on something unrelated to the question. So I\u2019d have to go back 15 years which is basically, what, 2001 or 2000. George W. Bush. Honestly, my outlook on the country in 2001\/2002 was much better than it is today, if you want to know the truth.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah. Mine\u2019s a lot different than it was 25 years ago. Not quite as hopeful as I was back then. I\u2019m starting to hear myself like my parents, “What\u2019s this country coming to?”<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay, now, that\u2019s interesting. You\u2019re starting to hear yourself as you heard your parents. What about the possibility that that\u2019s just an aspect of getting older, that it\u2019s really not so much that the country\u2019s any different than it was, it\u2019s just that you get older, and for a whole host of reasons… I mean, you\u2019ve lived more than you have left. That\u2019s a realization that people at our age have. And so there\u2019s all kinds of psychological aspects to that that… It makes it easier to think, and I\u2019ve found it true.<\/p>\n

At whatever age I was, depending on how much older people were, the attitudes about the future of the country were pretty negative, and every generation has this. Every generation. Without fail, Judith, every generation has had some in it who think, “It\u2019s never been worse than it is now, and it\u2019s getting worse.” They think, “We may even in fact be in the last days.” Yet every one of those generations been wrong. Every one of them has been wrong. America has done nothing but grow and provide more opportunity any number of things.<\/p>\n

But, see, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the case now. Now the argument we\u2019re hearing is that we may have the first generation which will not do as well or better than their parents. See, I guard against this all the time. I really do. I guard against what I call “old fogyism.” I vowed when I was young that I would never become one, and so I\u2019m constantly on guard. I\u2019m always asking myself, “Am I being objective when I analyze where the country is and where it\u2019s headed?” And I think the situation is dire. I think this country was sold a bill of goods in 2008 and bought it hook, line, and sinker, and if this does not stop… There\u2019s always gonna be an America, Judith.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Right.<\/p>\n

RUSH: But what it\u2019s going to be like and how it\u2019s going to be governed and run? I mean, the biggest thing I see — and there are many things. It\u2019s tough to single one thing out. But we are losing liberty and losing freedom. At the same time, our government is growing exponentially. It\u2019s getting bigger and bigger and incurring more and more debt, real problems that at some point in time have to come home to roost. So it\u2019s an ongoing effort here to not succumb. It\u2019s very easy to think that we\u2019re in a mess unlike we\u2019ve ever been in before. It\u2019s very easy to get seduced but that kind of negativism. Negativism is something everybody\u2019s capable of without any effort whatsoever. But I can tell you that my outlook in 2001 was different than it is today. I\u00c2\u2019m just being honest with you. No question it is.<\/p>\n


\nCALLER: So how will my outlook look in 15 years? Hopefully good.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, we don\u2019t know, \u2019cause we don\u2019t know what\u2019s gonna happen.<\/p>\n

CALLER: We don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

RUSH: We don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen in these 15 years.<\/p>\n

CALLER: How is yours? Does it look better today than it did today? No? Yes?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, my outlook… See, I\u2019m balancing things because I do try to remind myself — and sometimes it takes reminding (this is my point) — that I have a basic optimistic nature. I can\u2019t tell you why. I can\u2019t give you reasons. So it\u2019s not very persuasive, maybe. But I do think all this is gonna to be overcome. I do think all of this liberalism is gonna beat back. I can\u2019t tell you how, I can\u2019t tell you when. It\u2019s a faith thing, not a religious thing. It\u2019s a faith in the country, a faith in the uniqueness of America, faith in the founding, faith in a majority of the people. I just think the United States is going to be unique and survive where other empires have fallen.<\/p>\n

But I can\u2019t tell you why, and I can\u2019t give you specific predictions or reasons why, other than I just am a general optimist, and I do believe that, push come to shove, a majority of Americans will come to their senses or are in the process of doing it right now, and that there will be a tipping point at some point. How it manifests itself, I couldn\u2019t tell you. It\u2019s not blind faith; it\u2019s not blind, willful hopefulness. It\u2019s a genuine optimism I have about it, but I can\u2019t be any more specific than that. That\u2019s why I\u2019m still doing this, to be honest. I think it all matters.<\/p>\n


\nBut any day events happen that make even the biggest optimists question themselves. For example, if you would have told me back in 2001, 15\/16 years ago, that gay marriage would be the law of the land, there\u2019s no way I would have believed you. And that transgenderism is in the process of being celebrated? No way I would have believed you. If you\u2019d have told me on September 12, 2001, that anybody who thought militant Islam was an enemy of the United States would be attacked as biased and prejudiced and racist, I wouldn\u2019t have believed you.<\/p>\n

Those are things that have happened, and many people think the very nature of those things happening is evidence of a decline that may be irreversible. My belief is that at some point… I have this vision of millions of people collectively putting their foot down, pushing back, and saying, “No more!” And I think we are seeing the first reverberations of this in this presidential campaign. I wish I could be more specific on my optimism. I can\u2019t. It\u2019s just an attitude that I have and a thought, as well as feelings. It\u2019s all combined. Judith, thank you.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Jim in Monmouth, Oregon. I\u2019m glad you waited, sir. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Happy birthday.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Thank you.<\/p>\n

<\/a>CALLER: I\u2019m so glad to get a chance to talk with you. Thank you. I was thinking about your remarks about the State of the Union and the address.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I was just thinking if your wife is at the door and her bags are packed and the kids are in the car and she gives you a business card for her attorney, the state of the union isn\u2019t good. And I was thinking that with the president and how he\u2019s conducted himself and just the very notion of the truth, you were talking about what the empty seat that\u2019s gonna represented at the State of the Union.<\/p>\n

RUSH: That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Perhaps on the empty seat maybe they put a little placard and it would be called “the truth.” But it\u2019s just been catastrophic. You and I are the same age, and I have watched the very notion of truth itself come under assault in such a fashion that\u2019s unique in my lifetime.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I\u2019m sounding very geezer-like, but I tell you, I\u2019m seeing things I never thought I\u2019d see, too. I believe her name was Judith that called earlier?<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n

RUSH: I\u2019m still at someone whose wife and kids are at the door and she gives you the lawyer\u2019s card.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I think it\u2019s the American people with our leadership in general. I think people are jaded. I think they\u2019re at the place where anybody that would speak truth — even if it was truth that made \u2019em uncomfortable — they\u2019re ready to hear it now. I really believe they are. And, like you, I\u2019m optimistic that there are better things coming, if Americans would act like Americans have always acted, and I think that turnarounds are possible. But I believe Martin Luther —<\/p>\n

RUSH: That\u2019s what I keep saying. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve got the faith in, that the American people are still the American people. The empty seat? Let\u2019s be honest. The empty seat here is Obama. The empty suit. The empty seat. But I\u2019m still trying to figure out whose wife and kids are at the door handing out lawyer cards. It\u2019s got me worried.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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