RUSH: So, ladies and gentlemen, for 232, 233 years on July 4th, America celebrated Independence Day. And now people rightly ask, ‘Are we headed to Dependence Day?’ Not if I have anything to say about it. ‘When in the course of human events…’ Seven words that started the Declaration of Independence and begot the United States of America: ‘When in the course of human events…’ Independence — a single word, a glorious idea, a word that guided us and governed us for 233 years or whatever it is. Independence, liberty, freedom, independence are that which made us different from everyone else. But on this July 4th we have to give pause as we drive our RVs and go to our dog parties and eat hot dogs and hamburgers and ask ourselves, ‘Are we celebrating Independence Day or a new Dependence Day?’ Dependence on government for our health, for our wealth. Ah, there won’t be any wealth if you depend on anybody for it. So your meager subsistence and your well-being, dependence on government for that — and to solve our problems. General Powell said people want government to solve our problems. So we depend on government for that.
Independence or dependence?
The answer is written in the polls. Scary. Thirty-five, maybe 45% want dependence. It’s our job — yours, mine, ours — to do everything we can to resist the false promises of dependence and to cherish the virtues of independence. And it shouldn’t be that hard. We have 232 years of evidence — and as Lanny Davis would say, of ‘poof’ — that independence works far better than dependence does. It’s better for the individual — and as our founders foresaw, better for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But now with the unemployment numbers at nine-and-a-half percent (and no end in sight) to the plunge in the number of people working and our economic growth in negative numbers, it is safe to say that the United States is or is on the verge of becoming a banana republic. We have a president who sides with dictators in their own banana republics against people who want freedom such as in Honduras.
(playing of Day-O by Harry Belafonte)
From the vault of never-before-heard-nor-discovered Michael Jackson music. I wonder how many people listening to this song who never have heard it are wondering, ‘What the heck is this?’ That’s Harry Belafonte — best friends, I might say, with fellow dictator Hugo Chavez. In fact, we have picture on our website of Belafonte with Hugo Chavez — and we also have a picture of President Obama in his youthful days with the Panama hat smoking a cigarette — to go along with the new banana republic and Day-O as our official new national anthem.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back to the phones to College Station, Texas. Rick, I’m glad you waited, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Mega orthodox Catholic conservative retired Texas state trooper dittos from the great state of Texas where there are more Ronaldo (sic) Magnus supporters here than his own state of California.
RUSH: Probably true today, yes.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, before I get to my point, I learned from listening to you that if you don’t ask for something, you’ll never get what you want. And when I was a Texas trooper patrolling the rural roads in Texas, always listening to your program, you kept me in great company. We usually work without a partner. And I always wished and dreamt that I’d have an autographed Rush Limbaugh necktie. Any chance?
RUSH: You know what, I’ll have to check and see if I have any. Those things haven’t been in production in I don’t know how many moons. I think I still have some that I wear occasionally. I saw Orrin Hatch wearing one the other day on TV, but Snerdley will get your name and address when we hang up here on the call and if I have one I’ll send one to you.
CALLER: Hey thanks, Rush. Great. Hey, Rush, my question is this: As a conservative first and Republican second, there’s much discussion about the so-called Republicans — such as Colin Powell, Tom Ridge, et cetera — about the need for the Republican Party to be more ‘inclusive’ and to be more big tent. Rush, sincerely, how do we grow our conservative Republican base without compromising our core moral beliefs and values such as being pro-life, traditional marriage, and against reverse discrimination? What are your honest thoughts on that?
But basically all you have to do — and I don’t mean to make this sound simple, because it’s not a simple task to achieve. But the methodology is simple. Just espouse the terms of the founding. Talk about basic humanity, freedom, liberty, pursuit of happiness, all these things. Talk about how this is what we want for every American. We want the best for every American. We don’t look at you and see you as victims. We don’t look at you and see you as a problem. We don’t look at you with contempt as the other side does. We look at you as part of the greatest collection of human beings that’s ever existed in one country, and the reason that we are exceptional is not because our DNA is different. The reason we are exceptional is precisely because we have liberty and freedom, the pursuit of happiness, enshrined in our founding documents. We had independence. We had the ability to be the best we could be as human beings — or to try to be. If we wanted to be the worst we could be, we had that freedom, too. But people had the freedom, and when you have that kind of disparity, you are going to have different outcomes.
Some people are going to do better than others. That gives rise to the modern left. ‘That’s just not right! That’s just that’s not fair. It doesn’t matter how it happens, nobody should have more than anybody else. Nobody should be better than anybody else. Nobody should get more advantages than anybody else.’ So the left rises up in their quest for sameness and equality, and rather than elevate people at the bottom to say, ‘Hey, you know, you can be great, too. You can be better than you think you can,’ they affirm people at the lower levels as incompetent victims and so forth. They attack the people at the upper levels to try to bring them down. So they try to equalize society by making everybody equally miserable. But I believe in the basic American human instincts, even though they’re not taught very much anymore. I believe a full-fledged approach to the American people with somebody that has a likable personality (that’s the TV age), that espouses the beauty of America, the wonderment of America, the important role that every citizen plays in it, and that everybody can be better than they can be, than they think they can be. I don’t think this is difficult at all.
Human beings are human beings. I don’t believe, for example — it may be that way now because the Democrats have led us to this. But I don’t believe that Hispanic-Americans have to be talked to in a different way than Chinese-Americans. If they’re Americans, they’re Americans, and they understand what it is to be an American. Now, some people may be coming here for get-rich-quick schemes and so forth. But I believe — with the decency and goodness that is the approach to this country and the belief in its citizens — that we can bring the best out of everybody. We want the best for everybody, and we don’t have to appeal to people as groups. We don’t have to acknowledge, ‘Well, you know, there’s this middle class out there that we’re ignoring and these people do want big government, and we’ve gotta figure out a way to make sure that we can convince them that we’re going to use the government the best way to help them.’
The best way you help people deal with government is get it out of their lives! ‘But, Rush! But, Rush! What about people who need it?’ That is a problem because more and more people have become dependent on government because of the efforts of the Democrat Party and the American left. But it’s gotta change. If we have any hopes of changing this, we cannot accept any status quo. But so many conservatives now, so many Republicans, want to accept certain status quos as inalienable bits of evolution. ‘We can’t roll back what people think about government, Rush! They want big government to help.’ No. It’s not good for them. It doesn’t help anybody but government.
Why would we want to amplify and support policies that are not good for people? We want the best for people. I don’t think this would be that hard a sell, but a traditional politician with a pollster may not be able to pull it off. Anyway, this whole notion of ‘inclusive’? How much more ‘inclusive’ can you be, as a party, when you tell people, ‘We are for your freedom and your liberty and we want you to be the best you can be. We want you to acquire what you want. We need it. This country needs you pursuing excellence. This country needs you trying to be the best you can be. Be innovative. Be imaginative. Dream! We need this from our people.’
I don’t know how you can get more inclusive. What these people mean by ‘inclusive,’ is, ‘Okay, we’re talking about a special message. We gotta peel off 10% of the blacks, so we gotta have a special message for them and the Hispanics. We got a special message.’ So how do we do it? We stand for amnesty? Whatever ‘inclusiveness’ we have we throw out the window when we compromise our own beliefs, and that’s what’s happening now, though it needn’t happen. It’s not that hard. Trust me. Don’t doubt me.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Rasmussen has a poll out today that 74% of the American people agree with the assertion that ‘all men are created equal.’ Only 23% disagree with that. I’ll tell you, the way the left has distorted views in this country, that’s astronomically high. That’s great news, that 74% believe in the assertion ‘all men are created equal.’ ‘Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness,’ 89% agree with that. Only 7% disagree on that premise. There are building blocks possible out there, folks, is the point.