RUSH: Here’s Tom in Philadelphia. Tom, glad you waited. You’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.
CALLER: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I’ve been listening to you since 1988. I was in a client’s office and they had you on the radio, and that’s how I discovered you.
RUSH: You’re a lifer. I mean, that’s ’88, that’s the first year for this program, so thank you very much.
CALLER: Yeah. I’ve enjoyed it, and I enjoy what you do. Thank God there’s a voice out there in the wilderness. Anyway, I was watching The Five last week, I think it was Thursday or Friday, and I know how you always say about the liberals, it’s always their intention, not the results. Bob Beckel was there and it was his turn to speak or he just interjected, but he said (paraphrasing), “We had the best of intentions in the 1960s. We wanted to give these people money to pay their bills. We wanted to give them food stamps.” And he kept lamenting they had the best of intentions. I thought he was gonna cry. Then he finally said at the end, “I guess we miscalculated. We have to find how to maintain the family unit.” But he went on, like four to six times saying how they had the best of intentions. I just laughed. One of your words.
RUSH: Well, it just confirms something. Look, that has been their stopgap. None of what they’ve done has worked. The Great Society, we wouldn’t be where we are if that stuff worked. The point is it’s never worked. The Great Society was just socialism on steroids. The War on Poverty, ditto. All of this LBJ stuff. FDR’s New Deal. None of it works. If it did, the country would not be in the condition it’s in. We’ve done nothing but this since the 1960s. We arguably have had eight years, maybe 12, where we tried to arrest the movement toward socialism in this country. And in fact this may be a good way to look at this, folks.
You go back, let’s start with LBJ. Let’s start in 1964, modern era, most people listening today were alive then. And if you weren’t, it’s close enough. Great Society, War on Poverty, all that stuff, socialism on steroids. We had the two terms of Reagan and maybe one term of W. Well, George Bush 41, maybe his term because he did campaign as the third term of Reagan, but he did raise — nah — let’s stick with 12 years. Two years of Reagan, one term of the Bushes. Other than that, this country’s been on an inexorable march to the left.
The eight years of Reagan were basically putting the brakes on, which is about all we’ve had time to do, because the left is relentless. They don’t stop. Every day they just pummel this country with more of this incessant, destructive belief that they have, be it cultural, be it economic, you name it. It’s not worked. The country would not be in the situation it’s in. Why is everybody so mad? Women are upset, gays are upset, the people that are not religious are upset. Everybody’s mad in this country. Everybody’s filled with rage. Everybody’s got a grievance. Everybody’s feeling discriminated against.
The only people that are halfway decently happy and content are the people paying for all of it. The people on the receiving end of all this largesse are the most miserable. The people getting food stamps, the people on the welfare rolls, the people on the end of a federal subsistence check are the most unhappy. Everything liberals had promised about this has been an abject failure. And it’s not theoretical. It’s right in front of our eyes. We have just had six years of uninterrupted socialism on massive IV steroids and look at the degree of discontent. Look at how many people are not working. Ninety-two and a half million and climbing.
The world outside the US is on fire. We don’t seem anymore to be able to do anything about it. We have a Regime that doesn’t seem to care to do anything about it. We have decided that the United States borders on the Southern border may as well not exist. We are flooding this country with people who are not citizens and many of them not coming here to experience what traditionally has been the American dream. We have a president who is doing, as often as he can, things outside his authority, under the Constitution.
Why isn’t everybody happy? Why, with all of this socialism, all of this equality, all of this fairness, how come the rich are getting richer if we’ve had all these years of socialism to take it away from ’em? What is socialism other than redistribution of wealth from those who can to those who can’t, however you want to use the phrase, from each according to his means, to each according to his whatever, that’s the precept. Yet the rich, who’ve been the focus of evil since 1964 are getting even richer.
The conservatives aren’t responsible for it. We haven’t been running the country but maybe eight years out of the total number since 1964. Why isn’t it working, other than the fact it never has? Why aren’t the people on the receiving end of all of this compassion, why aren’t they happy? You run around the country, you’re gonna find the most miserable people, the unhappiest people, the angriest people, are the ones who have turned to government to fix everything. I don’t care what it is, a social issue, an economic issue, a political issue, the people relying on government to make it right for ’em are miserable, angry, and unhappy, and no end in sight to it.
Now, the people paying for all of it, they’re angry and upset, too, but they are at least a little bit more well adjusted. They have some self-respect. They’re angry they’re paying for all of it, but they are also mollified by the ability they still have to do so, but they about reached their breaking point. They’re about tapped out. And may be, and may have been tapped out for a while, and it doesn’t stop the socialists from coming at ’em for more. It doesn’t stop the socialists from demonizing them even more. The people get up and go to work and try to, accept the responsibilities of life, continue to be portrayed as the enemies of average, ordinary people.
Why hasn’t it worked? From 1964 to the present has been almost all a march toward socialism. With people running the government, all of these good intentions, all of this compassion, all of this love and devotion for the minorities, the discriminated against, whoever it is that’s been getting the short end of the stick, all of these people turned to government to have these grievances addressed, and they’re madder than they’ve ever been. They’re unhappier than they’ve ever been.
And there have been some legitimate things that have made progress. Civil rights has had made progress in this country. You wouldn’t know it if you looked at people today. But it’s much better in that regard than it has been, but aside from all that, why isn’t there all this happiness? Why don’t all these good intentions matter? The bottom line is, liberalism doesn’t work; socialism doesn’t work. It’s an on-display-in-front-of-our-face failure, and the only excuse, “Well, at least we’re trying. We love people. We’re compassionate. We’re trying to do something. Our intentions with the Great Society were to wipe out poverty. Our intentions with the War on Poverty to wipe out poverty.”
Well, you failed.
“Well, yeah, but we’re not supposed to look at that because my intentions are what count.”
But I think it’s very plain as day. It’s one of the sources of my frustration, because none of this is theoretical anymore. We don’t have to rely on theory to tell people this doesn’t work. We’ve been living it since 1964. Actually prior to that. I just chose ’64 as the beginning time frame because that’s Johnson’s Great Society. But it actually began long before that. FDR. It doesn’t matter how far you go back, it doesn’t work. It never has. We have the living proof right on our TV sets every day.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I’m gonna tell you something. The Great Society has led to an ungrateful society, if you ask me, and it has led to an unmanageable society. All these good intentions, and all they did was literally steal people’s identity and dignity and self-worth. I don’t think that is even arguable, and that’s one of the reasons why there’s so much anger and dissatisfaction.