RUSH: Tom in South Holland, Illinois. Tom, I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Rush, it’s a pleasure to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: You know, I’ve been sitting here listening to this stuff for the last few days about you, but what really made me mad a while ago is you talked about Jan taking the floor of the House —
RUSH: That would be Jan Schakowsky. Is she your Congress babe?
CALLER: In Illinois here?
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: Yeah, I think so.
RUSH: Well, I know she’s from Illinois, but is she in your district?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: You’re lucky. So we can’t hold you accountable for the fact that she’s in Congress. So you don’t need to apologize.
CALLER: Oh, that’s right. And then what I’d like to get off my chest is that I’m so tired of the Democrats like her taking the floor and lying to make things perfectly clear when I would like them to make it perfectly honest for a change instead of clear, as they see it. And I believe in my own heart that this bill that was forced on President Bush, knowing he would veto it, for which he was set up. And what really makes me irritated about the fact that he was set up to veto it so they could slam him, is now they’re using children as shields in their fight against Bush, as you would use a child as a shield against a murdering shooter.
RUSH: Hell, that’s nothing new.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: They’ve been using the children for a long time. Congressional hearings, they bring up these poor kids to be paraded in front of the media.
CALLER: Have they no shame?
RUSH: They bring up the elderly. They bring up all their activists.
CALLER: Nothing is out of bounds with them, is it?
RUSH: Look, Tom, they are not about truth.
CALLER: No, they’re not.
RUSH: You nailed it. They are about power.
CALLER: Keep it up, Rush.
RUSH: In fact, folks, I’m going to say something that might surprise you a bit. I’m beginning to consider the possibility that the Democrats have just moved beyond ideology, in terms of what propels them. And by that I mean, I don’t think that it’s just liberalism that’s propelling them. There is something further and more disastrous and more dangerous going on, and I think they’ve become Stalinist-like. What we’re seeing here from Wesley Clark, Media Matters for America, all the Democrats on the floor of the House and Senate, denouncing me, a private citizen, this is not just liberalism. It’s Stalinist, using the power of the state to intimidate citizens. I have mentioned to you I don’t know how many times, and I’ve asked you to conduct this experiment: When you are with a group of people at a party, I don’t care where, even your friends and maybe some in the group you don’t know but most of the people you do — notice how scared everybody is to say anything for fear of making others uncomfortable, or for fear of offending somebody, or for fear of being ripped to shreds for making somebody uncomfortable, or offending them.
We are allowing ourselves to be shut up by virtue of political correctness, not willing to offend anybody and so forth, and you try this test. If you really want to try the test, the next time you’re in one of these situations like this, don’t hold back, say what you really think about something and gauge the reaction. I guarantee you that you are going to stand alone, you’re going to stand out, and people are going to go, ‘How can you say that?’ ‘What do you mean? My mouth opened, the tongue moved, and syllables came out, that’s how I said it. It’s what I think.’ ‘No, I don’t mean that. I mean, how can you say that?’ ‘Because it’s what I think.’ So few people are unwilling to tell anybody else what they really think because they are scared. Right now they’re just scared of controversy; they’re scared of other people not liking them; they’re scared of other people being offended; they’re scared of other people criticizing them. But, in a lot of places in the world, the same fear exists, but it’s fear of the state.
That’s why I heartily recommended last week you go out and rent the movie The Lives of Others. It won the Academy Award for best foreign film. Folks, it is a gray and depressing movie. It ends on a warm note. Don’t watch it with your kids. It’s an R-rated movie, and it’s got some sex in it which is totally unrelated to the story. They just put it in there for the art aspect of it. Just watch it. It is an accurate portrayal and depiction of what life was like in East Germany before the wall fell. I’m not suggesting we live in East Germany. Don’t misunderstand. I’m saying this is the kind of thing that can happen over time while people aren’t even aware of it, shutting up and not telling people what you think, and you think it’s virtuous. We’ve been led to believe it’s virtuous not to offend anybody. We’ve been led to believe it’s virtuous not to cause controversy. Everybody wants to get along, don’t make waves. So the result of this is fear shuts people up, and they think it’s virtue at the same time. Which is asinine.
You don’t think that Harry Reid’s trying to shut me up? You don’t think Harry Reid is trying to intimidate the company that syndicates this program, shut me up and denounce me? You don’t think the Democrats in the House — that’s what this is about, and to show everybody else what can happen to them next if they succeed. That’s why I’m fighting this. I am not going to cower in fear of anybody in government. I’m not going to cower in fear of people in the state. I’m not going to cower in fear especially when I’m being smeared and lied about in terms of what I said and what I thought! Now they’re even questioning what was in my mind when I said ‘phony soldiers.’ ‘What were you thinking when you said that?’ They are interpreting it for everybody, so they’re granting themselves the power to interpret my thoughts and rework my words, two words they’ve turned into hundreds of thousands of words. We have now something more than liberalism going on. I’m not saying that liberalism isn’t there. Liberalism is a central component to all this. But what’s happening here is Stalinist: fear of the state, people shutting up, fear of other people.
When you have the state, be it the federal government, or the state government, or your local government, [any of them] can even get involved in using that power to tell you what you can and can’t say and where you can and can’t say it, and what you can and can’t eat, and where you can and can’t eat it. They may not be issuing direct orders. They’re trying to make you feel guilty about driving what you drive, eating what you eat. It’s all designed to control your behavior using fear of punishment if you disobey. That’s who today’s liberals are. That’s who today’s Democrat Party is. They are not about truth. They don’t want to have to deal with the truth because truth to them is whatever they say it is hour to hour, day to day, week to week. The truth is going to be whatever they want it to be and whatever benefits them. So when they say on the House floor, ‘let me make this clear,’ what they’re saying is, ‘this is how I want you to think of this.’ They’re not interested in truth. If they were interested in truth, and if they engaged in attempted truthful discussions, they would lose in landslides.
They cannot be honest about who they are. This is serious stuff, folks. It may appear to be a game, and I know the way I deal with these things sometimes is to have fun with it. But I’m telling you, you put Mrs. Clinton in the White House, and every damn one of these little minions and all these little organizations of hers that are out trying to destroy her enemies right now are going to be given high-government positions to do their investigations and their seek-and-destroy missions from high-government positions. Make no mistake, this is the bunch that had 500 FBI files during their eight years, make no mistake that that’s what’s happening here. You can choose to believe it or ignore it. It’s tough to face. ‘Gosh, I didn’t think it would be this bad.’ It is. It portends a real problem.