RUSH: Orlando in Simpsonville, South Carolina. Great to have you on the program, Orlando. Hello.
CALLER: I can’t tell you what a privilege it is to be speaking to you, Rush. How are you?
RUSH: Well, thank you very much. I’m good. I’m good. It’s great to have you here, Orlando.
CALLER: Yeah, I’m one of those rare but not rare Afro-American, slash… Scratch that. I’m an American who happens to be of African descent that’s a huge fan of your show. I was telling Snerdley that you may be, as we look back over the annals of time, one of the greatest living Americans for our time period. Because there’s such a vacuum of leadership, we have needed a booming voice, and your voice echoes like it does through a mountain valley or a huge room with cathedral ceilings. How the left and liberals wish they could silence that voice, and thank God you have not been silenced.
RUSH: Wow, that’s really… That’s something, Orlando. I appreciate that.
CALLER: I just want to tell you that I’ve been on a personal journey.
RUSH: Look, I’m not trying to be falsely humble here. I appreciate you saying that. I really do. But… Look, I don’t want to diminish your compliment, ’cause I really do appreciate it. I don’t think of myself that way. I’m just a guy on the radio here that has a job to do every day. I do appreciate it, and I don’t doubt that you mean every word of it, and it’s very moving.
CALLER: I just know that I’ve been on a personal journey since 2008. I was an unemployed health care worker. After being in health care for 20 years, this booming recovery has now allowed me to work full time, and so I went back to school and I love history, and the more I study history, the more I realize that you were right. You encouraged me to read everything I could.
It encouraged me to go to Hillsdale College and while I was studying the history stuff, just sit down and just learn how great our country is. I believe in American exceptionalism, that we are exceptional system, that we should not accept mediocrity or the status quo, and that we can do better and that education of ourselves is a key. You had the earlier caller talking about how great the minimum wage is.
Well, studying just the basic knowledge of economics, disturbing the market equilibrium without an increase in demand in productivity or demand for the product, will only breed more unemployment and more inflation. It’s just a basic thing. You change the curve at one point; it’s gonna change at another point. So we need voices of education to help push us out there to go looking for what the real truth is, and I appreciate that as an American.
RUSH: Now, let me say something. I’m not pandering here, either. But with what you have just said, you epitomize what my hope in doing this program is every day. Out of the blue, however you came to it, you came to this program and you were intrigued, and you looked into all of this stuff yourself.
That means you learned it. You didn’t just hear me say it. You went out, studied it, looked it all up, whatever. You learned it yourself, which now means you believe it, because you know it to be true. So you epitomize what my dream is here of this program creating a massive number of informed, participating, voting citizens.
CALLER: Rush Revere for the next generation is awesome, too, Rush. Just passing on that knowledge. My son, he doesn’t know it yet but for Christmas he’s getting the whole series. He looked at the book and said, “Dad, this is a great book.” I said, “We’ll see if we can’t talk to Santa Claus about that.” But that’s what he’s getting for Christmas. He’s getting the whole set of Rush Revere. He’s 10 years old, very inquisitive, and loves history like me.
RUSH: Wait. He’s 10 years old, you just said?
CALLER: Yeah, he’s 10. Seth is 10.
RUSH: He’s 10. Seth’s 10.
CALLER: He wants those books.
RUSH: But he doesn’t know he’s getting that stuff yet?
CALLER: No, he doesn’t know he’s getting it. No.
RUSH: Well, let me… Seth is his name. You have to let me add to the bundle that you’re gonna give him for Christmas. When we finish…
CALLER: Wow, thanks, Rush.
RUSH: No, we want to send him some Rush Revere stuff. We send all kinds of stuff out to people that e-mail us. We try to maintain as much personal contact with everybody that gets hold of us about these books as we can. Kathryn leads that effort, and she’s on top of this like you can’t imagine. It’s a massive undertaking.
CALLER: Yup.
RUSH: When we hang up here, you give Snerdley your address. We want to put together some other stuff for you to present to Seth when you give him his Christmas gifts.
CALLER: If they’re gonna be indoctrinated in schools, you know, with the massive education machine, we ought to balance that with some truth. And since they’re trying to do all kinds of revisionism that they can, all the revisionism that’s going on, I want Seth to know what great country that he lives in and that his father could not have gone to school, worked his way through school the first time, working his way through school the second time, I could not have done that if our nation not been so great. And I want him to know what a great land that he has grown up in.
RUSH: Well, God bless you. My God, this is awesome. Orlando, we need to make a note of this: replay Orlando’s call like once a week. (laughing) Orlando, you’ve left me speechless here. You’re just incredible. You are exactly what is hoped for here. And again, you’ve gone out and learned this stuff yourself. You were interested and intrigued enough to do it, and that means you know it. It’s not just floating around because somebody said it to you or told you. You actually have learned it and believed it. It’s a beautiful thing. I really can’t thank you enough. So don’t hang up here, Orlando, keep the phone off the hook so that we can get hold of you and get an address to send the additional items for Seth for Christmas.