RUSH: Let’s go to the audio sound bites. Grab audio sound bite number 21. Josh Earnest. White House press briefing today, Josh Earnest said, “Hey, don’t be surprised if president Castro makes a visit to America to celebrate our new accord.” And then there was question from Jonathan Karl of ABC News. Jonathan Karl said to the press secretary, Josh Earnest, “Hey, Josh, if engagement works when you’re dealing with a country with a bad human rights record like Cuba or a country that behaves poorly, why not North Korea?” It’s my question earlier. Hey, if we’re gonna lift the sanctions on Cuba because it’s gonna improve relations and improve the plight of the people, why not lift the sanctions on North Korea? Jonathan Karl asked the question.
EARNEST: There was in place a policy to try to compel the Castro Regime to change that record by isolating them, and the fact is that policy failed because the Castro Regime remained in power and continued to take steps that oppressed their people. It’s time for us to try a new strategy to get the Castro Regime to better implement policies that don’t oppress the basic universal human rights of their people. Our concerns about North Korea’s behavior certainly include their deplorable human rights record, but they also include other things, too. It includes significant concerns with their nuclear program. Our concerns with the Regime in North Korea are different than the concerns that we have with Cuba.
RUSH: Well, okay, so Cuba policy failed and now it’s time for a new strategy to get the Castro Regime to implement better policies that don’t oppress the basic universal rights of their people. Somebody tell me how that’s gonna be the result of this. We’re gonna prop up the Castro economy. Did he happen to make any concessions? So Castro, out of the goodness of his heart, realizing what a wonderful friend he has in Obama, is gonna open up the jails. And I guess this message on North Korea, “Hey, if it’s good for Cuba, why not North Korea?” Well, give us time. Give us time.
And then he did say in the same press conference that it’s quite possible, maybe even likely, that there be a visit to Washington with President Castro. I don’t know if that’s Raul or Fidel. ‘Cause I think Raul’s the president. Fidel is the president emeritus in bed, or wherever he is. He’ll probably show up, too. I mean it’s gonna be gloat time like you can’t believe.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I know what’s really going on here, folks. I know why Obama did this, especially now the ghost is given up with the news that Fidel might even come and visit Washington, as Josh Earnest said. It is clear what has really happened here. Obama has relaxed and lifted all of these economic sanctions so he can legally import the secrets of the Cuban health care system and implement them into Obamacare and finally fix it.
Now, nobody else will have the guts to tell you that. But that is probably what this is really all about. Obamacare is an absolute abomination. It is an absolute mess. Cuba has the best health care system, fairest health care system, the freest and the cheapest health care system in the world. But how do you use it with the embargo in place? How in the world can you import any aspect of it with the embargo? So you lift the embargo, gonna normalize trade relations, and who knows, Raul or Fidel might actually, when they come to Washington, deliver the first operations manual on how to do a correct national health care system.
Here’s Yaret. Yaret in Atlanta, you’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you for having me on your program. I wanted to make a comment about Obama’s weak international policy.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: And actually, you know, focusing what’s going on with Cuba. (Unintelligible) in Iraq show a lot of weakness in this government. I’m a proud American. I’m also from Venezuela. And I’m suffering all the things that the Cuban government is doing in Venezuela because they’re in there. It’s a narcoterroristic country. It should be in high alert because they do harbor terrorism. It’s what’s happening in Venezuela. And I think Obama is gonna do this, and what is he gonna get in return?
The people in Cuba are gonna still be living in the same conditions they’ve been living with or without the sanctions, because before the perestroika when they had even more money, the Cubans didn’t get any of the goods or anything from the country, and he’s gonna continue to do that. And I want to also make a call to everybody to Google Leopoldo Lopez, which is a political prisoner of Venezuela that is incarcerated there, and the government has ignored the UN decree to free him, and it’s all the Cubans are in Venezuela. Venezuela is out of money, and right now is the timing for Cuba to come into negotiations with the United States.
RUSH: All right, wait, wait, wait, wait. I lost you somewhere along the line. I want to make sure I understand your point. You think that lifting the embargo is empowering Cuba to remain a —
CALLER: Yes. They’re not gonna change —
RUSH: Well, narcoterrorist. In other words, you think it’s a mistake?
CALLER: Completely. Because they’re not gonna change the ways. You know, Venezuela has been basically feeling feeding Cuba.
RUSH: Wait a minute, why wouldn’t it? Don’t you understand, Yaret, don’t you understand the whole point of the lifting the embargo, people are filled with hope that this will turn the Castros into nice people.
CALLER: It will not. They’re assassins, and so was Che Guevara.
RUSH: You want to deny people hope? That’s what Obama’s about, hope and change, and here is a policy, lifting these sanctions is designed to give the Cuban people hope and to give us hope that the Cuban people’s hope will be elevated that they’ll be freed. And you’re coming along and throwing cold water on it like the ice bucket challenge, and saying the hope is pointless.
CALLER: It is pointless. It is pointless. And he keeps weakening this. I mean, I’m a Reagan woman. I grew up basically in this country. I’m very sad the way this country is going. It’s very much similar to things happening in Venezuela —
RUSH: You and me both.
CALLER: — with the health care, with the foreign policy. The backyard is right here, it’s Latin-American.
RUSH: Yaret, thank you for the call.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, folks, tracing back to the opening moments of today’s program when I made the statement “liberalism is the most gutless choice you can make.” That’s one of the easiest things in the world to do is be a liberal. You don’t have to really to do anything. You know a great way to illustrate that? In fact, maybe even a better way of characterizing it would be to actually describe how the naive are reacting to the change in our Cuban policy, and it is: Naive hope.
Naive hope, I think, is a central, fundamental — even a foundational — element of liberalism among the great unwashed. Not the liberal leaders. They are clearly aware of the scam they’re running, in addition to being true believers. But your average, ordinary, “I’m a good person!” college student or employee somewhere, the average person running around, saying, “Okay, so for 53 years we’ve had these horrible economic sanctions on the poor Cuban people!
“We’re gonna try something new and we’re gonna raise these sanctions and lift the embargo, and they’re gonna see the wonderful, beautiful ways America functions and be so moved by it that they’re gonna force change.” That is a naive hope, and I think people vote their naive hope. I don’t mean “hope” in the religious sense, and I get caught in this every time I start talking about hope. If I am perceived to be criticizing it, I hear from the devout who claim that I am messing with people’s minds.
I’m not. I’m not dealing with biblical hope in any way. I’m talking about the frail human emotion. Naive hope substitutes for what is thought to be reasoned compassion. Neville Chamberlain epitomizes naive hope. Neville Chamberlain traveled to Germany to meet with Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler told Neville Chamberlain (paraphrased exchange), “You can assure Churchill and the rest of your people that I have no designs on any other country.
“I’m a nice guy! I just want the best for the German people. We’re all sick and tired of having to take a wheelbarrow full of marks to buy a loaf of bread at the store. I’m just trying to fix my country.” And Neville Chamberlain said, “Will you sign something that says that?” And Hitler says,
“Absolutely, Sir Chamberlain! Give me the pen!” Hitler signs it, and Neville Chamberlain returns to Great Britain waving the paper.
“See? We have nothing to fear! He’s actually a nice guy. You know, he even offered me some schnapps. He was such a cool guy,” and then within days, Hitler’s in Poland, and Neville Chamberlain is left (stammering). Naive hope. I think that constitutes 80% of the Democrat Party voting base, actually. Naive hope that what Obama says is gonna happen. Naive hope that my premium’s gonna come down $2,500. Naive hope that I keep my doctor.
You believe the lies, and what enables you to believe the lies is your naive hope that it can happen. In this case, “Well, we love the Cuban people because we’re good people — and because we’re good people means we love other people — and they’re suffering, and maybe we can help. So we’re going to lift our embargo, and we hope that that will really make things better for them, and then we can take credit for it because we made it happen.”
Naive hope.
Naive hope is one of the greatest enemies of common sense because it’s easy. You can have an IQ of a pencil eraser and be excellent at naive hope. You can be the class dunce and succeed as well as anybody else in the category of naive hope. And I think this naive hope that is cultivated by Democrat Party politicians and so forth, is one of many things that presents our country with great problems. The sad thing is, did anybody learn from Chamberlain? No. That was still considered a one-off!
It’s still considered a one-off, isolated incident.
There was no lesson learned that bad guys lie. Evil people lie and will take advantage of you and use you and kill you if they have to, to you get you out of the way. Nah, it was a one-off. Hitler does not represent any other bad guys. “Hitler? No, no. Hitler was one-off.” So the lesson’s never even learned because naive hope triumphs over the lesson. “Well, we hope the next bad guy will be different. We hope.” Frankly, that’s one of the biggest challenges that those of us with common sense have is communicating with those people.
How do you permeate naive hope?
‘Cause anything that shatters their naive hope is threatening, frightening, and you become a threat — and maybe even a bad guy, mean or whatever. The way the left operates today, do you know what constitutes harassment now on the left? It’s simply disagreeing with ’em. All you have to do is disagree with the left and you’re harassing them. You can’t interrupt their hope. Oh-ho no! You shatter their world when you permeate their hope and point out that it’s really nothing more than naivete.
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