RUSH: Here’s John in Dallas. Nice to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush, what an honor to talk to you, sir.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: I’ll make my point real quick. One of the things that I think people are just so uncomfortable with the way you’re communicating — which I completely agree with you — is that during the past election, these guys propped them up, calling them ‘honorable men’ and talking about how great they were and how good a friends they are. Then they turned around and called them liars. Now, what is it? Are they honorable or are they liars? And you’re just coming straight out, and you’re telling the truth. You’re calling it like it is. You know, Obama is a socialist. We want him to fail because of his policies. It has nothing to do with him or his family life or whatever. He’s just a socialist. That’s calling it like it is.
RUSH: Speaking of… You know, this is a (ahem) another good point. We throw the word ‘socialist’ around and we assume that people know what it means. Would you…? There’s no right or wrong answer. Would you tell me what you think socialism is?
CALLER: Socialism is the government’s going to take care of everything. That’s it in a nutshell to me.
RUSH: Well, yeah. That’s true. But to some people, we have to admit that sounds pretty good right now, ’cause they think the private sector has failed them. That’s what Obama is trying to impress upon us. There are three primary definitions of socialism. It is ‘a political theory advocating state ownership of industry,’ and we see it’s starting to happen with the banks and automobile companies. It is ‘an economic system based on state ownership of capital,’ meaning money. The state owns the money. Now, no money is theirs. They don’t have a dime until they either print it or confiscate it from the people that produce it. But they’re now operating under the procedure that all money is theirs and you’re only going to end up with whatever they decide is ‘enough’ for you.
Now, here are some variations on the definition of socialism. ‘Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.’ Meaning the government in charge of all food, the government in charge of banks, the government in charge of energy — and you need to ask yourself: Given who government is today (it’s majority Democrat) you have to look and say, ‘Well, when they’ve run things, have they succeeded? Is there any evidence to suggest that they know what they’re doing?’ No. In fact, they gave us the subprime crisis. They have given us a permanent underclass of people in poverty in this country. The Democrat Party has done this.
Another definition: ‘A system of society or group living in which there’s no private property. A system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state.’ Number three: ‘A stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.’ So you think that if Obama and his boys get total control that they’re going to be fair, everybody is going to be the same, and outcomes will be equal. Wrong. Their buddies are going to do fine. Their buddies won’t even have to pay taxes, like they don’t have to now. But you’re not going to do so well. So those are the basic tenets of socialism. We throw it around, but I don’t think a lot of people take it more than government in charge of everything. It’s far worse than that. I mean, government being in charge of things is bad.