RUSH: Okay, to the phones we go now, as we kick off a brand-new week of broadcast excellence, hosted by me, El Rushbo, behind the Golden EIB Microphone.
Alex in High Point, North Carolina. He’s 23 years old. Great to have you on the program, sir. Hi.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. How’s it going? First of all: Love the show today. Very deep, a lot deeper than the usual shows. This is just the type of core stuff that we all need to be talking about. And I was gonna talk about the American dream.
RUSH: Hey, would…? Hey, hey, Alex? Do me a favor: Slow down just a little bit so that I can hear you.
CALLER: Okay. (laughing)
RUSH: It’s not your fault.
CALLER: No, no.
RUSH: It’s me. I just need you to slow down a little so I can hear you.
CALLER: I’m just enthusiastic. I was gonna talk about the American dream. For some reason, and I don’t know where it changed, but it used to be the opportunity. The American dream was not the white picket fence and a dog in the yard. It was the opportunity to be a nobody and become someone. And now I feel — and I don’t know where it changed. I feel like it’s become something to obtain. It’s the white picket fence and the dog in the yard and the grill and the whole thing, the big house and whatever. It was never really that because it’s not something everyone gets. It’s the opportunity to have that. You can have that if you work hard and —
RUSH: Yeah, but let me tell you what’s going on. There has been a change. You’re 23. I’m 60 whatever it is, one. And for longer than that, there has been an effort to attack the whole concept of the American dream because it’s rooted in capitalism, and not everybody does attain it. You’re right. You’re exactly right. The American dream was about freedom of opportunity.
CALLER: Absolutely. No question about it.
RUSH: You have the chance. It has now morphed into an expectation. And if it isn’t provided, or if it doesn’t happen, then people feel cheated. They are told that the country’s unfair and unjust, and so they join the people who protest the capitalist nature of the country in favor of somebody’s promise that everybody can have everything they want.
CALLER: Yes, sir. They want the iPhone. They want a check. They want to work a minimum wage job and pay rent.
RUSH: No, wait. That’s always been the case. They want it NOW. And if they can’t have it now, somebody should buy it for ’em. That’s what’s changed.
CALLER: I totally agree. I think in part it’s the generation before me that wanted to give more to their children. Baby Boomers wanted to give more to their children and they did because America was so great. And a lot of my generation — and hopefully not the generation after me but a lot of my generation — feels entitled to things, and it’s sad.
RUSH: Well, yeah, I, too, have my problems with Baby Boom generation. I, of course, am a member. The Baby Boom generation is made up of a whole bunch of different people, including the sixties radicals who are now running the country or people like them, but there were other factions of Boomers. But I’ll tell you, the Boomers…
I’ve had the theory for the longest time that the Baby Boom generation had life so easy compared to their parents and grandparents that they had to invent their traumas to tell themselves that life was tough. Compared to their parents and grandparents, life has been a piece of cake, and yet these are the people that complain the most: The Boomers, my generation. No question. Look, that’s a great call and a great point, Alex.
Alex, hang on for just a second. Hold on for like five or six minutes.
Do not go away.
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RUSH: Alex, are you still there?
CALLER: (silence)
RUSH: Alex, are you there?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Do you want an iPhone, Alex? (chuckling) Do you want an iPhone 5?
CALLER: No, no. I paid for mine, actually.
RUSH: Ah, you paid for yours.
CALLER: I did. (laughs) What a shame.
RUSH: It is. How about an iPad Mini? You want an iPad Mini?
CALLER: That’d be great.
RUSH: Okay, cool. Don’t go away.
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Bill in Southampton, Long Island. Great to have you on the EIB, sir, hello.
CALLER: Thanks, Rush, but I think that Snerdley may be on to something, unfortunately.
RUSH: You do?
CALLER: I do. And second, I’m sitting here drooling over the opportunity to go to TwoIfByTea.com and possibly win a trip down to south Florida. That would be an awesome experience.
RUSH: It was fun the last time we had people in here. It was a blast all day long. So I hope you win.
CALLER: I do, too. But here’s my point. I had the honor, Rush, of escorting and taking down World War II veterans from Long Island to see their memorial in Washington, DC, and just to prove that you continue to be correct 99.6% of the time, or is it seven?
RUSH: Seven.
CALLER: They don’t recognize their America anymore. These men and women who saved the world from tyranny, Rush, they don’t recognize this country. It’s so far from —
RUSH: Okay. Let me play devil’s advocate. Would somebody born in 1800 who was an entirely morally perfect person recognize America today? Would anybody 70 years old recognize the America 70 years after they were born?
CALLER: Yes, I believe so. I believe there has been a sea change over the past 30 and 40 years, Rush.
RUSH: Well —
CALLER: — do with this entitlement society —
RUSH: I’m just asking. I agree with you.
CALLER: Okay. Because, I mean, you know, our Founding Fathers — here’s the other thing that I would like to say. Two things. One is that those veterans, if I went out there and talked to those people who voted for Obama to reelect him, to give him a second four years to continue to do what he did in the first four, wouldn’t necessarily care what that generation did for America. And that has really discouraged me, because I just would think that anybody hearing the sacrifices —
RUSH: Let me ask you a quick question. I got 30 seconds. How many people who voted for Obama three weeks ago do you think are gonna be shocked and surprised at what happens in this country because he won? In other words, how many people have no idea what they were even voting for other than cult, the personality, the history, first black president, how many Obama voters do you think are gonna be shocked and be calling here asking for forgiveness inside of two years?
CALLER: Well, very few. In three years from now when that happens we’re not gonna see them because they’re gonna be invisible, but my last point is —
RUSH: No, no, I don’t mean — the answer to that question is a good way of illustrating something.