TODD: Now, did you see that, Rush talking about NBC selectively editing the George Zimmerman 911 call? (laughing) That matches up to today’s news! I mean, it’s a lot of work for the Team EIB to go grab these things when you have, you know, three decades of broadcast brilliance to work with, but it shouldn’t be this easy to just compare it up to today.
I view myself sometimes and other people from the West Coast — and I’m sure Ken, you know, from Pennsylvania obviously he has this stuff in Philadelphia, and Mark Steyn has been able to tell us his experiences. I think we all can bring some experiences to the table. Because I am from the West Coast, I view myself as a bit of a Terminator. Not that I think I look like Arnie yet. Well, I mean the younger Arnie, yet. HA! HA! HA! HA!
I am working on some facsimile of that or some functional facsimile of that, but I do want to share with you a possible future. A possible future is where kids are taught in grade school, in government schools, how to be agitators, how to question cops — literally how to — where they are suggested in high school and junior high classes that if you see a cop interacting with what they will call a BIPOC person…
Which is just another way of putting people into boxes and counting people by the least important factors — that is, the melanin level of their skin, cheekbones. It’s not even culture. It’s just color. This stuff is leading us to an inexorable point of a flip in society from which we can’t return, and the flip in society is good people will no longer be cops because they’re aware… It’s not a sucker’s game.
These are brave people. They’re willing to go into the scary circumstances. But when they understand that, they’re not to be good people, because what the left is seeking out of cops is they want people to install and press authoritarian sort of auras. This is clear because they are dedicated to teaching them to be SJWs, to be social justice warriors. So, you will see things…
This has become common on the West Coast — I am not joking, and it wouldn’t be funny if I was — for cops to pull up to a stoplight, to look over next to them and there’s some woman in her mid-fifties who rolls down her window and says, “I hope you get shot today.” From a woman in her fifties! It’s also not uncommon for cops on the West Coast to pull someone over who turns out to be Hispanic who says, “I am an illegal immigrant. There’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t even charge me. You know I’m gonna be out the next day.”
The cop, out of curiosity, may go check (if he’s allowed to) and find out, “No, he’s not. He grew up here.” It’s this flipping of society. It’s teaching disrespect for cops and teaching these kids and these young people that they hold the power. So, look, this is gonna be a bigger story, policing, this spring than it ever has been. More people are getting conned into… I’ve seen it with my family members.
“Defunding the police isn’t ending the police.” Many of us grew up with respect for law and order and equally important that the men and women in blue who strap it on. So what was your experience growing up? Rush shared his first-person encounter and learning experience this way.
RUSH: The ponytail guy came to my mind. That’s the guy in Perot-Clinton-H. W. Bush debate in 1992. I think that was in Raleigh, North Carolina. The ponytail guy stood up, “What are you going to do to take care of us? What are you gonna do?” He’s an adult. “What are you going to do to take care of us and bring us together and protect us?” And, man, you should have seen it. Clinton practically bowled over a couple of chairs to get to the microphone to answer it first.
You know, where I grew up, two blocks away lived a Missouri state highway patrolman. (sigh) I can’t remember his name. I was scared to death of the guy. I never saw him in uniform. I just knew he lived there. I was afraid to ride my bicycle past the place. It was just I had that much respect for law enforcement. As a young kid, I’m talking about. It didn’t help… (chuckles) When I was, I don’t know, 7 or or 8 or 9, my mother put me on the bus to go see my grandmother in the boot heel of Missouri.
And the bus did not go to the town where she lived. It stopped in a town nearby, Bloomfield, and it stopped at a diner/truck stop-type place. So, my grandmother met me, and we went in there and had a burger, Coke, whatever I had as a little kid. And in walked a Missouri state highway patrolman, and my grandmother looked at me and said, “He’s gonna get you! He’s gonna get you! What have you done? He’s coming here for you!”
She was teasing me, but she put the fear of God in me.
“Oh, my God, he’s coming for me? What did I do?”
“You must have done something. That’s why he came in here.” I’m 7 or 8 years old. (laughing) So every time I drove by the highway patrol guy’s house two blocks away from mine, I was little trepidatious when I did it. But, no. I mean, when I was growing up, the people that made things safe and cared and wanted to protect me from the things going on, that was my parents.
Now, I realize that’s terribly insensitive, and it’s not the way things are in America today, and I realize that I have spoken out of turn. Today, I realize I have been very hurtful with that comment and observation, and I know that that’s not the way America is anymore, and for me to say that is inflammatory; it’s intimidating. But that’s what my first reaction was.
TODD: Mine was, I had an uncle who was a cop, and I didn’t always love my uncle ’cause he was also a prankster. But, man, I always wanted him to come home. And I always realized, hey, my uncle is a cop. Maybe a lot of them are good people.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
TODD: Let’s talk now with Charles in Albany, Oregon. Beautiful place. Charles, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program. Todd Herman, your guide host. Hi, Charles.
CALLER: Hello. Thank you for having me.
TODD: Pleasure.
CALLER: So, for those that care, I happen to be black, but I’m part of the human race and that’s all I care about.
CALLER: (chuckles) I grew up in a healthy relationship with police officers, honoring them and respecting them, and I know for a fact that it has to do in part with the intentional symbiotic relationship that the school district had with the local law enforcement. So we saw them all the time at assemblies, with hotrods. It was the eighties, and we participated in DARE. So I grew up respecting them so much that I remember the day that I stopped objecting to wearing my seat belt, I was in high school and a California Highway Patrolman had said, “Kid, I want you to know that I have never unbuckled a dead body,” and because I —
TODD: Ohhh.
CALLER: — respected him in general, even though I didn’t know him I’m like, “Okay, I’m gonna stop bucking that rule,” and so locally, there’s an issue… I’m gonna try to be really objective on this. The local superintendent asked the police who were honoring a long tradition of welcoming kids back to school. The pandemic kept them away, and so they were there welcoming the kids, cheering them on, and some folks complained.
And so the superintendent sends them away. And the part that concerns me about that is this. If my son who was a part of the public district, which he is not, if he has no policemen — or police officers at his school when seconds matter, the police would be just minutes away. So what about the fear of parents that think that way versus the fear of the parents that are afraid of having police at school.
But also my concern is — and I’ll turn it over to you — is that it kind of gives credence to mob rule, right? Because someone like me might give you a call or I might complain to a couple people and then I’ll go back to work. (chuckles) But the folks on the other side, they’ll make a big stink about it. And I think that’s probably why the superintendent made the decision that she did.
TODD: Yes. It does give credence to mob rule. It’s demonstrative of it. It’s showing children, “We are afraid of the police. Everybody is afraid of the police.” It’s not a respect for. It’s not a respect and a fear for the law. It’s a fear of a human being because they wear a uniform. And I used to work with a cop who was the school resource officer in our area and in our school, and he was a black man.
And the magic was, he went to that school. And so he could relate to kids in that way that he went to that school. Right? And now in the modern era of everyone needs to be afraid of cops, that’s the sort of cop they ban from the school. A guy with this history. so, when a kid needs a cop, you don’t want the first time a kid has had to talk to a cop when they’re scared or they’ve been told they’re scary, you can’t have that.
And, yes, it does lead to this upside-down world. It does lead to the invitation for thugs to become the cops. Because nature abhors a vacuum. There’s no such thing as anarchy. It will be the people who have the capacity for violence, the willingness to carry it out, and the tools thereof who run things. If that’s not cops, it’s gonna be someone. Thanks for the call, thank you very much as a member of the human race.
CALLER: Todd, thanks.
TODD: Thank you so much.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
TODD: There has never been any question about the support of law enforcement officers on this show, ever. And certainly, Rush was very, very serious about making sure cops, being government employees, are held onto account, as all government employees should be, and backing the cops wholeheartedly ’cause 99-point-infinite percent of cops should be backed.
Rush and Kathryn believed that we have many hero dressed in blue each and every day. And these are men and women who strap it on, they start their day, they know their lives at risk, they know their reputations are at risk. But they believe in law and order, and they believe in your safety so much that that becomes their priority.
RUSH: Can you believe this, folks? A police car in Seattle was set on fire while the police officer was sitting inside the vehicle. Now, this is absolutely outrageous. And unfortunately, it’s the kind of attack on law enforcement that is happening far too often.
Do you remember…? I’ve been asking this question a lot. You remember when our police and our first responders were seen as American heroes? Everybody wanted to be in their company. They were loved. They were adored. They were appreciated. And it wasn’t that long ago. You go back 19 years to 9/11. But you don’t have to go that far back.
My point is that in less than a generation our culture has seemingly turned from having love and respect for law enforcement and first responders to outright hatred. And it’s been brought to us through the good graces of idiot outfits like Antifa or Black Lives Matter, which are both sponsors and sponsored by the Democrat Party. And it just is mind-boggling how rapidly this has happened.
It goes to the whole question of what kind of country are we. We are a good country. America is the good guys. We are good. But we are up against a political party which does not believe it any longer. Lately policemen and policewomen are being lumped into a pool of evil villains. They’re being yelled at. They’re being attacked, demeaned, shot at, now lit on fire by rioters. People want to defund them. People want to put ’em out of business. It’s truly terrible what’s going on out there. And it’s not acceptable, period.
It is time we speak out, folks, and support our heroes again. Law and order, safety in our cities and towns should be top priority for all Americans, and appreciation for those on the front lines should never waver. These people put their lives at risk, their families at risk. They’re not paid anywhere near the top of the pay scale in America. And yet they do it. They all volunteer. They all have to pass rigorous tests to become uniformed police.
TODD: I heard that those officers ultimately lived through that experience, almost certainly because one officer had the six of the other. Speaking of that, let’s talk to Dave in Missouri, an active-duty police officer. Dave, welcome to Rush’s program. Todd Herman, your guide host. I’m so glad you called, Dave. Hi.
CALLER: Todd, thank you very much. Hey, just to let you know, with Joe Biden, he’s not gonna remember what you said, anyway. So don’t be so upset about it.
TODD: HA! HA! HA! HA! Got it. I feel better. I’ll stand down on concern.
CALLER: Hey, you and — no disrespect to the other hosts, but you and Mark Steyn are my two favorite guest hosts.
TODD: So kind of you.
CALLER: Thought I’d throw that out there. Let me say this and I don’t mean to be disrespectful. My brothers and sisters, we don’t look at ourselves at heroes. It’s what we do. It’s what we signed up for. People don’t understand the camaraderie and the brother- and sisterhood of this job.
While sometimes our pay sucks, you know, gosh, it’s the best job going on. Even today. There’s times, we’ve been out at restaurants; people comp our bills. There was… I know there were three or four policemen and two additional guests, the bill was probably a hundred bucks, and these people paid it and didn’t say anything and just left.
TODD: Yeah.
CALLER: It touched my heart. It pulled my heart, brought a tear to me.
TODD: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know what? Hey, the heroes never think they are. And I hear you saying, I strap it on, I do my job because I love my job, and you do know that it’s about 5%, if that, of people who’ve ever walked into a gunfight or any kind of fight. I mean, it might be 3% or 5% of men who’ve ever been in a fistfight; so can you understand how people view you that way?
CALLER: I actually do. I mean, I do, and I get it, and it’s no disrespect, but a lot of times it’s embarrassing to us. But we always —
TODD: HA! HA! HA!
CALLER: It is. You know, I’m used to going home and getting yelled at and saying, you know, “Go do this, do that!”
TODD: Yeah.
CALLER: You know, I can get a suspect to do what I want, but I can’t get the people I live with to do anything.
CALLER: You know, I do like the Canadians since —
TODD: HA! Ha!
CALLER: — their maple syrup is phenomenal.
TODD: (laughing) Yes. Look, everybody who gets to do this is picked for a reason, all unique talents, et cetera. I would just ask you just as a favor because I just… I’ve gotten to know this audience over time. I accept what you’re saying about not being a hero. I accept that that’s your view. Just do us a favor ’cause you’re from Missouri and things are getting hot there.
Please just let, again, less your brothers and sisters know that a virtual wave from everyone listening, we just appreciate you, and we just hope more people will stop and just give you that form of respect. And I will just tell you this from the bottom of my heart. As they used to say on a great TV show, “Be safe out there, okay?”
CALLER: If I could, I know you’re probably pressed for time —
TODD: We’ve got like ten seconds, if that.
CALLER: Okay. Well, you know what? I’ll try to talk to you another time. Thank you very much and, hey, I’m from Missouri: Home of Harry Truman and Rush Limbaugh.
TODD: Love it. And we got your emotional fix. Thank you.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
TODD: Jason in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, you’re on the Rush Limbaugh program, Todd Herman, your guide host. Glad you called, Jason. Welcome.
CALLER: Hey, Todd, great to talk to you. I almost ran over to the studio over in Spokane the other day when you were there, just wave and say hi.
TODD: Well, security would have tracked you down and put you out ground and had to take a bunch of pictures and fingerprints and all so we can’t have that.
CALLER: Yeah, well —
TODD: HA! HA! HA! I’m just kidding. Welcome.
CALLER: Well, I wanted to let you know, my mom was the only person to get Rush thrown in jail.
TODD: What!
CALLER: Yep.
TODD: The Maha was in jail?
CALLER: Well, back in Sacramento, California, when he very first started on AM 1340 KFBK. Every year, the police workers and police unions there held a fundraiser, and what they would do is have people, quote-unquote, “arrested,” where they would, you know, be taken to the police station and have to call their friends in order to raise money to get out of, quote-unquote, “jail.”
TODD: (laughing)
CALLER: It was all in good fun. It was televised a little bit and put on radio. And so when they were doing that, my mom went down to the police station, paid her 50 bucks, and then went on her way to finish her errands ’cause she was working. And Rush was on the radio when the cops showed up. And he started accusing everybody in the studio.
TODD: HA! HA! HA!
CALLER: “It was you. I know you did it. I know it was you.” And by the time, you know, my mom got done with her errands, she goes to the studio and pokes her face in the window for the little door, and he finally notices her and points at her, “You! You did it,” and so she got to spend the last hour on the radio with him, you know, Diane the typesetter from down the street.
TODD: (laughing) That is a fantastic story. Thank you for sharing that with us. Very, very cool. Incidentally, you’re in Coeur d’Alene. I’ll just say this. I don’t even know if there’s room. Tomorrow night… You know where Sand Point, Idaho, is of course. I’m gonna be at the Sand Point Event Center, starts about 6 o’clock. I’m gonna give a speech there. So, if you do want to show up, we won’t have that much security there, although we will have to now background trace your phone.
I’m just kidding. Love to see you sometime. Jason, thanks for the call. Terrific to have you on the program. Such a great memory. Thank you for that. Can we do…? (interruption) Yeah, it was John in Wenatchee, Washington. John, we’ve got a minute, maybe a minute 15 together. Welcome to Rush’s show, John. It’s Todd Herman, your guide host. Hi, John.
CALLER: Well, good morning, Todd.
TODD: Good morning.
CALLER: I just wanted to talk about something that touched a nerve with me earlier last hour when you were talking about good cops getting pushed out. I have some instances that led me to leave a state law enforcement agency there. You’re probably familiar with King and Pierce County.
CALLER: I wanted to say that when the good guys get pushed out, it leaves a vacancy —
TODD: Yep.
CALLER: — and the difficulty finding quality people to backfill when you push the good ones out, leaves a spot for the lower-standard individuals to fill those positions.
TODD: Yep!
CALLER: It’s kind of a downward spiral for the law enforcement community.
TODD: Yeah.
CALLER: I don’t know about Dave in Missouri, but I would say Washington state has a little bit different situation.
TODD: Just because we’re short on time — I hate to disrespect your phone call. It’s an important phone call. You know, so-called Chief Diaz and others, Diaz in Seattle is not as a human, but as a politician, loathed and absolutely distrusted by cops. Mitzi Johanknecht, the King County sheriff, liked by some of my colleagues. I, in fact, liked her once. She’s become a joke and is making life dangerous for cops. So I appreciate the phone call, John. Thank you for being on Rush’s show.
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