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Nov. 21, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:13
November 21, 2007, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 Podcast.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome to our annual Thanksgiving show here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
I tell what we're going to do today.
We're going to do open line Friday on Wednesday.
Because we've uh we've got tomorrow and Friday off, and we're doing best of shows.
So open line Friday on Wednesday today, which means pretty much what you want to talk about is fair game, and we go to the phones, you own it.
You own the program, telephone number 800 282-2882.
If you'd like to join us, the email address rush at EIBNet.com.
Well, well, well.
Uh found another myth, another Thanksgiving myth.
Now, one of the one of the things we always do here, by the way, uh is uh recite from uh one of the chapters in my second book, see I told you so, the real story of Thanksgiving.
Uh it's become a tradition, and uh we do usually do this in the last hour of the program.
By the way, lots of people traveling today.
It's a worldwide record.
It's an all-time record, a number of people flying and uh uh driving, sailing, wherever they're going.
It's an all-time record despite the price of fuel.
Despite the price of airline tickets, despite the crowds and so forth, uh, it is an all-time record, which is an indication that the economy is in good shape and that people want to go places and that they can.
And for this, we should all be thankful.
Now, for those of you driving, I am sure that many of you have little crumb crunchers in the car, uh who may want to watch their videos in the back seats of the SUVs while you want to listen to this program.
You will be totally, totally uh proper and and in line if you tell them to shut up while you listen to this program, and you might also suggest to the little tots that they listen as well.
Uh, they'll enjoy it, have an exposure to life that they haven't had, probably.
So just live it up.
I know a lot of people on the roads today will try to make your journey as uh pleasurable and quick as possible.
Okay, one of the great myths of Thanksgiving is that we swindled the Indians when we bought Manhattan Island from them.
That we swindled them.
Twenty-four bucks is the equivalent.
It turns out, according to a book about Teddy Roosevelt, it turns out that that's not true.
It turns out that the Indians are the ones that ran the real estate scam when they sold Manhattan.
It's a it's a book on Teddy Roosevelt, Commissioner Roosevelt, the story of Theodore Roosevelt and the New York City Police, 1895-1897 by H. Paul Jeffers.
Uh here is here is the relevant paragraphs about this.
A persuasive case can be made that the city of New York began with a swindle.
For generations, school children have been taught that a slick trick was played on unsuspecting Indians by the director of the Dutch West India Company, Peter Minuit.
In 1626, he purchased the island of Mannahattan for 60 gilders worth of trinkets.
It's about 24 dollars.
What Minuit did not know at the time, however, was that his masterful real estate deal had been struck with the Canarsi tribe, residents of Long Island.
They held no title to the land that they sold to the Dutch.
In due course, the intruders from Amsterdam, who thought they'd pulled a sharp one on the locals, were forced into negotiating a second, more costly deal with the true landlords of Mannahattan, which is what it was called, a manna-hatten.
So the not only is the story of Thanksgiving that's taught uh uh it's Minuet Menuet Menuet.
Well, that's I just chalked it up to my hearing.
I've never heard the name pronounced, of course, and I just read it phonetically as I was taught in the public school system.
At any rate, the original story of Thanksgiving is B.S. Set that straight later today.
And now we find out that the Dutch got swindled by the I know it's getting the Indians can't catch a break.
Well, they are catching a break in Seattle.
Don't forget, don't forget the story that we the up and the update we had earlier that the Thanksgiving is a time of mourning, as is being taught in uh in public schools because the Indians have nothing to give thanks for today because they got swindled out of everything that was theirs.
Uh which is not true, uh, at least as far as the original story of Thanksgiving.
We we this day would not be complete without a review of the doom and gloom news that you were greeted with if you turned on television today, or if you read your local newspaper first from Reuters.
Americans enter the holiday season in a dark mood with economic worries, security fears, and a lack of confidence in government fueling growing pessimism.
According to a Reuters Zogby poll released today, the Reuters Zogby Index, which measures the mood of the country, fell for the third consecutive month, dropping to 96 or from 96 in October to 94.9 on new growth in the number of Americans dissatisfied with the economy and pessimistic about the future.
President George W. Bush rebounded slightly from last month's record low with the number of Americans who give him positive remarks climbing to 28% from 24.
Congress remains stuck with a dismal positive rating of 11% tying its record low.
For the third straight month, Americans have a sense that things are not getting better.
They are getting worse, said Polster John Zogby.
And of course, to the extent we're going to believe this, we'll chalk it up to the fact that the Democrats are in control of Congress.
Rising gasoline prices, a mortgage loan crisis, and talk of a recession spooked the markets and hurt American confidence in the economy, said Zogby.
While concerns linger about a potential conflict with Iran, unrest in Pakistan and the Iraq war.
Okay, so people are so blue.
They're so blue, they're so pessimistic, they're so down on their futures, they are traveling in record numbers.
Loans were given to people who could not pay for them.
We have an adjustment going on in politically correct banking.
It will pass.
The economy is doing fabulous.
Folks do not listen to the drive-bys.
And trust me, on this.
I know America.
And Americans are not concerned en masse about Iran, Iraq, Pakistan.
It is not on their minds.
On a day this is this is this is exact this is a conventional wisdom poll.
And the uh course the questions are flavored by what's on the pollsters' minds.
All that bad news has a cumulative effect.
It feeds investors, Zogby said.
The uh the mood is driven by the economy, but Americans clearly don't have much faith in their governmental institutions either.
You know, folks, I don't know how many of you heard about this before I told you about it.
Hearing about it from me, of course, is healthy.
Hearing about it from me, of course, is fine because we put it in proper perspective, we debunk it.
But if you heard about this before I did it, just turn off the television.
Except for football this week, turn it off.
Don't watch it.
The drive-by's are not happy.
Nobody on the Democrat side is happy.
You know, Clinton's lost her lead in New Hampshire.
Well, he's not lost her lead in New Hampshire, but she's losing, she's lost big.
And by the way, what did I tell you?
What did I tell you through maybe three weeks ago?
I asked you to consider what happens if Huckabee wins Iowa.
Was I prescient, ladies and gentlemen, or was I prescient?
Huckabee has moved within the statistical margin of error on Romney in Iowa.
This faith in government question, by the way.
Um when this whole concept of faith in government, as though it's a religion.
What is this?
I've faith in government.
I I know some people will rely on government to protect us and this sort of thing, but uh the whole how do you how's your faith in government?
Well, I don't like it.
Okay, Democrats are perceived as running it.
Uh if you watch television, you think they're running the whole country because they're the only ones that are on television.
You never see Republicans being asked to respond to this stuff.
Here's the next story.
This one from A.P. Julie Murray says life is good, yet gasoline prices in the U.S. are crimpling her grocery budget.
She cannot afford a larger house.
She says President Bush is not focused Enough on people's problems at home.
My husband and I are happy, said Murray, a homemaker from Montpelier, Mississippi.
We just wish we could buy more into the American dream.
Like Murray, most in the U.S. say they're personally happy and feel in control of their lives and finances, according to an AP Yahoo news survey on the mood of voters.
Scrape beneath the surface, though, and a well spring of personal and political discontent is bubbling.
So Reuters and Zogby tell you that your mood sucks.
And now AP and Yahoo on the same day are telling you that your mood is pessimistic.
You need Prozac if you're not already on it.
The AP Yahoo News Survey will track voters' perspective during the run-up to next year's election, interviewing more than two thousand people repeatedly about their lives and their views about the country, about candidates, and about issues.
People are paying attention to the presidential campaign.
Solid majorities think their vote matters.
Say this wide open presidential contest is more important than usual.
Stirred in our warning signs for Republican candidates.
Democrats seething after nearly seven years under Bush are happier and more excited about this election than Republicans.
More Democrats than Republicans say they're hopeful about the voting 54% to 39%.
Do you get this?
The whole country's miserable except Democrats are ecstatic.
They're happy.
They can't wait for the election.
This is BS.
The people who are the most deranged, the most unhappy, the most pessimistic by nature.
Democrats, liberals.
So anyway, two stories.
By the way, the Zogby poll, a majority of Americans still rate their personal finances as good, and two-thirds of Americans say they're very proud of their country.
That's at the end of the Zogby story.
Why is that not the lead?
Because the lead is Americans and their holidays in dark mood.
But a majority, 55%, still rate their personal finances as good.
Two-thirds, 66%, say they're very proud of their country.
Surprise even put that in the story.
We'll be back and continue in just a second.
You know, I fully expected to hear the bump that I requested yesterday as we came out of the first break today, but I oh you made a shout out of it.
Okay.
I just I just expected that it would be.
Since you know that I asked for it yesterday, I just I just suspect.
See, as I said yesterday, one should not assume I should have said I want to hear, shaken all over, as the first bump coming out of the first break.
Could I could I hear how you made the shout out of it?
Pretty hot.
Pretty hot.
Okay, back to the doom and gloom stack.
I have barely started.
I'm just gonna give you the headlines.
Fears, recession fears, spike among U.S. voters.
Poll.
Parents beware.
Are those toys safe?
Despite a record number of recalls this year, potentially dangerous toys remain on store shelves.
Days before the start of the busy holiday shopping season, according to consumer groups who warned us of this Tuesday.
Federal regulators under fire for lax enforcement urged shoppers to be vigilant.
They just think we are a bunch of babies.
And these are the people that want to run health care.
And they've let all of these little toys with lead and so forth into the country.
Made by the Chicoms.
From the Washington Post today, Thanksgiving travelers should brace for brutal trips in the air on highways and on the rails.
Record numbers of Washingtonians expected to travel this week in a storm threatening the Midwest today.
Transportation officials said.
Energy costs may hurt holiday shopping.
A new survey finds that higher prices for gifts and rising energy costs are expected to put a damper on the holiday shopping season.
Some 35% of consumers said they plan to spend less than they did last year.
Usually people are thrilled when they save money.
People are always looking for deals during the holiday season.
Frankly, I'm thankful we spend money like crazy people, even when the experts are worried.
And the experts are always wrong about this economic stuff.
Here's the phones.
We start with Denver, Colorado today on the EIB network.
Bill, nice to have you on the program.
Welcome.
I'm really upset about the hundred dollar price of oil.
And it isn't isn't it about time we put enough pressure on Congress to approve all short drilling and Anwar.
We have so much oil, the oil could be so much less, and we wouldn't have to pay at this time.
People have been trying to put pressure on Congress to drill for oil.
Uh and the Democrats are not going to go for it.
The Democrats are beholden to the environmentalist wackos.
It's going to take a price a little bit higher than this for for that to happen.
You think we have to we have to suffer further every time I I load I I drove across country this week and you know paying three bucks and average a price, and it could be two dollars.
That's what it should be.
We are so independent.
I see people on TV, they're talking about negotiating, they're talking about joining with the global warming people and working out compromises, all this ten-year, twenty-year stuff, and we have all the oil we need.
And we just could we pull an immigration type pressure and shut down the phones at uh Congress or talk to them when they're home at Thanksgiving.
Well, those kind of things, if they're not, if they if they if they start artificially, they don't work.
Um those cause-oriented things, uh, be patient.
Uh things will work out.
And they work out in their own time, own time as they uh as they are meant to be.
Chris in Guilford, Maine, you're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
Uh this one's gonna seem like a bit of a stretch, but you know, I think that you're contributing to why they're not approving us to dr to drill an AND WAC.
That sounds backwards, right?
Uh Well, you know, it's Thanksgiving, and when you do open line Friday on Wednesday and you let rank amateurs run the content, anything's possible.
So that's true.
But as long as you keep saying that it's not a problem and we have record number travelers and everybody's driving anyway, so the gas prices aren't hurting them.
As long as you keep saying that, why would they drill an Anwar off the coast of the United States?
It's like as long as we have environmentalists, why will the oil companies put refineries in America?
Why would they invest in us, right?
Well, this is the same thing with you.
As long as you keep saying that three something a gallon is not hurting people, which it is, then why would they wait?
Wait a second.
I did not say three dollars a gallon is not hurting people.
Well I said is implied.
It seems like it's implied.
What I said is they are spending it anyway.
They are traveling.
No, they don't have to go anywhere on Thanksgiving.
Don't have to go.
Don't they people want to.
Well, I I think you have to.
In a state like Maine, where I live, which is I mean, it's as backwards and left as it could be.
You can't survive up here without transportation.
It's just it's just a fact of life.
I can't survive without transportation anywhere.
I mean, it's it's up.
Wait a second now.
What do you want me to do?
Go all pessimistic and doom and gloom on you?
No, but I mean, i as long as as long as it's implied that, well, they're gonna they're doing it anyway.
Ha ha ha ha, and it's not gonna hurt the economy.
Look at the economy.
Well, that's that's why would they bother if it's if it's not perceived as a crisis, especially from us on the right, then why would they even consider doing something like that in terms of drilling in Alaska or off the coast of the United States?
Because they don't, I mean, even the right people on the right are acting like it's not a crisis if we're talking like it's not a crisis.
We should be talking like it is what it is, which is a crisis.
Three dollars a gallon is a system gas.
The first the first two calls of this program have to do with gasoline prices and the hundred dollar oil benchmark now.
Um is there is there a spam thing going on out there, snurdly?
Let me clarify this, ladies and gentlemen.
Let me clarify my position on this.
As you know, I think life is to be enjoyed.
And I think the opportunity to enjoy life and be productive in life to accomplish your wildest dreams exists in this country.
And every day there is an onslaught against that very concept in the media.
The Democrat Party and their buds in the drive-by media are doing everything they can to convince as many Americans that this country's best days are over.
I'm watching CNBC right now.
And you know what?
Well, they weren't not talking about it now, but just minutes ago, they did a whole segment, they've been doing it all morning.
Recession.
Are we there yet?
They are trying.
People are trying to convince people that we're, if not in a recession, that we're headed there.
And this is purposely done.
It's a it's uh coming up on an election year, and of course the economy has not mattered at all for the last seven years.
Now next year at an election year, if they can push you into thinking we're in a recession and get you all agitated and full of pessimism, then they will do it because they think that'll take you out to the polls for change.
And change means getting rid of a Republican administration and putting in a Democrat administration.
And I want to say more about this too, but I have to take a brief time out here.
We'll continue right after this.
And we are back.
Great to have you, uh ladies and gentlemen.
Let me expand on this.
By the way, I can I ask a quick question.
Why why all the worry out there about oil and gasoline?
What are you people so worried about?
We have wind.
We have solar energy.
People are people, well, I know I may not work in the gas station.
I mean, but I mean, isn't this where the environmentalist WACO is trying to take us?
I'm trying to make a point.
Of course it's important.
It is the fuel.
Oil is the fuel that drives this country in the freedom and democracy of the world.
The engine it runs at runs on oil and it always will.
What do you mean you're in a dark mood?
The I understand that the country's in a dark mood about the gas prices.
I understand this.
I'm going to try to address this.
I was in the process of trying to address this when the official program observer stopped observing and started shouting at me on the IFB.
Now, this situation, as I said before the break.
In fact, what's happening here is that see, I told you so.
I told you some time ago, probably a month ago, uh, or maybe even longer, that the 2008 presidential race would not have a thing to do with Iraq.
Iraq will not be the subject, despite what the Democrat primaries have all been about, despite all the attention, it doesn't matter if we're winning or losing.
Iraq is not going to be what we're discussing.
Because the Democrats are eventually going to come around after they get their nominee and start making nice on national security.
They're going to start talking about things that uh will appeal to independent voters that will try to convince independent voters that the Democrats care about protecting them.
That's going to happen.
So that's not going to be an issue.
What's going to be the issue?
Future of the country.
Domestic politics and the economy.
Now, what is happening here, uh, what I when I open the show with all these doom and gloom stories, I admit I should have gone into more detail about why I was doing it rather than just read you the stories.
But I make the mistake sometimes of assuming that those of you who are regular listeners understand points I've previously made.
I don't like, you know, rechewing the fat.
I don't like uh being redundant, but sometimes it's necessary.
See, I believe despite, and this has been true my whole life, I'm 56 years old, and I have lived through recession, so have you.
And I have lived through through periods of time where the doom and gloom was real.
I've lived through these energy crises, I have lived in gas lines, all these things, and I I look at where we were then, I look where we are now, and I do that with any period in American history, and where we are now is better than any place we've ever been.
And where we're gonna be tomorrow and next year and ten years from now, if we make the right decisions next year, this place is gonna be a better country than it is today.
And we're gonna go through all of these ups and downs.
We always have and we always will.
It's always been the resiliency and the entrepreneurism and the devotion, the dedication of the American people that propels this country, the people of this country, you are what make it work, not government, which is why I laugh at these questions regarding faith in government.
Government, big government, doesn't work.
The evidence is all over the place just in the past year.
But if you want to go back 60 years, you can see even more evidence of it.
And the idea that we're gonna turn over more of the private sector functions of this country to an inefficient, ineffective, bloated big government occupied by people who simply want to exercise power over us, that's what scares me.
Far more than the gasoline price.
Having people like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or the Bret Girl, or any of those Democrats running this country with a Democrat-controlled Congress.
That would put me Into a spirit of doom and gloom.
A lot of people say, you know, Rush.
Your show would really prosper when you got those Democrats in the office, something to talk about every.
I love the country first.
My success does not depend on who wins elections if I do the job right.
So what are we faced with here?
For the past two weeks, it literally has been unstoppable.
It's been nonstop.
It has been doom and gloom after doom and gloom story.
Now they're talking about recession.
Are we there yet?
They're setting up the presidential election year next year for issues having nothing to do with Iraq.
Last seven years, the economy hasn't mattered, a hill of beans to the drive-by media.
And all of a sudden, one year to go, and what are they doing?
Trying to push a bad economy.
Now the oil price, that's that's a pain.
Also, the the housing business is a pain.
But these are market corrections that are going to be made, especially the housing price or the mortgage crisis here, the credit crunch.
This is just simply some you know political correctness, run amok, lending money to people who had no business borrowing it.
Let a bunch of liberals look at the downtrodden.
They can't participate in the American dream.
We must find ways to loan them.
Okay, just give people that are not qualified alone.
And they default, and guess what?
You want to know whose fault this really is.
You can blame it on the on the banks and all this sort of stuff.
But who made them do this?
Who pointed a gun and who could put the pressure on them to do this to make life fair and equal in America, Myther Limbaugh?
Your United States Congress meddling in the market.
So the market's got to make a correction because somebody had no business getting involved in it, i.e.
government did.
And so we're gonna we got a pretty big correction going on.
But what I just said, ten years ago, country's better off today than it was.
You are too.
Twenty years ago, ditto, thirty years ago, ditto.
Would you rather be alive today or in the eighteen hundreds?
Would you rather be alive today and trump it economically or today, or you want to go back to the nineteen fifties and sixties?
I know some people have a romantic attachment to the innocence of those days, but you can't anyway.
Point I'm trying to make here is we live in the greatest country in the world.
This is the Thanksgiving weekend, and there is a lot to be thankful for.
Uh I'll just paraphrase it.
Uh he thinks that the rest of the world ought to be giving thanks for the United States of America.
I think the United States of America and its people ought to be giving thanks to capitalism, our way of life.
The opportunities to do whatever we want are just as abundant, if not more so than ever.
The opportunities to realize our dreams, the opportunities to get educated, the opportunities to get your kids educated.
Every one of these things, if you look realistically and get beyond the media bubble every day, and just assess your life and your even look at these idiotic polls.
These individuals, it's a it's a phenomenon.
Every one of these individuals in the poll, oh yeah, I'm doing great.
I am fine.
But gosh, you know, I'm worried about my neighbor.
And I hear talk that there's a recession coming.
And I wish I had more money so I could buy more in the American dream.
Well, there's a way to get more money.
Work.
Well, I see how that sounds insensitive, but how do people do it?
If you want more money and what you're doing now doesn't provide you what you want, then change to a field or an activity that will.
This is the U.S., you can do that.
You don't need most people's limitations.
Most people's limitations in life are self-imposed.
Like the guy who called for Maine.
Well, you know, Rush had 100 buck oil and gasoline is it's a crisis out there, and you're not helping because you're not portraying it as a crisis.
We live in Maine.
Transportation's vital.
Uh okay, if things aren't going well in Maine, move.
Now, I don't say that within spirit of meanness.
But if you don't like it, move.
If there aren't enough opportunities up there, move.
If you don't, self-impose limitation.
So you can't blame anybody else.
The opportunity's out there.
It's always been out there.
Now it doesn't exist in equal amounts in every location.
But people do well in every part of this country.
It's all up to you.
What I what I'm trying to guard against here is joining this uh cacophony of pessimism, because it doesn't serve any aspect of what made the country great.
You can get angry.
And you can get prone and oriented toward action to try to take action or cause action to be taken that will have an effect on, say, the gasoline price or the oil price.
Uh But sitting around in a bad mood isn't going to accomplish anything for anybody.
Sitting around pessimistic is something you're eventually going to have to abandon and go about your life.
And so here we are at Thanksgiving, and we had a caller telling me I need to start portraying the oil stuff as a crisis.
The theory being that if I join this fray as a crisis, that people will then realize it's a crisis and demand that we open up all the oil reserves that we have in this country for drilling and so forth.
The counter to that is is that my eternal optimism counters people's natural tendency and correct in this case tendency to be pessimistic over the price of oil and gasoline, and so no crisis is created, and therefore no action will be taken.
I reject the latter.
Because the crisis, I call it a crisis.
The anger is real.
There's a process by which the American people become informed and educated.
This price is like I told you the other day.
The gap between rich and poor is a good thing.
The fact that the gap keeps widening is a good thing.
It's not a bad thing.
Remember the income statistics I presented to you just last week?
That the people in the lowest quintile of wage earners had the highest percentage increase in their wages in the last five years.
The people in the top quintile, the wealthiest, had only a 10% increase in their wages.
So there is no gap that's widening.
But even if it were, it's a good thing.
And you know why?
Because it means people have place to aim for.
If the gap was shrinking and the rich were getting poorer, then everybody should worry.
But that's the exact opposite of what's happening.
The rich are getting richer, and so are the non-rich.
Now that's positive.
That means the opportunity is out there.
It's the same thing with the price of oil.
Okay, a hundred bucks, maybe not enough to cause a real crisis, but anger.
Let it go to one fifty and see what happens.
Let it maybe hit two hundred.
Let gasoline hit four or five bucks a gallon.
Maybe it all it would have to do hit three fifty or four, and then people will be conditioned to find out what the real solution to it is.
The real solution is not what the left offers up, which is conservation, windmills, solar power, and all that rot, nor is it hybrids.
The solution is expanding energy supplies that we have and can tap if we could just get the left out of the way.
Meanwhile, at GICOMs are drilling with the Cubans in the Gulf.
Was it Brazil just found eight and a half billion barrels?
Mexico just found a ten billion barrel field in the Gulf of Mexico.
We can't go there.
Because the federal government and some governors don't want the oil derricks out.
What happens if a spill, Mr. Limbaugh?
Why would destroy the birds and the pelicans and the beets?
Well, at some point something's got to give here, and I'm optimistic that some point down the road the people that are going to have it handed to them in the shorts are the environmentalist wackos.
But these things happen in their own time.
That's why you have to constantly fight, stand up for what you believe in, and continue to be believing in your country as well, the opportunities that are provided here, especially this time of year.
So I I just it's just not in me to go all pessimistic here, and it certainly isn't in me to create a crisis out of something when I don't think the time is right for it.
Plus these artificially created things don't have legs.
They've got to be genuine.
And we're close, folks, to it being as the price keeps going up.
But what if it doesn't?
Let me ask you what if what if gasoline goes back to ninety bucks?
What if it goes to eighty?
Um it's also not up to me to define these issues for presidential and congressional hopefuls.
They have to figure that out on their own.
But this is all another see, I told you so, my friends.
Conservative leadership.
Conservative Leaders would make this oil and drilling gap an issue, just like immigration.
But they have to do it.
They have to feel it.
They can be persuaded in mass on some issues.
But look at even the immigration bill was stopped, you know they're still trying to weigh to squeeze it in under the rug.
San Francisco's now issued personal IDs to everybody without gender.
That's just the latest way.
Governor Spitcher's going to try something else too.
Anyway, a lot to do.
I'm very long in this segment, but I didn't want to interrupt this positive upbeat message on Thanksgiving.
Don't go negative on here, folks.
Hi, welcome back, Rush Limboss Serving Humanity Thanksgiving Day show, or pre-Thanksgiving Day show.
Doing open line Friday on Wednesday, whatever you want to call and talk about, we will discuss.
I just got a note from a friend after hearing my brilliant monologue.
And the friend says, I don't think one can be optimistic without a happy disposition.
And I don't think people are happy without the capacity for gratitude.
So it makes sense to those who just expect things to be done for them or given to them, would move over time from gratitude to gripes, and then an increasingly negative view.
Well, that makes sense if uh if if and I realize not everybody can be optimistic.
I realize not everybody has it in them.
The natural disposition of the human being is to find the negative.
We all do it.
We all inflict suffering on ourselves.
We tell ourselves stories about the future that are going to have a bad outcome.
We can't possibly know.
And then we sit around and we stew about it.
Oh no, I just know this isn't gonna work.
Oh no, I know I'm gonna get caught.
Oh no, I shouldn't.
Oh no, this I know that's not gonna work.
Oh no, the price of oil I know is gonna go to 150.
You sit around, you suffer about all this.
Well, the point is, if if if you don't have the ability to have gratitude, now where this is relevant to me is we live in the greatest country on earth, and Thanksgiving is what it is.
It's like every holiday it's become commercialized.
Now, I'm not trying to get syrupy here, but Thanksgiving means Thanksgiving.
We have a lot to be thankful for in this country, particularly that we live here.
Particularly that as human beings on this planet, we live and make up and comprise the United States of America.
The gratitude at that alone, if people could just harness that, then the root of optimism could be found there.
Because if you have, as I do, a profound appreciation for what this country is and how rare and unique remember not long ago I asked you, you ever wondered why, throughout the history of human civilization, 300 million people, less than 300 million people, in less than 250 years, have created the world's greatest empire?
We're all human beings on this planet, just like everybody else.
Nothing special about us in terms of the way we're made.
And there's nothing really special about where we live, it's how.
We have organized ourselves and conducted ourselves.
Uh that that question alone and its answer uh creates awe in me.
I have a vast appreciation for what this population of people since our founding has created.
And therein lies a foundation of gratitude.
And when you have an appreciation and an understanding of what this country is and what's possible here, well, then you have the ability to be optimistic about the future if you think about it this way.
But if, my friend's right, if you take it for granted because you've either never thought about it or because it's never really been taught you in the proper perspective, and of course, these days there's a lot of anti-Americanism being taught in the schools via the multicultural curriculum and so forth.
If you expect that America being an American simply means you're entitled to low gasoline prices, if you think that being an American means you're entitled to somebody taking care of your health, and then when things go wrong, and you haven't learned how to provide them for yourselves, you are gonna get mad and think your country's going to hell in a handbasket because it's not doing anything for you.
Does New Orleans and Katrina strike a bell in this regard?
There's actually great news out there, folks.
I had this yesterday and I didn't get a chance to get to it.
A major breakthrough in stem cell research could eliminate the need for human embryos.
Now that is something about which to really, really be thankful, because we're not going to have to kill babies in the womb now for this research.
We'll be back.
We've only just begun.
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