RUSH: Arroyo Grande, California. This is Shannon. Nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Dittos.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I just wanted to comment on what you said a while ago that conservatives are sending their kids to Christian schools, private schools, homeschooling them. I decided not to do that, I decided to send my kids to public school and try to make a difference in the school. And now I’m PTA president. So I just want to encourage parents to get back involved. You know, try to take back public schools.
RUSH: Well, that’s admirable of you.
CALLER: It’s even given me further strength and helped to build my resume to run for office and city council, so I like to encourage people out there, conservatives. Don’t stop listening to Rush — you gotta have that — but get out and do something about it.
RUSH: Amen. Amen. I want to know a couple things here.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: You say you’re a PTA president.
CALLER: I am the president-elect for 2010-2011 at my kids’ public school.
RUSH: All right. Now, obviously, you are up against some opposition. Not for the campaign to become president but just throughout the PTA. How do you deal with parents and others who are not of the same mode that you’re in?
CALLER: Well, I proudly wore my McCain-Palin sticker to school in ’08 (giggles) and kids would come up to me and go, ‘My parents are going to vote for Obama,’ and I said, ‘That’s great. That’s the wonderful thing about this country. They have the right to do that.’
RUSH: No. You shoulda said, ‘Your parents are stupid and I’m here at the school to try to make sure you don’t end up that way yourself.’
CALLER: I want to actually get elected, Rush.
RUSH: (laughing) But you’re not elected by the students.
CALLER: No, true. But I’m there. I’m volunteering, and so are my kids, and this is what I think conservatives need to do. This has become a personal mission of mine, and now I’m running for city council, and I’d like to run for state, and I’m in California.
RUSH: All right. (clapping)
CALLER: I definitely feel overwhelmed, but we can’t give up.
RUSH: All right, all right, all right, all right! This is excellent. I’m proud of you.
CALLER: Thank you. That means a lot coming from you.
RUSH: Well, I’m glad that you called.
CALLER: I hope I made you feel better.
RUSH: Oh, you did. You did, and I think you’ll win, too.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush.
RUSH: You did win. You’re the president of PTA president-elect. You know, she said something out there, folks. It’s a minor irritant. It’s a minor irritant. I normally hear it from liberals. Alan Alda said it to me once.
‘You know what? I don’t agree with a thing you say, but I really do believe you have the right to say what you want.’
‘Well, thank you. Thank you for bestowing upon me the right to think what I want to think! Well, how big of you.’
I don’t think it’s great that these kids’ parents wanted to vote for Obama. It’s been a disaster! I don’t think that’s what’s makes the country great. Now, I’m not being critical of Shannon, don’t misunderstand, but I’m a big believer of right and wrong. Obama is wrong. We know it now: Obama has been a disaster. So you say, ‘Well, you know, that’s the great thing about this country! You can be stupid enough to elect an absolute disaster and make a mess for everybody for 25 years. That’s the great thing about this country.’ No. It’s not a great thing about the country. ‘Rush, are you opposing the freedom of people to vote?’ No. No, I’m not doing that at all. I’m just saying the greatness of this country is not rooted in our stupidity. May I just be blunt? It’s kinda got… (interruption) Oh, that’s another one. H.R. just reminded me.
You know, I love bursting balloons. For some reason I just do, particularly young people. I mean in their twenties. I recently judged the Miss America Pageant. You wouldn’t believe the interviews the number of contestants who came up and said, ‘I want to make a difference,’ and I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Well, Hitler made a difference.’ You know, what is this ‘I want to make a difference’ business? It’s become a cliche. What it means is, ‘I want to help people, I want to improve things,’ which I totally understand. But it’s also become a way of saying something about yourself when you don’t say anything. (interruption) Well, no, you’re missing my point. Snerdley, yes, I’ve made a difference. The point is… I can be honest with you.
I’m 59. Throughout my formative years — when I was a teenager, junior high school, when I was 12, when I was 8 — I knew I wanted to go into radio. From age 8 to now, at no time, never once did I ever say to myself, ‘The reason I want to succeed is because I want to make a difference.’ I had other reasons. Making a difference is naturally going to happen if you are good or (ahem) the best at what you do. Now, I know… (interruption) No, Snerdley. I did not want to be the only guy in radio to say that. I’m just saying we have a lot of cliches, and when somebody says, ‘I want to make a difference.’ Oh, that’s wonderful, little Johnny! That’s so wonderful. You keep on with that, little Johnny, and someday you will make a difference.
And little Johnny probably made a difference that day by breaking the window when he threw the baseball through it. By accident, of course. Sometimes little Johnny does it on purpose to get noticed. (sigh) I don’t know, I just think this notion, ‘Well, it’s the great thing about this country: Your parents can vote for Obama.’ By no measure of logic or intelligence is that a smart thing or a good thing. ‘But, Rush, it’s choice and opportunity.’ Yes, I know. That’s all wonderful. See, I come from the school of thought — or the hope — that the best way to move the country forward and to sustain the greatness is a massively informed public, and if we had a massively informed public, Obama wouldn’t have had a chance. But we don’t have a massively informed public. We have a massively emotionally shaped public, and that’s what led, in part, to Obama’s victory. Because for every one of you who are informed and enlightened and smart who ‘make a difference,’ remember: The ignorant can make a difference, too — and when they do, it ain’t good.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: A highly enlightened friend of mine just sent me a note saying, ‘Rush, this business of ‘I want to make a difference,’ what it means is, ‘I want to matter. I want to matter.” Which I understand. That’s why there’s Facebook. That’s why there’s MySpace, that’s why there’s MyFace, that’s why there’s MyButt, all these other tweets and social networks, that’s how people matter. I know everybody does want to matter. That’s how they lure them into environmental wackoism. ‘I’m mattering, I am driving my Prius, I am saving the planet. See this ribbon? I matter. I care more than you do about breast cancer, because you’re not wearing the ribbon. I’m better than you. I matter.’ I know everybody wants to matter. Then say that, don’t say ‘I want to make a difference’ because Hitler made a difference.