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Nov. 18, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:33
November 18, 2005, Friday, Hour #2
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That is right, uh Johnny Donovan, and I'm not only trying to sell my fellow Americans on the moral superiority of liberty, but I'm also trying to push back the frontiers of ignorance in our great nation, and you can be on to help me do so by calling 800-282-2882.
Let me start off this at this hour by uh talking about a column written, it was July twenty-ninth in the New York Times by none other than Paul Krugman, who often passes himself off as an economist.
He teaches economics at Princeton University.
Anyway, for this column, he won the Forbes, and you can see the prize that he won at Forbes.com, and the prize was called the Dunce of the Week Award for his New York Times uh column titled French Family Values.
Now in this column, Krugman asks are European economies really doing that badly?
And he says the answer is no.
He says that Americans are doing a lot of strutting these days, but a head-to-head comparison between the economies of United States and Europe, and France in particular, shows that the big difference is in priorities, not performance.
And so he's talking about, well, we have two highly productive economies that have made different trade-offs between work and family time.
Now, his assertion is essentially this.
He says that the income gap between European economies and that of United States is not a result of lower efficiency.
It's a result of Europeans working less than Americans so that they can have more time with their families.
That is utter nonsense.
Now, let me give you some of the findings in actually a very, very good series of articles printed in the latest issue of American Enterprise.
And let's look at some facts for those of you who are listening to Americans saying we should be more like the Europeans.
Okay, fact number one.
Since the nineteen seventies, America has created created fifty-seven million new jobs.
What about Europe?
Since nineteen seventy, keep in mind, four million new jobs, and most of those new jobs were in government.
Consider another little statistic.
Europe's proportion of world GDP between 1913 and 1998 has dropped from 34% to 20%.
That is at one time Europe had 34% of the world's economy, and now it has 20%.
On the other hand, the United States held its own at about 22% of global GDP.
In other words, even as global GDP was growing, United States still held 22%.
Here's another little statistic.
And think about this, these statistics while keeping in the back of the mind what Paul Krugman said that the big difference is in priorities, not performance in terms of our economies.
Now, Carl Zinsmeister, in his article in the American Enterprise, said, He says that in France, Italy, Germany, and Belgium, approximately twenty-five percent of all workers under twenty five are currently unemployed.
Why?
Well, high minimum wages, that is, in Europe, their minimum wages are approximately two times our minimum wage.
Then there's what they call employment protection.
And this employment protection makes it virtually impossible to fire people.
I understand in France, it can take up to two years to fire somebody, and then once you fire him, you have to pay him a certain percentage of the wages that he would have earned for a while.
Now, when you make it costly to fire people, you make it costly to hire them in the first place.
Now we have a lot of nonsense coming from out coming out of Europe saying, well, they want to attack, I'm sorry, they want to attack United States.
There's this leftist hate, particularly by the European elite.
And there's an article by again Kotkin, and he reports that four hundred thousand European Union science and technology graduates currently reside in the United States,
and barely one in seven, according to a recent European Commission poll, intend to return to Europe.
Now, it's not only the best brains of the world finding that United States is a good place to live, it's poor people as well who come to United States.
Now, poor people go to Europe.
But there's a big difference between the poor people who go to Europe and the poor people who come to United States.
That is, the poor who come to United States tend to prosper much more than they do in Europe.
Now that might explain some of the problems, by no means all the problem, that France is having with the rioters.
That is, in some areas, some Muslim and African communities in France, thirty percent to sixty percent of the people who are under the age of twenty-five are unemployed.
They can't find a job.
Now, I believe that American success and European jealousy might explain a lot of their anti-Americanism, particularly very virulent among the Europe's uh elite population.
Now imagine some of the things that they say about us.
When asked, according to one survey, when asked which countries are the biggest threat to world peace, Europeans name the United States as often as, now get this, North Korea and Iran.
Countries deemed less menace menacing by the Europeans include less menacing than United States, include Syria, Iraq, Russia, China, and Afghanistan, and Libya.
Now there's a a German fellow, Olaf Gersman, he has an article in this American Enterprise in this recent American Enterprise magazine edition.
And he says the title of that article is Europe's not working.
He says that nearly every top politician in Germany is on record giving a grave smug warning about the danger of letting American conditions seep into the German economy.
Now, in in Germany's debate, they're having the economic debate right now over their failing what uh welfare state.
Now, in that debate, American conditions is code for stiff competition, low taxes, minimal state intrusion, and limited duration of welfare payments.
Now, you know, the the tragedy of all this is that there are many American elites that share Europe's anti-Americanism.
They are also against the American conditions, and they want us to have Europe's high taxes, oppressive regulation of our economy, and socialized medicine.
And they're particularly tuned to socialized medicine, you know, like Hillary care and and Kennedy's uh pushing socialized medicine for years, and by the way, folks, as a service to the listeners and to Americans in general, on my website I have a little story called Dead Meat.
And actually it's a documentary.
And it to those of you who think that Canada's health care system is what we should have in America, should check that out.
And matter of fact, the title of the piece is Should We Import Canada's Healthcare System, and it shows people who are dying.
And matter of fact, in Canada, if to get a MR MRI, a dog can get a MRI faster than you.
You just take your dog to the vet.
As a matter of fact, maybe some Canadians are going to the vet for their MRIs.
I don't I don't know.
And also the Americans, the American elite, they want us to share Europe's will, uh a lack of will to protect themselves.
In the past, the Europeans were unwilling to protect themselves against Nazism and Communism.
And now, as we're going to find out in the last hour when I talk to Tony Blankley, they demonstrate an unwillingness to protect themselves against Islam that's hell bent on conquering the West.
And so we and our children might be faced with pulling Europe's chestnuts out of the fire again.
We'll be back with your calls after this.
You're listening to Rush Limbaugh on the excellence in podcasting network.
We're back, ladies and gentlemen.
You can be on with us by calling 800-282-2882, and this is Walter Williams uh sitting in for Russia and Rush will be back on Monday.
Let's go to the telephones, Bob on his cell phone in Hartford, Connecticut.
Welcome to the show, Bob.
Yeah, hi there.
Uh sorry I've got a lousy cell connection, but I appreciate you taking my call.
Okay.
Um I wonder if the Europeans who you cited in that poll who view the U.S. as uh top threat to world peace may come to that conclusion because of our official policy promoting preemptive uh wars, and most specifically our our current preemptive war in Iraq.
You know, I I remember uh when the Soviet Union was a country um and they had a policy of preemptive strikes, and we really demonized them rightly so for that.
I have no idea whether Europeans at that time would have rated the USSR up at the top of the list, but seems to me that that might have something to do with their current views.
Well, I I I I can't give you an answer, but I believe in preemptive war.
I'm not a war monger, but I believe that if you're if if you deem yourself under threat that you should get them before they get you.
I mean it's kind of like uh and and I have this argument with some of my libertarian friends.
It's kind of like if you live next door to me and you hate my guts and I see you building a cannon in your window pointed at my house I am not going to wait.
I'm going to get you before you get me.
And I'm sorry I think that makes a lot of sense.
Um I'm not sure that's how we should be sort of uh conducting our foreign policy but with Iraq at any rate it looks like what you thought was a cannon turned out to be I don't know somebody building a television stand.
Well, I'm not going to get into the debate about WMDs, but I'm very sure that Saddam Hussein wanted nuclear capacity just as Iran wants nuclear capacity.
At one time, he did have weapons of mass destruction.
But let's look at this a little bit.
So far as the Iraq war, there's something in statistics called the type one and type two era.
one error that we could have and I'll ask you caller uh Jim that uh not not Jim but uh Bob I'll ask you uh well which do you think is the more dangerous we can make wait wait wait a minute I that's you you don't have the question yet uh that is which would have been more dangerous for us to assume that Saddam Hussein okay let me go back.
Which is the more devastating error for us to make the error that we assume that Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons, but he really in fact doesn't or the error that we assume that he does not have nuclear weapons and in fact he does you know I'll give you uh which error is is more costly.
Pardon me?
I I I think that the shortest answer to quite to your question uh is that it depends on you know how you're defining devastation.
In other words if you're concerned about our the way this country is viewed in the world and whether or not we're viewed by others as a threat to world peace then I would say that uh we're we we would be wise not to shoot first and ask questions later.
Well well okay but okay if we did not shoot first and ask questions later we could uh be shot first ourselves and then ask questions.
Well, we could be, but, you know, when that's how we run a neighborhood, that's how you end up with chaos.
And then when that's how you run a country, I think that's how you end up with the kind of reputation we have.
I think, you know, history has shown that, you know, for example, in the mid-1930s, when Germany was violating the Versailles Treaty, when Hitler was violating the Versailles Treaty, France alone could have wiped out Germany.
In 1934-33, when it was violating.
everybody said well there's uh let Hitler have his way make this concession and make that concession and it wound up the world losing sixty million souls in World War II.
Now is is that what we should have really you know I the answer of course is no we shouldn't have to do that.
I don't accept your nails wait a minute what what would you have done uh after the fact now what would you have done in nineteen thirty three when Hitler was violating all the uh the Versailles treaties would you just let him continue and say well he did not attack us so we should not attack him I don't accept the analogy between Iraq and Nazi Germany.
I just don't I think it's a false I think it's a false forget okay it's let's pretend it's a false analogy but what would you have done in nineteen thirty three?
You want to the truth?
I don't know because I I I I just uh don't know enough about it.
Well well well matter of fact well matter of fact uh Bob a whole lot of people took your position and it cost the world sixty million lives.
Well and I guess my my last point would be that is that compassion Taking your position, our country has taken your position, and I think it's cost us, among other things, among many lives, it's cost us our reputation in the world.
And that really was my original point.
Well, thanks for calling in.
I mean, that that's uh that's a vision of the world.
I am cle uh see, you know, that's a good thing.
I'm seventy years old.
And I'm only gonna be around for another thirty or thirty-five years, and when it gets real bad, it's gonna be people like Bob who are going to b who uh who who's the blame for United States going down the tubes.
That is tyrants of the world, they respect power and strength.
And we have power and strength.
Matter of fact, we'll talk to the idea when we get back.
Walter Williams, uh holding forth for Rush Limbaugh, he'll be back Monday.
And let's go to the phones.
Uh we have Jim from Arkansas.
Welcome to the show.
Yes, how are you, uh this one?
Okay.
Uh uh.
How are you doing, Jim?
I'm doing fine.
Good.
Um I I I'm apologizing for this bad connection.
I'm on a cell phone on my truck, so that's uh I I just I I I've heard you enough times where I could say I I I agree with you uh 99% of the time.
Um but I heard you say something which uh is kind of troubling.
Uh uh your wife has uh heart problem, so you buy her a shovel so she can go shovel the snow?
No, it's a little small shovel.
Uh oh, okay.
It only lifts up uh the maybe about three or four pounds of snow at a time.
Ah, okay.
Well, it it it wouldn't take her long then.
Um it would it would take her a long time.
Uh uh you happen to buy a life insurance policy along with that shovel too.
Oh, yeah, she has good life insurance policy.
Oh, I'm sure okay.
Well, you know, well, I I'm I'm very thoughtful of of uh you know how all this thing started a number a number of years ago, um for Christmas present, I bought my wife a pair of golf shoes.
Now uh she doesn't pay uh uh uh Mrs. Williams doesn't play golf, but when she uh washes my car in the winter, uh there's a lot of ice, you know, forms, you know, because the the water gets on the driveway is ice, and she's slipping around, sliding around.
And so I got her some golf shoes because they have cleats on them so she doesn't slide around while she's washing my car.
Well, she's washing my car.
But and and and and as I said, uh I always wrap these gifts nicely.
So I I think it's a good idea.
I mean it's it's a practical gift.
I'm a practical man.
I I'm not gonna buy earrings and all that stuff that uh that's impractical.
Well, no, I guess you can buy her some tools so she can uh fix the house fix the house too.
Well, uh once in while she does that.
But but w uh I'll tell you what to do.
Why don't you why don't you try out some of my ideas and and let me know how they work out.
Uh sure.
I'd I I I'd like to see the the expression on my wife's face when I buy her a shovel so she can go show up.
Okay.
Okay, Jim.
Thanks for calling calling in.
Uh look, folks, let's get serious.
This is a serious show.
Uh let's go to let's go to Mike on a cell phone in Cleveland, Ohio.
Welcome show, Mike.
Professor Williams, how are you?
Okay.
Good.
I was saying, yeah, I've got a thirteen-year-old daughter, and I'm always amazed at the number of people are so worried about how we're perceived in the world when I'm trying to teach her not to worry so much about what people think about her.
I just want to know your thoughts on that.
Well, I uh of course uh it makes a difference what others th uh think of us, and I think uh, you know, as individuals and and a country, but we shouldn't dwell on it too much.
That is we should do the right thing.
And uh I I think that uh Americans we have an awesome responsibility.
Uh that is uh liberty is a fragile state of affairs, as has always been fragile, down throughout mankind's history.
That is uh the normal state of mankind's existence is to be subject to abuse and control by others.
And uh that's the way it is in most of the world, even today.
Now if if liberty dies in America, I guarantee you it'll be dead everywhere in the world for all times.
That is Americans uh throughout our history, we've been at the forefront of protecting people from or protecting the world from a takeover by tyrants.
I don't care whether you're talking about World War One, World War II, or the war against the Islamic jihadist.
If we lose the war for to protect liberties, it is gone for all times and all places and all people.
And that's an awesome responsibility for us.
And so in meeting that responsibility, I don't care what others think about it.
Now, there's a I think there's a better way to meet that responsibility.
I personally think that the Congress should have declared war.
And I believe Tony Blank blankly is going to say the same thing in the third hour when he's going to be on to talk about his book, the The West's Last Chance.
I think that the United States Congress should have declared war against Islamic jihadists.
That's what the declaration of war should have been against.
Well, let me ask you, do you think that we would, do you think that people that are so concerned about how we're viewed in the world would have supported that?
And do you think that would have helped the argument, you know, that we are doing the right thing?
Well, I I I I don't know.
I don't know.
But I think that I think after 9-11, the American people would have supported it.
I don't know whether we have gotten support from Europe.
Perhaps we would have.
But the uh I think that the American people would have uh supported it.
Okay.
Okay, well, thanks a lot.
Um let's uh go to uh John on cell phone from Akron, Ohio.
Welcome to the show, John.
Hi, Dr. Williams.
Thank you for taking my call.
I wanted to say first that uh I'm a great fan of yours and very much enjoy when you uh uh subbed for Rush.
Uh thank you, thank you.
Thank you very much.
Secondly, I'd like to thank you for uh dismantling Bob and the rest of the Neville Neville Chamberlains of the world and their infinite position, which is um, you know, we're doing the wrong thing and we're very worried about the opinions of people who do not operate within the same moral sphere as us, but um uh when they're faced with very difficult decisions, um as uh the example you brought up in World War II with Hitler, they're impotent.
They will do nothing.
That's right, and they'll and they'll look for United States to bail them out.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And ultimately, um they'll lament the results irrespective.
So we cannot take their lead here.
Um we need to take the lead of strength and um uh our own moral compass and not look for the world and their opinions to guide us.
I I I think you're absolutely right.
And as a matter of fact, after World War II, General Patton suggested that we take on the Soviet Union.
We did not follow uh his uh instructions, we did not follow his suggestion, and look what it cost the world.
Indeed.
It I mean, we could have wiped out this so matter of fact, here's what I would have done.
If I were if I were President Truman after World War II, I would have made I would have sent the message to the rest of the world.
I would have said that if you start building nuclear weapons, we're going to bomb your facilities.
And namely, I would have kept United States with a monopoly on nuclear weapons.
And as a result of that, we would not have spent trillions and trillions of dollars in the Cold War and many lives lost in the Cold War.
Sometimes, well, when you live in a world with tyrants, sometimes you have to do ugly things that you otherwise would not do.
Thanks for calling, and let's go to uh Jeremy Wisn Winston Salem.
Uh hell hello, uh, Dr. Williams.
Hi.
Hey, I um I'm 25 years old, so my opinion is probably fairly uh fairly young and uninformed in many people's in many people's estimation.
But I have lived uh all over the world, and I would just like to raise the point that our reputation previous to our going into Iraq really wasn't worth keeping in the first place.
And what do you mean by that?
Um in the Arab world we were considered to be the great Zionist Satan.
Uh we were considered cowards.
We ran from Mogadishu.
And that's after helping Muslims in Bosnia.
Oh, exactly.
Exactly.
Um we were we've basically been vilified because people just can't believe that America could be as good and and wonderful as it is.
Well, you know, it's it's kind of two-faced that this uh this uh this anti-Americanism, and that is according to most surveys that I've seen.
If you ask people anywhere in the world, which country would you like to live in, which country do you think they say?
Oh, United States hands down.
That's right.
And they they might profess a hate for us or whatever, but if you ask them where do you want to live, uh it's United States.
I don't care whether you even talk to Muslims many times.
They want to live in the United States because they are free from the uh from the strictures of the Islamic uh faith.
They can they can have a drink in United States.
Well they can uh start a business.
They can begin um building a life for themselves that won't be taken away by the next guy who's got a gun.
That is absolutely right.
Thanks for calling in, and we'll be back with more of your calls after this.
Walt Williams here sitting in for Rush.
Uh here's a story uh that was in the Daily Times in Oklahoma City that really touched my heart.
And it's called It's titled Mom makes Teens Stand on the Street with a sign.
Uh okay, let me just read a little bit of it.
Tasha Henderson got tired of her 14-year-old daughter's poor grades, her chronic lateness to class, and talking back to her teachers.
So she decided to teach this girl of hers a lesson.
Guess what she did?
She made Coritha, that's her daughter's name, stand at at a busy Oklahoma City section, uh intersection on November 4th, with a cardboard sign.
Now she's hold holding up a cardboard sign, and it's a picture of her.
And the cardboard sign read, quote, I don't do my homework, and I act up in school, so my parents are preparing me for my future.
We'll work for food.
And so that is a wonderful lesson by her parent.
And so uh here's what happened.
She's out there, Coritha's out there holding this sign, uh, saying we'll work for food because she's messing up in school because she's gonna be a bum.
And a motorist, a passing motorist, called the police with a report of psychological child abuse.
Well, the police came up and and uh uh talked to the mother and daughter for about an hour, and no citation was issued, but but I wonder whether the police are laughing, but however, the police had to do their job.
Uh so they reported it to the State Department of Human Services.
That is that is remarkable.
Now here's a mother who cares about her daughter.
Uh I I don't know.
Uh well, times are changing, but at least we have one mother out in Oklahoma City, uh, Tasha Henderson, who is looking for looking towards her daughter's future.
I just think that's an interesting uh thing.
You know, I I think that's one of the problems of people being busy.
Now I'm trying to figure my mother uh uh she was very strict in raising me and my Sister.
And she probably would have told the policeman to go to, you know, H. E. L. Uh interfering with the raising of her children.
Matter of fact, I used to get whippings.
This is back in the forties.
You know, the worst time to get a whipping is in the summertime.
And why?
Because the windows are open, and your kid your friends outside can hear you plead, Mama, I won't do it anymore.
I'll I'll I'll be good.
And and then you come outside to play the day later, because you're getting your butt beat plus being punished, kept in the house as well, and the kids start mimicking you, you know.
And that is really embarrassing.
But had my mother been around doing it today, maybe somebody would have called up the Department of Human Service and said, Child abuse.
Well, anyway, I'm none the worse for where.
But maybe Bob, who called in uh asking us to be pacifists, uh maybe he would have said, Well, aha.
That's why you're the way you are, because your mother beat you.
Anyway, let's go to the phones and talk to Laura.
Welcome to the show.
She's from Erie, Pennsylvania, where it is snowing, you're getting that lake effect snow up there, aren't you?
Yes, we are.
Okay.
We're warm inside and toasty.
Hey, I Professor Williams, I just wanted to thank you for an article you did um that I read on townhall.com called How Not to Be Poor.
And I want to nominate you for the uh Nobel Prize in Economics because you're right.
It is not rocket science.
That's flattering, uh, very, very flattering, Laura.
Well, the reason I'm calling you is because my son is also uh was working on a uh paper about poverty, and he had the statistic that in nineteen sixty seventy-four percent of black families were made up of married couples and eighty-eight percent of white families back in the sixties.
But uh in nineteen ninety-five it was only thirty-six percent of black families compared to seventy-five percent of white families, and that the distinction for poverty is mainly, like you said, it's not a race thing at all.
It has to do with the welfare and the single parenthood and sex outside of marriage.
Uh that is absolutely right, yeah.
And I want to congratulate you too, because I think until liberal blacks like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and uh Tabus Smiley get on board with you and Bill Cosby, that the conservative bringing the family back together will not only affect poverty rates, but it will also uh lessen the FTD rates because we just had the report that minorities are um up to fifty percent of the new HIV cases.
Yeah.
And all the other things that are related to that one behavior.
And and it it lowers it lowers crime and it lowers uh uh high school completion.
You know, the uh two parent families are very, very important.
And and and Laura refers to a column I wrote some time ago, that uh th avoiding poverty is not rocket science.
There are four things that you have to do.
One, graduate from high school.
Two, take any kind of job and keep it.
Three, don't have children before you get married and stay married, and four, don't engage in criminal activity.
This is not rocket science.
We'll be back after this.
We're back, and you can be on with us uh by calling 800-282-2882, and in the next hour we're gonna have Tony Blankly on to talk about his new book, The West's Last Chance.
Will we win the Clash of Civilizations?
Let's go back to the phones.
Thomas from Cocoa Beach, Florida, welcome to the show.
Uh, thank you for being you, Dr. Williams.
Thank you.
How have you responded to people who associate every economic indicator that is reported to either good or poor performance by the president, depending upon whether the indicator was up or down?
It drives me nuts, like he is the business cycle or something.
How do you respond to them?
I I I think it's nonsense.
I think that a president has very little capacity to do good for the economy.
He is he has all actually he has awesome power to do bad.
And then again, what bothers me, I thought what you uh you might have said is when people say Ronald Reagan's tax cuts or or Clinton's tax raises or or whatever, presidents have no power to raise taxes in our country.
That is, that is delegated to the United States Congress.
That is, if you read the Constitution of the United States, you would never say that Bush tax uh cut taxes for the rich.
It would be Congress who cuts taxes.
We'll be back the next hour.
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