{"id":6736,"date":"2015-03-30T16:17:53","date_gmt":"2015-03-30T16:17:53","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2015-03-30T16:17:53","modified_gmt":"2015-03-30T16:17:53","slug":"my_conversation_with_a_socialist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2015\/03\/30\/my_conversation_with_a_socialist\/","title":{"rendered":"My Conversation with a Socialist"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

RUSH: I played golf yesterday and somebody suggested to me that, if I ever do write another book, the title should be On the Golf Course<\/a>, because of what I hear so often and the things that happen, the conversations that ensue with people on the golf course. One of the guys I played with yesterday is an admitted French socialist. We\u2019re having lunch after playing golf and he\u2019s asking me — and I\u2019ve developed a technique when dealing with people that I\u2019m either meeting for the first time or don\u2019t know them very well. Rather than just ask them what they think about something, \u2019cause I realize, folks, I\u2019m an intimidating figure. Even when I don\u2019t try to be, my image, whatever it is with people, precedes me before we even get to the table or the tee box or the golf course at large. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m an intimidating figure and if I just point-blank ask somebody what they think I\u2019ve learned I may not get a truthful answer. I may get an answer that\u2019s more along the lines of what they think I want to hear. So I have developed a new technique for drawing people out. And that is to offer an opinion, sometimes true, sometimes false, and then guage their response. The theory that I have developed is that that produces a more honest admission or opinion of whatever it is on the part of the person with whom I am conversing. <\/p>\n

So naturally we sat down at the table after playing golf, and since I was there, naturally world events and domestic politics became the subject. What started was one of the guys in the foursome, usually predictable, started asking me what I think of the Republican field and who should be the nominee? Who\u2019s gonna do this? What\u2019s this? What\u2019s that?<\/line><\/p>\n

The next discussion was what kind of economic policies the Republican Party needs to offer in order to win. And then domestic policy, what the Republican Party needs to do in order to win and succeed. The usual, predictable things: We gotta drop the social issues. We gotta get rid of those. We gotta come up with real responsible tax policy. I\u2019m listening to all this and I threw up my hands, and this is the beginning of the new technique, I said to the avowed socialist — he\u2019s a nice guy<\/a>, don\u2019t misunderstand. <\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t looking at him. I was looking at the guy who had offered the theories on what the Republicans need to do. I looked at him and said — folks, now, I don\u2019t want anybody to misunderstand me here. This is a technique that I have evolved to draw people out that I have found to be far more successful than just asking them for their opinion point-blank. And that is to say something that I may believe or may not believe, call it being a provocateur, but not with the intention of starting an argument, just to actually learn what somebody thinks.<\/p>\n

So I said — and I made this up, I want you to understand this. I don\u2019t want there to be any confusion when the Democrat websites get ahold of this later today. After listening to the suggestions from another guest what the Republican Party needs to do to win and so forth, I looked at the guy who made the suggestions and I looked at the avowed socialist, and I said, “I think it\u2019s all academic. I think it\u2019s over. I think the things you\u2019re talking about are not gonna make a hill of beans. We\u2019ve lost the culture. Facts don\u2019t matter. <\/p>\n

“You\u2019re sitting here and you\u2019re talking tax policy and this and that and the vast majority of people voting are not gonna have the slightest idea what you\u2019re talking about, tax policy? We have 92 and a half million Americans who are not working. They don\u2019t care about self-reliance tax policy. All they care about is the gravy train continuing. We\u2019ve lost the culture here. I don\u2019t know that we can ever get it back. It doesn\u2019t matter who we nominate.” <\/p>\n

I wanted to find out what the socialist thought. Now, if I\u2019d have just asked him point-blank, because I am such an intimidating figure, I don\u2019t know that I would have gotten the answer. But I knew saying something like that would, obviously, distress my Republican buddy at the table who immediately, by the way, started trying to talk me off the ledge. That\u2019s how successful I was in making them think I believed this. The socialist disagreed with me and started talking about what the Republicans have to do and how they can pull it off and it\u2019s all about getting the votes and so forth. <\/p>\n

I found it really, really fascinating, because one of the things the socialist said about Iran, the Middle East, when that came up, he said, “Rush, don\u2019t you think it\u2019s better finally now, let those people fight it out over there? The days of America being the world\u2019s policeman, screw that. I mean, if the Iranians want to fight the Iraqis and they want to fight the Saudis and they want to fight the Syrians and they want to fight the Palestinians, let \u2019em have at it.” This is the avowed socialist saying this. “Don\u2019t you think this is a brilliant Obama foreign policy, to finally just pick a side other than Israel and stir the region up and just have them all fight amongst themselves and let it shake out from whatever happens.” <\/p>\n

And I said, “You know I heard that opinion the other day.” I started saying, “Where\u2019d I hear this? Where\u2019d I — oh, yeah. That\u2019s exactly what Bill Maher thinks. That\u2019s exactly what a bunch of Hollywood leftists think.” <\/line><\/p>\n

And he said, “Well, I\u2019ll be right at home, I\u2019m an avowed socialist.” <\/p>\n

I said, “Well, yeah, that\u2019s true.” And then I said, “But this ignores a key ingredient in all that, and that is the concept of the United States.” <\/p>\n

He said, “Why does the United States have to be everywhere?” <\/p>\n

I said, “You sound like Obama, exactly like Obama. There\u2019s nothing special about us, why should we be there? There\u2019s one nation in the history of earth that has stood for freedom and liberty, and it\u2019s us. And, if we are not that beacon and outpost to every nation, we\u2019re going to cease being that for ourselves, at some point.” I said, “Also absent in this idea of just letting them fight it out over there is the concept of good guys and bad guys. And what really bothers me –” you\u2019ve heard this before, but I\u2019m just setting the table here, you understand the conversation. “The whole idea that the United States is no different, that the United States is not the solution to world problems, that we are actually ‘the\u2019 problem and the only way to solve the problem is for us to get out of it,” I said I found that profoundly upsetting and distressing. <\/p>\n

There are good guys and bad guys in this conflict, just like there are in every conflict, and our history is that we have always sided with the good guys with the confident knowledge that we are the good guys, and it really worries me that we are losing that, particularly when it comes to the importance of foreign policy in the Middle East. <\/p>\n

And that\u2019s where we are. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: I get an e-mail: “How is that even possible, an avowed socialist ends up at a golf club with you on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Florida?” He\u2019s a friend of the Republicans that were in the group, and he\u2019s French. How can he not be an avowed social? In fact, he had all kinds of fascinating theories about how the immigration in France is actually causing there to be — it hasn\u2019t happened yet, but his theory is that there\u2019s going to be an accord of sorts in France between the French conservatives, as identified by Le Pen, and communists, and the common denominator is militant Islam, that so many people are worried. It\u2019s an immigration problem, essentially.<\/p>\n

<\/a>And he said, don\u2019t be surprised if you see this kind of political arrangement at some point. I was incredulous. I wanted to make sure that I was hearing him. “Are you telling me there might be an alignment, a voting alignment between French communists and Le Pen?” <\/p>\n

“It could happen, it could happen,” and he started explaining to me why and how. The point is, when I threw out my theory that the United States, as we know it, is over and finished, the guy is an avowed socialist. You know, rather than just asking point-blank, I threw it out, I figured a reaction to that is gonna get me a much more honest opinion of what he thinks or anybody, than just asking him point-blank. And he said, “No way, this is the greatest place on earth. There\u2019s no way, not even Obama can destroy it. We\u2019re not happy with Obama,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. “You need to have more faith in your fellow citizens. There are more of them than you know.” <\/p>\n

This guy actually was speaking with more knowledge, or at least sounded like he had a better understanding of American domestic politics, than many Americans. And for all of his talk about being an avowed socialist, he said plenty of things that contradicted that. The point of it all, when it got really serious, was the discussion of what\u2019s going on in the Middle East and what that really means for the United States and the world and America\u2019s role, and that\u2019s where his avowed socialist leanings surfaced. “US, get out of there. Let those people have it out amongst themselves and let\u2019s deal with what ends up after they all finish each other off.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: I played golf yesterday and somebody suggested to me that, if I ever do write another book, the title should be On the Golf Course, because of what I hear so often and the things that happen, the conversations that ensue with people on the golf course. 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