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March 20, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:40
March 20, 2009, Friday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Hey folk, get this headline.
Get this.
It is from the New York Times today.
AIG sues the United States for the return of $306 million in tax payments, some related to deals that were conducted through offshore tax havens.
AIG claims it overpaid its taxes and they want the money back, ladies and gentlemen.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's open line Friday.
$306 million in tax payments.
That's right.
AIG says it overpaid its federal income taxes after a 2004 accounting scandal that caused it to restate its financial records.
AIG says in part that it is entitled to a refund of $33 million paid in 1997 as compensation to employees, which it now says should be characterized as a deductible expense.
Open line Friday.
Great to have you back here.
When we go to the phones, the program is all yours.
By the way, a programming note: Mark Stein will be sitting here on Monday hosting the program.
I will be out for the day, Mark Stein here on Monday.
Don't say that you didn't know because I am telling you now, Mark Stein will be here on Monday.
Snerdley says, and this depresses me because I said in the closing segment of the previous hour that the Democrat Party and the Obama administration are conducting an all-out of SART assault on the individual and liberty and freedom.
And that's exactly what it is.
Snerdley says, you better explain why the individual is so important.
You know, a lot of people, you got a whole brand new bunch of tuner-inners out there, Rush, and a lot of these people think the individual is just a greedy SOB and the individual, a bunch of individuals are what got the country in trouble.
And I said to Snerdley during the top of the hour brief, if I have to explain this, it's over.
I mean, I'm just, it depresses me that I have to try to explain this.
Why is the individual important?
If you have to explain why the individual is important in the United States of America, then you have to explain freedom.
And if you have to explain that, I'm at a loss.
I guess I'll just ask you a question.
To those of you in this audience who kind of have a fit when you hear me say that this administration is targeting and making an all-out assault on the individual, which is an assault on freedom, individual freedom and liberty.
Where and how do you think your freedom comes from?
Why is it you are free?
To me, that answers it.
I mean, are you free because you are a member of a group?
Or are you free because you are your own soul, endowed by your creator, God, certain inalienable rights, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.
From where does your freedom come?
Do you not have freedom until you join a club?
Do you not have freedom until you join a union?
Do you not have freedom until you are part of the disabled?
Do you not have freedom until you are a minority?
Where does your freedom come from?
In the United States of America, what our revolutionary was fought over, and we just barely made it, the whole concept of individual freedom and liberty was the reason we sought independence from the tyranny of King George, not Bush, George III of Britain.
I know that Mrs. Clinton, we're trying to remember this.
I said back in the 90s when the Clintons were running this show, I said that rugged individualism is what built this country.
And Mrs. Clinton went out there and took me on and ripped me.
And we forget what she said, but she had a very critical comment about rugged individualism.
Rugged individualism, rugged individuals don't care about anybody else, and they leave everybody else behind.
And it takes people like Mrs. Clinton to care about the people who get left behind when rugged individuals take over.
Mrs. Clinton had a book that says it takes a village to raise a child.
I said, no, it doesn't.
It takes individuals to raise a child.
It doesn't take a village.
The town doesn't raise a child, village or what have you.
You know, that was just, that was just code word for the parents don't really matter.
It's the school.
It's government enterprises that are responsible for raising the child, right?
And nothing could be further from the truth.
This country was not built on group politics.
The country was not built on group identities.
The country was built on rugged individualism.
Rugged individualism is portrayed, unfortunately, as selfishness.
But it is not selfishness.
Rugged individualism is self-interest.
And self-interest is good.
If we were all acting in our own self-interest, what are your self-interests?
Let's say you're a father and a husband.
What is your self-interest?
Well, if you take it responsibly, the responsibility of being a husband and father, your self-interest is improving the life that your family lives.
You want economic opportunity for them.
You want social stability for them.
You want a relatively crime-free existence.
You want some security.
You want to see to it that your kids don't go off the wrong path.
All of these things are the things that you work for.
And you rely on yourself to provide them.
Of course, you have support groups, the church and friends and so forth.
It doesn't mean that you are solitary.
It doesn't mean that you're isolated.
But it means that you accept responsibility for your life.
And what happens to you is your responsibility.
And that you have, in this country, all of the ability and opportunity in the world to make the most of it.
Or you can slough it off.
And you can not make the most of yourself.
But then you're not acting in your own self-interest.
Then you're letting everybody down.
When you don't seek your best, when you don't try to be the best you can be, you're letting everybody down.
You're letting the country down.
Obama even said this.
He hadn't said it since, when talking about the dropout rate.
He said, you people drop it out, you're not helping your country.
You're harming your country.
It's the same thing, self-interest.
He won't ever say that again.
It sounds too Reagan-esque and it sounds too conservative.
But individuals, rugged individuals have great and high expectations of themselves.
It was rugged individualists that built the railroads.
It was rugged individualists that discovered the new world.
It was rugged individualists that dreamed about getting to the moon.
It was rugged individualists that invented the automobile and the airplane, the bullet, the gun.
It was rugged individualists who invented medicines, improvements in health care.
It wasn't a bunch of groups.
But rush, but rush.
The pharmaceuticals have a bunch of people in laboratories.
Yeah, they do.
There's somebody that runs them, but they're all working to try to be the best they can be.
Thomas Edison, a light bulb.
Benjamin Franklin, electricity.
Alexander Graham Bell, a telephone.
Marconi, the radio.
Henry Ford, automobile mass production, the assembly line.
Carl Benz, the automobile.
I'll never forget a story.
Reagan was governor of California in the 70s.
And this is in one of the books about Reagan.
I heard William Rusher, who was the former publisher of National Review, tell the story.
And I may, I'm paraphrasing this.
There may be others who know it better.
But the students at Berkeley were all bent out of shape one day, as they always were during the free speech movement.
And they didn't like what Reagan was doing with the National Regard, the National Guard.
They didn't like Reagan's policies.
They thought Reagan, back in the 70s, was just an old man, out of touch.
He had no clue about their lives.
And who was he to sit there and make policies about their future?
So they demanded, at a sit-in, state capitol in California, somewhere outside his office.
They got in the building, they were let in.
They demanded to see him.
And at some point, Reagan let a couple of these student leaders in.
And they went in there, cocky young little kids.
And they essentially said, who are you, old man?
You don't know anything about our lives.
You don't know how we function.
You don't know how we get along.
You don't know anything about telephone.
You don't know anything about computers, televisions.
You don't know anything about that.
These things are all foreign to you.
Look, you're just using all these old-fashioned things around here.
And Reagan looked at them and said, you know, you're right about that.
We had to invent these for you, to use them.
We had to invent them for you.
Take your favorite actor or actress, take your favorite television personality, and ask me, or ask yourselves, what government, what protective agency got them their job?
Or is it rugged individualism or sleeping on the couch or whatever they had to do, but they did it?
They also get $20 million a movie because they put people in the theater seats.
Whether the movie's any good or not, people go, except for Tom Cruise who's in trouble right now.
But, well, Valkyrie just wasn't quite it.
But the point here, ladies and gentlemen, is that anything that beats you down, anything that says to you that you're no more than anybody else, that you're no better, no different, no worse, that you're the same as anybody else, is lying to you.
And they're seeking to control you.
And they're seeking to limit your own ability and your own desire because we're not the same.
There are no two things.
The whole premise of equality.
It's a great thing to strive for, like equality before the law, equality in job opportunity, and so forth.
But there are no two things that are equal, certainly not outcomes.
Other than identical twins, no two human beings look exactly alike.
Do you realize that as many human beings as will be created in the history of the earth, no two of them will look alike?
It's not possible other than the rare cases of identical twins.
But even those people are not the same.
We have the same shell, the same look, but they're not the same inside.
No two people are the same.
Everybody's got different level of ambition, desire.
Everybody has a different IQ.
Everybody has different intelligence.
Everybody has a different metabolism.
Everybody has a different hairline.
Everybody's got no two people are the same.
And it's not fair.
It just isn't because some people are smarter than others.
Some people are more creative than others.
Some people can walk down the street and just have people throw money at them.
Other people can toil their whole lives and never make more than minimum wage.
Why?
Who knows?
But it is our contention that the people who never make more than minimum wage can do far better if they're just invested in themselves.
Not in a government, not in a president, not a Congress, not a program.
How many people in those people's lives tell them that they're special versus how many of them tell you, you don't have a chance.
You don't have a prayer.
This country's racist.
It's homophobic.
It's bigoted.
You don't have a chance.
You need to vote for us.
Even I, ladies and gentlemen.
You listen to me and you look at me and you see whatever you see, but you see me as successful.
It may make you mad.
It may make you furious.
But nevertheless, you see me successful.
But you don't know the 35, 37 years that I've spent in this business since I was 16, minus five, and I worked for the Kansas City Royals baseball team.
You don't know the seven times I got fired.
And you don't know how many people in this business told me to quit and told me to give it up.
That it's not a fair business, even if you're good.
There are too many idiots above you, too many jealous people above you that don't want you to get anywhere because you're better than them.
Hey, hello, that's the world.
There are a lot of professors don't want you to be smarter than they are.
There are a lot of people working at banks who are tellers that probably could be in the investment side, but somebody's threatened by them.
Everybody's trying to hold everybody back.
It's just human nature.
And it's only the belief in yourself that propels you through all those things.
And yourself is the individual.
I got fired seven times.
One time was it probably justified.
The other times due to vagaries of the broadcast business.
But each time I got fired, the person that fired me said, you know, you really don't have what it takes to succeed here.
If you want to stay in this business, you need to go into sales or something else because you just, you really don't have that much talent.
And I'm saying to myself, how would you know you've never let me exhibit it?
You and your brilliant management have come up with ways that I can only say this here or that there, and I can only take that much time.
How do you know what my talent is?
And when was the last time you cared to really find out what my talent is?
Without believing in yourself, you're going nowhere.
And you won't believe in yourself if somebody beats the individual out of you.
If somebody convinces you that you don't deserve to do any better than anybody else, because that's not fair.
And they are teaching you that in school about your grades.
And they're teaching you that about economics.
It's not fair that you might have a nicer car than the schlub down the street.
It's just not fair.
It's humiliating to the people who have less.
So they're trying to beat the individual out of you.
And the individual in you, the belief in yourself is the only thing you've got to compete against everybody that's trying to hold you back.
And they all are.
It's the way of the world.
You look at things from afar.
You look at pop culture.
You look at movie stars.
And you think that's a community.
And they all decided one day, they all decided that Cameron Diaz is great.
And they all got together and they all love Cameron Diaz.
And they've all made her a big star.
That's the image they project because they want you to think it's all a giant.
Cameron Diaz is like everybody else.
She had to fight for everything she has.
And they're nipping at her heels now as she gets older, standing with Julia Roberts.
It doesn't change no matter where you are, no matter what kind of glamour.
You take a look around you, the genuinely successful people that you see who you want to be did not check their individualism at the door when they started their work.
They didn't check their self-interest at the door and they didn't check their self-respect.
And they didn't turn over the belief in themselves to somebody else.
That's all I'm talking about.
And that's under assault by this administration, which wants to control and limit freedom.
Because the only way Obama can get the power he wants and the Democrats can get the power they want is if you willingly turn it over to them.
By getting rid of your self-interest, your self-respect, and holding your best interests at heart.
Your best interests do not coincide with your governments, especially now, back after this.
It's Open Line Friday.
People have been waiting a long time.
We'll go to Louis.
And Ann, it's nice to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
Meghan Ditto from Louisville.
Thank you.
I'm calling in response to Mr. Obama's remark about Special Olympics.
Yeah.
I've had the privilege of being associated with that community for 46 years with my daughter.
His backhanded apology was as insulting as a remark.
You made just an offhanded remark.
Exactly what he said, and it shows the character of this man.
Yeah, I agree.
I think he's a cold guy.
I think he's got a chip on his shoulder.
He's got a little anger out there.
These are and remember, there was no apology forthcoming until people started calling the White House.
This is something if it had been me and I had said that, I would have pawned in the middle of the show.
Jay, look, I'm sorry about that.
I'm trying to make fun of myself.
I'm a lousy bowler.
I'm just trying to make fun of myself.
I would have done it right then and there.
I wouldn't have said it in the first place, but I just, you know, I feel like this man presidency has been by response to what he thinks is racial prejudice.
Did you like him before this comment or not?
No.
I didn't.
But this certainly, I know there's many other humans.
Well, just here, but just as important.
Just remember, Ann, this man cares.
George W. Bush, a village idiot.
This man, he cares.
Yeah, that's his story at Condonastportfolio.com.
CNN's March ratings.
CNN's collapsing.
CNN's ratings are collapsing.
They are the last.
They're number four in the cable news race in the prestigious 25 to 54 demographic in prime time.
Headline news.
Headline news has drawn things like Nancy Grace and CNN's doing liberal news, you know, all night in prime time.
And they're in fourth place.
You got Fox, you got PMS NBC, you got headline news, and then CNN.
But you almost have to try.
I know, you have to try.
But yeah, that's there.
I mean, the bottom is falling out of CNN's numbers.
All right.
We just had the call from Anne in Lul, who has been with Special Olympics for 46 years because of one of her children, and she was among many who were offended.
And by the way, by Obama's comment on tonight's show, and she also, the point she made was that his apology didn't do it for her.
I want to go back to the first hour.
I want to contrast two people for you.
Do you remember during the presidential campaign how the media, the Democrats, and the left, savaged Sarah Palin?
Expected.
It's who they are.
She was effective.
She threatened them.
She brought life and energy to the moribund McCain campaign.
She had to be destroyed.
That's the Let's Modus Operandi.
We expect that.
However, we had some people on our side who also think that they are part of the best and the brightest, smarter than everybody else, part of the New York-Washington media axis.
Referring to Barack Obama as elegant.
He's so elegant.
He's so suave.
He's so brilliant.
He's so calm and cool, soothing.
He's just Joe Camel.
Joe Camel.
This man is cool as can be.
It's great.
People on our side said it's great to have somebody as smart as we are running for president.
It's great to have somebody as well-spoken as we are.
It's great to have an academic.
Somebody from Harvard lost somebody from the Chicago University of Chicago laws.
It's great to have one of us, a fellow egghead, running for office.
And these same people said of Sarah Palin, how vulgar.
People on our side.
How vulgar.
How uncouth.
How so middle class.
Accent.
Duh.
Just duh.
I can't stand her accent.
She had the baby.
People on our side were saying she had the baby with Down syndrome.
No.
Look at that.
She's whipping.
She's whipping these middle American Republicans into a frenzy.
This is bad.
This is not how we're going to become a majority party.
Sarah Palin.
Oh, he's so vulgar.
So, here's Barack Obama last night on the tonight show.
Oh, no.
I've been practicing.
Really?
Really?
I bowled a 129.
Oh, that's very good.
Yeah.
Oh, that's very good, Mr. President.
It was like Special Olympics.
He bowled a 129.
Oh, he had wonderful 129.
Oh, one second.
That's really great, Mr. President.
Limo Leno says, a little cynicism.
Yeah, yeah, you know, like Special Olympics or something.
Special Olympics.
Here's Sarah Palin, March 7th, 2009, on her website, Sarah Pack, holding her baby with Down syndrome Trig, addressing the 2009 Special Olympics.
When I first held Trigg, it was like an hourglass turned upside down.
My heart filled up with love as my mind emptied itself of all the different worries and fears and concerns that I had.
I had carried those while I was carrying him.
Everyone wants their baby to be perfect.
And with Trigg, that's exactly what we got.
Everyone worries about what the future holds for their newborn child.
With Trigg, we have hopes and concerns and dreams, just as we do for all our children.
But one thing is certain for our family, and that's that Special Olympics is going to be a big part of his and our future.
Oh, no, I've been practicing.
Really?
I bowled a 129.
I have it.
Oh, that's very good.
Yeah.
Oh, that's very good, Mr. Bridgelet.
It was like Special Olympics.
Like Special Olympics or something.
So there's the elegant and suave and intelligent, brilliant, well-spoken Barack Obama versus the vulgar, uncouth, unsophisticated Sarah Palin.
Here's another soundbite from Ms. Palin.
Now, thanks to Special Olympics, we know for certain that Trigg is going to have every opportunity to enjoy sports and competition that all of our other children have.
I know I don't have to worry that he's going to be on the sidelines when he wants to be in the game.
You know what the difference is between a hockey mom and a Special Olympics hockey mom?
Nothing.
For our family and for millions of other families with special, special children.
Special Olympics gives us confidence and excitement for his future.
And we've got big plans for this little guy.
And we can't wait.
Oh, no.
I've been practicing.
Really?
Really?
I bowled a 129.
I have it.
Oh, no, that's very good.
Yeah.
Oh, that's very good, Mr. Bridgelet.
It was like Special Olympics.
There you have it, side by side: the elegant, suave, sophisticated, brilliant, educated Barack Obama versus the vulgar, unsophisticated, uncouth Sarah Palin.
Both talking about the same thing, Special Olympics.
Just to show you, just to show you how false images can so easily be created and magnified by the drive-by media, political parties, and so forth.
This is Kara in Kara, Houston.
Kara in Houston, Texas.
Nice to have you on the program.
Hello.
Hello, Mr. Limbaugh.
It is a pleasure to talk to you.
Thank you very much.
I'm a little nervous, so you'll have to forgive me.
Well, you don't sound nervous.
It'll sound like you're on teleprompter.
Nope, no problem.
Just kidding.
Just kidding.
I actually, it's a sad call because I have to correct you about something.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
On Wednesday, you had talked about Enron and Mark-to-Market accounting, and you had it all wrong.
No, I did not have it all wrong.
I had a guy who was an expert in it call me and say, you were right, but you didn't go far enough.
No, Mark-to-market accounting, actually, Enron did use it.
That's true.
But they were never accused of manipulating mark-to-market accounting at all by anyone.
Not even that.
No, no, I didn't.
No, no, no, no.
I'm sorry.
I didn't.
I don't think I said that.
I think what I said, and I was wrong about this, I said that Sarbanes-Oxley put Mark-to-Market in as a reaction to Enron abusing things that were not marked to market.
Somebody sent me, and I said, No, you're wrong about that.
Mark to market has been around long before Enron.
That's true.
But Enron was the catalyst for Sarbanes-Oxley and the strengthening of mark to market and making it the law of the land.
Well, it's true that Enron was sort of responsible for Sarbanes-Oxley, but the interesting thing is Enron had completely by itself begun implementing some of those precautions before Sarbanes-Oxley even convened.
And in fact, one of the things that is really upsetting me, especially now with the IAG situation, is you seem to buy into the whole idea that Enron was corrupt, and I just, I don't think it was corrupt.
I see where you're coming from.
You think that I took the occasion of those comments to bash Enron.
Yes.
I was bashing Congress.
I'm glad you called her.
Enron, they're gone.
Congress over, I gave the meter example.
So Enron does whatever they do, and the meteor goes far left.
They go, oh, we've got to fix this.
And rather than bring the meter back to the center, we go far to the right or just whatever direction.
And we overcompensate and we overlegislate and do everything.
That's all.
I was blaming Congress for this.
Okay, well, good.
I misunderstood then, but I just don't like that.
But I'll tell you what, defending Enron today is like, why don't you defend IAG next?
I do.
I do defend them.
I think it was great that they got those bonuses.
All right.
My kind of woman here.
My kind of woman.
You're fearless.
You've got courage.
Well, I absolutely believe in the American businessman.
I think that they are the engines of our economy.
And when we start getting into really petty, stupid, class warfare type arguments, it lowers us all and it does nothing good for our country or for ourselves.
And I think that's silly.
And what we're seeing now, Enron was really, you know, they were a fantastic company.
I love them, and I'm so sorry they're gone.
Did you work there?
Did you work there?
I did work there.
I love them, and I love my company.
And I love, I just, I can't say good things about it.
There was no fraud or conspiracy at Enron.
But, of course, nobody will listen to that now.
And what we saw with Enron was a witch hunt.
That's why Jeff Skilling is in prison and why the broadband three are about to go back to trial for the second time.
And one of them is going on trial for the third time.
And this is just ridiculous.
This is a witch hunt.
They did nothing wrong.
They were just practicing.
You're going to have a tough sell on that.
You're going to have a tough sell on the fact that Enron did nothing wrong.
I think that's biting off a little bit more than you might want to chew.
No, no, no.
I really don't think they did.
There was one, Andy Fascow did steal from Enron, but he also worked for LJM.
Enron was the victim.
And people keep saying, oh, come on, the people that they were stealing from.
It wasn't like Enron was out there needling people and taking money that wasn't theirs.
I mean, Enron was the source of the money that was stolen.
It's like blaming a rape victim or something.
Well, I'm not sure I agree with you on all that.
I mean, what happened to Enron happened, and they end up with nothing, and people that work there end up with nothing and so forth.
But I get, I understand the philosophical point that you were making.
But I've taken the occasion of what you heard on the phone the other day on the radio to be critical of Congress.
Look, I have to run on long here in this segment.
A quick timeout.
Thanks for the phone call, Carol.
We will be right back.
I got to remind you folks, it's cold season is still here, even though it's getting into mid-March now.
But this is a time in many parts of the country where the common cold virus is ravaging a lot of people.
And if you think, the moment you think that you are coming down with a cold sniffles, you know how to recognize it.
Grab some Zycam, get some Zycam, and swab your nose with the Q-tip type things.
They got new packaging.
It's very easy to open.
If you used to try Zycam, you didn't like the packaging.
It was tough to get the q-tip out of there.
No more problem.
Just pop the top off of there, swab the inside of both nostrils, five seconds, close your hands.
Don't go too far up there.
Just right inside.
And if you catch it early enough, you can either stop it or you can severely retard the onset of the cold and limit its duration and impact.
Zycam.
It's great to have a sponsor like Zycam because it works.
And that's really all that you have to say about it.
And it's available everywhere that you would expect to find cold medicine.
And if you goof up and you forget it, they've got medicine to help you deal with the cold after it's got a, let's see.
Excuse me.
One more soundbite, ladies and gentlemen.
And this soundbite dovetails with what I was saying all day long about this administration targeting individualism.
This administration and the Democrat Party have an all-out assault on capitalism, individualism, and freedom.
And this is how it happens.
Obama last night on the tonight show.
We need young people instead of a smart kid coming out of school, instead of wanting to be an investment banker, we need them to decide they want to be an engineer, want to be a scientist.
They want to be a doctor or a teacher.
And if we're rewarding those kinds of things that actually contribute to making things and making people's lives better, that's going to put our economy on solid footing.
We won't have this bubble and bust economy that we've gotten so caught up in for the last several years.
Now, this is part of his existence.
His wife said the same thing in Zanesville, Ohio, back during the campaign.
Don't be a lawyer.
Don't be an investment banker.
Stay as a nurse or what have you.
So here is the president of the United States on the tonight show, which, you know, the audience of that show, what would you want to guess the average IQ of the audience of the tonight show is?
Here he is.
Don't be an investment banker.
Do not do that.
You will destroy America.
It's none of his damn business what you want to do with your life.
It's none of his business unless he's paying your education, unless he's your father.
And even then, it's your life and you can do with it what you want.
Of all the occupations, don't be an investment banker.
Why?
Who's he targeting?
He wants everybody in finance to wear a giant red A for AIG.
He wants people in that business to be hated.
He wants people in that business to be suspects.
Instead of, you know, smart kid coming out of school, instead of wanting to be an investment banker, we need them to decide they want to be an engineer, a scientist, a doctor, a teacher.
And if we're rewarding those kinds of things, which actually contribute to making things and making people's lives better, you don't think this guy has a bug up his dress?
You don't think this guy has got a chip on his shoulder about wealthy people, what he thinks are wealthy?
You don't think this guy has a prejudice?
Investment bankers don't do anything.
They make nothing happen.
We need to fund things that matter.
People who make things like Acorn.
What does Acorn make?
Nothing but a bunch of damn corruption and trouble.
This is your attack on individualism.
This is your attack on liberty.
And it's coming right from the Oval Office.
Excuse me.
Excuse me.
From the stage of the tonight show.
Back in a second.
A reminder, ladies and gentlemen, I am not here on Monday, but Mark Stein will be here.
Don't worry.
It's another charity golf outing, an earning L's deal for autism.
And we'll be back Tuesday.
And you love Steins.
Everything's cool.
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