RUSH: Howard in Germantown, Maryland. I’m glad you waited, sir. It’s great to have you on the program. Hi.
CALLER: Hey, what’s up, Rush? No problem the wait, man. I will admit, you start to get a headache when you hear some of the garbage that comes out the other side’s mouth.
RUSH: Oh, there’s no question you do.
CALLER: Hello? Hello?
RUSH: Yeah, I’m here.
CALLER: You hear me, Rush?
RUSH: Yeah, I think you’re cracking up on your cell coverage there.
CALLER: Sorry about that, pay all this money for cell phone service and it barely works.
RUSH: Yeah, I hear you.
CALLER: Well, now, the reason I called, is I’m a black police officer, so I have, you know, I get it from all sides in today’s world, but what you said earlier, by definition, the Black Lives Matter group is a hate group. There’s no denying that. By definition, they are a hate group. I don’t know how anyone could say otherwise.
RUSH: Explain what you mean.
CALLER: A hate group is defined as an organized group or movement, one, which they are, two which advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence — that’s point two — against any designated sector of society, which would be police officers. It’s cut and dry. I don’t see how —
RUSH: Okay, so you’re a black police officer, and part of the definition of a hate group is if they practice hatred. Black Lives Matter hates who?
CALLER: They hate police officers.
RUSH: They hate police officers.
CALLER: I’m sure they hate other groups, but their focus is police officers. They hate police officers. They practice hostility. You don’t even have to watch the news. You can look up YouTube videos and see the hostility. I mean, look at what happened in Chicago last week.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: You got paid protesters yelling in officers’ faces, throwing punches, but in the midst of all that, you know, the police are deemed the problem. And people gotta realize that we’re oftentimes the only thing standing between order and chaos.
RUSH: Yeah, by the way, you said Germantown, Maryland, is where you’re from.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: How close to Baltimore is that?
CALLER: Not far at all. I worked with guys that had to go up there during the Freddie Gray riots.
RUSH: So you’re a black policeman near the front lines?
CALLER: Oh, yeah. I’ve worked in predominantly black areas. I’ve worked in predominantly white areas. The thing is police officers, we don’t, you know, as much as people think we discriminate, we don’t. And when you see an officer putting somebody in handcuffs and fighting, guess what, there’s no way to make that look pretty. It looks horrible, we’ll admit that, but it doesn’t mean we’re wrong in what we did. But when you blast them on the news and then you show, you know, the mother of the kid who was arrested or shot, we look like the bad guy.
RUSH: I know. Yeah.
CALLER: So it’s all doctored to make you look like, you know, you’re just the enemy. But when you played the audio by that guy, by Harry, he actually said something I agree with. He said words are powerful when spoken by people with political influence, like Jesse Jackson, like Al Sharpton, like certain other people who created this anti-police movement. I mean, it’s hard to not feel like you’re part of the most hated group in America right now. I mean, we know it’s not true, but that’s how you’re made to feel. We officers feel like we are just hated and there’s nothing we can do about it.
RUSH: I got to tell you something, Howard, I’m so happy you heard the sound bites from Harry Reid, because one of the things he said, that Black Lives Matter, they’re peaceful and they’re just interested in the greatness of equality, and they’re just trying to force equality on things and stand up for people’s rights. And I can imagine what your reaction to that was when you heard it, knowing now what you think about them.
CALLER: It was frustrating because I’ve seen firsthand Black Lives Matter people who are 100 percent affiliated who throw bottles, who hold up signs saying, you know, all my favorite heroes kill officers, you know, and it’s like, I almost feel, you know, we don’t deserve that. I understand that there have been instances in history where officers have acted out of the line of duty. I will never deny that. There are —
RUSH: Howard, let me tell you something. I’m glad you called, because — by the way, you should know we’re just now getting reports there’s a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, 20 people, the shooter is active, cops, EMS, are mobilized. I don’t know anything more than that. I don’t know where, other than San Bernardino.
But the thing I wanted to say to you was, the police in this country are becoming very close to the military in terms of the way the American people respect you. You really are in the front lines, you really are, and you’re up against it in a domestic situation rather than on foreign territory as the military is. But the thing that you have in common is that the current administration is attempting to make the police in this country the enemy. They are tagging and categorizing the police as the provocateurs. And they’re using incidents in these cities to take over these police departments. The Justice Department with their various consent decrees, demanding that police departments accede to whatever the Justice Department thinks policing ought to be if they are to maintain accreditation and get federal funding and so forth.
And so you work in a job now that has been targeted by your country’s own government as a problem. And it’s gotta be unnerving. Here you are trying to keep peace. We know what police officers do. We know what you’re up against. Now you’re being tagged as the provocateurs. And I’m just telling you, Howard, that there are a lot of people in this country sympathetic and on your side about this that you may never know because the news media joins with the administration in the way people like you are reported on as you go about and do your job. So I’m glad you’re there and I’m glad you called. I really appreciate you taking the time. I know you were on hold for a while and I really appreciate that. Thanks so much.