RUSH: Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, we had polling data, survey data from something called the Public Religion Research Institute. The data we had yesterday: 73% of Americans think that they don’t have a chance to have success as their parents did, and I think that was the survey in which people said that they had missed out on the chance for success.
I forgot how it was worded, but I remember my reaction was, “Where do you go to have the chance for success passed out to you?” Well, there’s more. “A new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute shows that 55% Americans say the American dream never ever existed in the first place or that it did exist but doesn’t anymore.” Now, stop and think about that for just a second.
Who’s responsible for people believing this? A, it’s a reflection of their reality. They’re living it, number one. But they’re also being told this. But who’s responsible for both? They’re living in a hogwash economy. They’re living in an ongoing recession. There hasn’t been any recovery. Now, the economists might trying to tell us that statistically the recession ended in June of 2009.
But in the real world, it hasn’t ended. People continue to drop out of the workforce, and people continue to drop out of the universe of people trying to find a job. The number of people not working, the labor force participation rate is at an all-time high. It’s 93 million Americans and climbing. Because of Obamacare — again, thank you Democrat Party — employers are reducing work hours to 30 max, so that they don’t have to provide coverage.
This was a slam dunk. You could see this coming the moment you saw that in the Obamacare legislation. It’s another one of these unintended consequences. Democrats write laws and think everybody’s just a bunch of sheep and is going to abide by them rather than realizing that clever people are gonna find ways around it. But this is pretty sad, that 55% of the American people say the American dream never existed.
It was a myth, or it did exist but doesn’t anymore. The concept of the American dream used to be the defining characteristic of this country. It used to be the objective, reaching the American dream, however people defined it. It used to be defined as owning a house, which works because that equals a certain degree of economic success and security. But these kinds of attitudes become self-fulfilling.
These kinds of attitudes here are shrouded in pessimism, negativity, reluctance, giving up. “If it doesn’t exist, why pursue it? If it never did exist, why be a fool and pretend that it did and try to find it now, if it didn’t exist?” Now, I maintain to you that there’s a political party that benefits from these attitudes. There’s a political party that benefits from people thinking there is no American dream.
They still have to eat. They still have to have shelter. So if you’ve got a political party that’s gonna blame these attitudes and these economic circumstances on a presidency that hasn’t been around for six years, and if you’re gonna say, “Yeah, that’s right! The prosperous America you’ve heard about, that was temporary, that was an aberration. This is what it should have been all along.”
The Reagan years kind of skewed everything in an artificial way, they want you to believe. “The poll shows just 42% of Americans cling to the notion of the American Dream — loosely defined as people who work hard being able to get ahead.” Think of that. That’s dead. Fifty-five percent of people think that the concept of working hard and getting ahead doesn’t seem to be real anymore.
Now, this number, this 42% of Americans thinking the American dream still exists, that’s the lowest percentage since the question has been asked. This poll only goes back to 2010. So it’s not a big shift in just three years because Obama’s been around for six, and this attitude has been inculcated almost from the get-go. “A CNN/Opinion Research poll in June showed 59% of Americans said the American dream was unachievable.”
So it’s not just this poll. There are a bunch of others. And then, before you conclude… If some of you out there think, “I know why this is. This is just Republicans mad at Obama.” No, it’s not. “Republicans, by 55%, are far more likely to believe in the American dream than Democrats, which come in 33%.” Only 33% of Democrats believe in the American dream. Stop and think of that, too.
What do they believe?
Who are they loyal to?
What do they listen to and support and vote for?
The drivel that comes out of the mouths of Democrats! And look what it gets ’em. Futility. Worthlessness. Depressed. Fifty-five percent of Republicans are likely to believe, or do likely believe the American dream still exists.
I have a sound bite I wanted to play when I had the guy on from Denver who was being very, very nice about the Rush Revere Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans history series. CBS today. Remember the story we had yesterday about the kids protesting at Jefferson County, Colorado?
The school board curriculum changed, and they didn’t want to be taught capitalism. Well, here we have Stephanie Ross. Stephanie Ross is a Wheat Ridge High School history teacher from that district on CBS This Morning.
ROSS: If we can’t talk about the struggles that people go through in history to gain a greater equality, a greater America, how can we convey a true story and convey a complete picture to our students?
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, this is a history teacher. This is a history teacher, and she is proud of the fact that her students want to eschew capitalism and instead think that America’s greatness is about diversity, and that’s what they want to be taught. Let me ask you a quick question: Is the story of America the struggle for equality? Is that what you think the story of America is?
She says here, “If we can’t talk about the struggles that people go through in history to gain a greater equality, how can we convey a true story and convey a complete picture to our students?” Has that been the story of America? (interruption) The story of America is the struggle for equality. What do you think about? Is that what our story is? Is that what the founding of America was about, the struggle for equality?
Think about it for just a second.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The struggle for America. The story of America is not the struggle for equality. That was, for lack of a better word, acknowledged in the Declaration of Independence. And the Constitution, in its own way, dealt with the premise in several of the Bill of Rights. The story of America is the struggle for freedom, ladies and gentlemen. Not equality, not fairness, not diversity, not all of these things that modern liberal high school and middle school teachers think are important.
America is diverse in more ways than most other countries could be trying to be. There already is more equality in premise alone in this country than most human beings have ever known. The story of America is the struggle of freedom from a controlling, dictatorial, statist, tyrannical central government or power. That is the story of this country. That is the story that sets this country apart from every other country.
The struggle for equality is a subset, if anything, to the principle of freedom. There can be no equality and there can be no diversity and there can be no fairness unless there is freedom. Freedom is what this country was all about. Freedom for average, ordinary, common, everyday people. Common, ordinary, everyday people were the stars in this country. Not the leaders. Not the elected officials.
This country was founded on the premise that all men are created equal. Certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, pursuit of happiness; that’s all in the Declaration of Independence. Why were we separating from the tyranny of Britain? Freedom. Because it was assumed, it was proclaimed that freedom is instilled in every human being by virtue of creation by God and that it is man, men, women, whoever, who attempt to deny that freedom from average, ordinary, everyday, call ’em whatever you want, people. And the Founders had had enough of it. They had studied immensely the history of the world up to their point in time. They had found the horror stories and what they thought were the recipes, and that became the United States of America.
For the first time in the history of the world — and this is the true American exceptionalism — for the first time in the history of the world, a country was founded on the premise that its people run the show and that its government is subservient to the people. That the people are governed and lead lives according to the natural-born freedom they had. The reason why it’s a struggle is because up until that time, and since that time in other parts of the world, the history of humanity has been tyranny.
The history of humanity has been bondage, in some cases, torture, tyranny, no economic freedom. The history of the world has been the subjugation, the subordination of individuals to government, dictatorial control. That’s the story of America. But apparently out in Denver, Colorado, and I’m sure other places, young, hip liberal teachers are inculcating young skulls full of mush with the idea that this country is flawed, this country denies equality to people and freedom and fairness and what have you. Because that’s what they’ve been taught when they went to college to learn how to be teachers.
That bogus premise of the purpose of this country and the history of this country has just been recycled over and over again, generation after generation, to now where it is the dominant view in American education. Hence, my friends, this is why the idea of writing these books was so appealing to me, to try to get the truth, the simple, honest truth. It’s a great, great story. It’s a spine tingling story.
Even today in 2014, the concept of individual human freedom is still a rarity. It’s why this is the one place on the planet, if people want to go somewhere, it’s here. And it’s for that reason. They’re not trying to cheat Customs, ICE. They’re not trying to cross borders here for equality, and they’re not trying to get here ’cause they want to be part of a great experiment on diversity. They want to get here because they want to be free, especially those coming from places where it has never existed.
I know, I know, others are coming here to get in on the benefits. I acknowledge that. But I’m talking about the purists. They say we’re a nation of immigrants, and we are. The genuine period of immigration which did build this country, that’s why they came. And that’s been the story. Everything else that these teachers, what did she say? “If we can’t talk about the struggles that people go through in history to gain a greater equality.” Braveheart. Equality, is that what he was after? I don’t think so. That came later. You can’t have equality or fairness or diversity unless you first have a giant umbrella under which everybody is free. And then you can go about playing around, making messes with what it all means.