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March 31, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:38
March 31, 2009, Tuesday, Hour #3
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The views expressed by the host on this program now documented to be almost always right of the time.
A thrill and a delight to have you with us, Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB microphone here at the distinguished and prestigious Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone numbers 800-282-2882, the email address, L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
Folks, we have got to drive these people out of office.
We have to start now.
The Republicans in Congress need to start throwing every possible tactic in front of everything the Democrats are trying to do.
This is getting absurd.
Listen to this.
Henry Waxman and Edward Markey are putting the finishing touches on a six hundred and forty-eight-page global warming and energy bill that will certainly finish this country off.
They're circulating the bill today.org.
The bill contains everything you'd expect from an Al Gore wish list.
I don't know how this will not raise energy prices to crippling levels, finish off the auto industry as we know it.
648-page global warming and energy bill.
I have a just a quick question.
What would happen to these people?
Let's say, and I think it's already been done, but let's let's just pretend.
Let's pretend that there was incontrovertible evidence that global warming is not happening.
Let's say there were incontrovertible evidence that the whole thing is wrong, and that the scientists who have been touting it for decades, years now.
Let's just pretend they came out and said, you know what, we were wrong about this.
In fact, there is no global warming, there's global cooling.
I wonder how Washington politicians would react.
My guess is they would say we can't trust this.
Uh this is too important and we're and they would move ahead with all of this freedom limiting legislation anyway, because that's what this is about.
Pollution controls.
They're so greatly enhanced now to the point that these mini engines that are on these these fuel efficient cars, these little three-cylinder cars, they're so overwhelmed, they could barely move phone booths.
They can barely move themselves.
You put two people in them and you're and you're you're basically ticking along.
You know, I uh I think what one of the things that's at the root of this.
Think of the combustible engine and what it has meant to the development of this country.
People able to go anywhere in the woods in the trundle, wherever they've had to go to develop things, to build things.
Um the American automobile is one of the greatest illustrations of human freedom.
You get in it and you go where you want to go.
And that's what's irritating to people.
The fact that you can't go any further than 300 miles without stopping for 45 minutes or an hour to charge your electric car is a boon.
The less you travel, the more that you are inspired, motivated to take mass transportation, public transportation, the more that you are conditioned to live in places where you won't have to drive us.
That is what these people are after.
And as I said, we have uh gigantic new audience on this program as uh the tune-in factor is us through the roof.
And to those of you who are new to the program, I want you to please understand that the criticism of the Obama administration here and the disagreement with practically every element of his agenda is based on one thing.
Uh we we do not want to lose the liberty and freedom that we were born with in this country that has made this the greatest country on earth that has given us the greatest most prosperous lifestyle of Any population of human beings in the history of the planet.
It has been liberty.
It's been freedom.
It has been the ambition and desire to use that freedom in the concept of self-interest.
I tell you, I want to spend more time on this uh in a future program.
But this notion of sacrifice that the president talked about yesterday is just over the top.
Liberals always talk about sacrifice, and Obama, every time he opens his mouth, mentions the need for people to sacrifice.
We all must suffer.
We all have to jointly suffer in order for all of us to somehow be the same.
And self-interest, selfishness is condemned.
And self-interest is not selfishness.
Self-interest is what built this country.
Somebody starting a business, did it in his self-interest.
He didn't start a business so that there would be jobs and health care in the community.
He started a business because he loved the business that he was in.
He loved the business that he wanted to build.
He had a product or a service that he thought would improve the lives of people.
He wanted to sell it to them.
He wanted to make it available to them.
Everybody wins when everybody's acting in self-interest.
Selfishness is a different thing.
Self-interest is excellent.
Self-interest is what's desired.
Self-interest is what makes people want raises.
Self-interest is what makes people want their families to be secure.
Self-interest is what makes parents want their kids to be properly educated.
Self-interest is what propels the United States military to victory.
Not sacrifice.
Not the concept of sacrifice.
Sacrifice is giving something to somebody you don't know to make yourself feel altruistic.
You're not sacrificing.
That doesn't make you great.
But giving something to your family because you provided it for them, that is good.
But if you run around just giving people who do nothing for you, are just worthless, don't have anything to do with you.
You're cheating them out of their own self-interest.
When you vote for politicians who take from your back pocket to give to others, you think it's compassionate, you think it's caring?
It's not.
It's depriving the recipient of his own quest for self-interest.
The brilliant writer and novelist Ann Rand has written about this.
I'll give you a couple quotes from Anne Rand on this.
It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings.
Where there's service, there's somebody being served.
The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters and intends to be the master.
That is President Obama.
Where there's sacrifice, there's somebody collecting the sacrificial offerings.
What does it mean?
President Obama says we all need to sacrifice for whatever reason, this reason or that reason.
What it means is we need to pay more.
We need to have less affluent lives.
We need to dial down our prosperity.
And we need to give the money to him, not a charity.
He is going to eliminate, for all intents and purposes.
The tax deductibility could be 28 cents for every dollar.
Charitable donations.
He wants to be the distributor of the charitable donations.
He wants to be the distributor of good wits, good of the goods because he wants the glory.
So it only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's somebody collecting the sacrificial offerings.
Okay, who it is it that's talking about sacrifice?
President Obama.
Who's gonna collect your sacrificial offerings?
President Obama and his government.
And where there's service, there's somebody being served.
There's no sacrifice in service.
The president who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters.
He intends to be the master.
You're the slave.
You must sacrifice.
We have a lot of people who love to talk about minorities, do we not?
The minority is put upon, needs special considerations, special rights because the minority is put upon by the majority.
The minorities are not granted equal treatment.
The minorities are they they just need special considerations.
It's not fair that they're a minority.
What is the smallest minority on earth?
What do you think?
This is not a trick question.
What is the smallest minority on earth?
Mr. Sturdley, I will start with you.
Nope.
The smallest minority on earth is not wealthy people.
Don, do you want to take a stab at what is the smallest minority on earth?
You'll never get it, but when I tell you what it is, you'll think it's brilliant.
Strawberry blondes are not the smallest minority on earth.
Brian, you want to take a stab at it?
Don't tell me owners of Spanish speaking radio stations.
What is the smallest minority?
You're never gonna get it.
The white male is not the smallest minority on earth.
You are you'll you people would never get this because we're not conditioned to think this way.
The smallest minority on earth is the individual.
We are all different.
We are all individuals.
We are being told to sacrifice our individuality.
We are being told we must assemble in other groups of victims.
Well, not all of us, because some of us are the victimizers.
The smallest minority on earth is the individual, and thus, those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
This administration claims to be a minority administration.
First black president, historical nature.
This administration is out to destroy the whole concept of individual rights under the guise of sacrifice, pay equalization, equalization of outcomes in other areas, but the smallest minority on earth is you as an individual.
You have individual rights as granted by God who created you.
And our founding documents enshrine them.
Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.
Those rights don't come from other men or governments or women, they come from our creator.
God.
A higher power, whatever.
However you want to look at it.
Smallest minority on earth is the individual.
And I dare say that in this country today, there's no one looking out for the individual other than me.
Nobody's looking out for the individual.
In fact, in this country, just as it happened in Soviet Russia, just as it happens in North Korea, as it is happening in Venezuela, and as it happened in Cuba.
The individual must be stamped out.
The individual must be stomped upon.
The individual as a concept must be done away with.
And as such, there go individual rights.
You don't have individual rights nearly to the degree that you once did.
Not when you have been forced by either guilt or stigma to buy a car that you don't really want.
When you're buying a car because you think it'll get you less criticism, when you buy a car because you think people will think you're wonderful, but not because you want that car.
you have sacrificed your individual rights.
You have said, my worth as an individual, my worth as who I am doesn't count anymore.
I am going to define my worth by what somebody thinks of me.
I'm going to define my worth by how little criticism I will get.
I'm going to define my worth by how much I can make people think I care.
Based on the tug of popular sentiment each and every day.
When any of you decide to do away with pursuing what you want in your best self-interest, you are sacrificing who you are.
You are giving up control of your essence.
And you are saying I would rather be a member of a group that is approved by people so that I don't get criticized, or so that I'm thought of as enlightened, or so that I'm thought of as advanced.
And in the process, you are helping to destroy the very foundational building blocks of the greatest country on earth, the country in which you happen to be born, and the country in which you happen to live.
So giving up your individual identity, giving up who you are, sacrificing your passions and your desires and your own self-interest for the so-called common good.
Who gets to define the common good?
I would define the common good as everybody acting as an individual born as he or she is, pursuing self-interest.
That's the common good.
That built cities, that built a great country, that built railroads and engines, it built airplanes, it built everything.
People denying who they are did not.
When you deny your individuality, when you give it away for acceptance into a subgroup of people, you are harming the country.
You are letting the country down.
You are not pulling your weight.
You are seeking approval, self-love, and acceptance from all of the wrong sources.
You're giving up the greatest gift you ever had, and that's who you are.
And we have an administration that wants you to willingly and excitedly eagerly give up who you are for a common good they define.
A common good that requires you to deny who you are, your individuality.
What makes you different from everybody else, whether you're not as good or whether you're much better at certain things.
You will become a number.
You will become a robot who can be programmed and inspired and motivated to behave in approved ways.
And you will be taught to think you are virtuous when doing so, when all you've done is sold yourself and your country out.
You give up your individuality, you sacrifice who you are, you allow that to be taken away for some mythical status as a member of a group.
You are giving up your passion to become a moderate or worse.
Passion never built anything.
People without passion never built anything.
People without passion never got one thing done.
People without passion are drags on achievement and accomplishment.
That's what this administration wants you to become.
Back in a second.
We have a 17-year-old from Indianapolis.
This is Thomas.
Great to have you, sir, on the program.
Mega Cou, Megadiddoes from a 17-year-old Republican.
I was just thinking that, don't you think, with all of the CEOs being replaced by a puppet Democrat loyalists, that this is uh Barack Obama is doing it majorly just so he could get reelected and have a bigger purse for the Democratic Party because now you're gonna have billionaires running these companies that are loyal to Democrats and Barack Obama.
Thomas, I am so glad you called, and I'm so glad you made that point.
I applaud you.
I I admire, I love people who think.
Thomas, you're exactly right, and it's only the limitations of your age and therefore your lack of life on earth to acquire more knowledge than you already have that make me say to you it's already happened.
Vast majority of the Wall Street CEOs are Democrats and voted for Obama.
The ones who paid the bonuses and then were s were were tarred and feathered, largely Democrats.
In fact, Chris Dodd shook them down in the 2006 campaign, sent letters out, email letters out to the executives at AIG, who then secured donations to his re-election from their employees.
The vast majority of CEOs in America are already Democrats.
The idea that big business is a bunch of rich Republicans is a myth, just as it is the fact that the Democrats were always race tolerant.
They were the segregationists.
Rush Limbaugh, a man, a legend, a way of life.
Learn it, love it, live it.
Now I realize we have gazillions of new listeners who have been brought to this program by recent events.
And a lot of things that you do not know about this program if you've only listened to it a week or two, even two weeks, maybe even even three, because I've always said that it takes six weeks of steady listening to be able to put what happens on this program in context.
Because, see, I assume everybody listening listens every day.
And so I might say something today that relates to something I said three weeks ago.
I'll assume that most in the audience heard it.
I'll have a starting point other than the very beginning.
New arrivals go, whoa, what's that?
I can't believe he said that.
But if you knew the whole story, and if you knew how things happen on this program, if you understood one of the concepts, we love to illustrate absurdity by being absurd.
I have a philosophy on persuasion.
I'm trying to persuade everybody that listens to the program to agree with me.
And I've often said I'm not retiring until everybody does.
Agree with me, every American.
And this, of course, irritated.
How can he possibly be so pompous to think every American?
Well, why not?
If I'm right, you ought to agree with me.
I'm an individual.
I'm very confident of what I believe.
When I'm wrong, I admit it doesn't happen much, so it's easy to do.
Another thing that we do to try to make a point, I mean, anybody can just sit here and tell you what they think.
Because anybody can say, I think Obama is bad for America.
Or anybody can say, you know what?
They're coming after your SUV and they want you driving around in some little puddle jumper here that is going to get you killed.
Because they don't want you being free.
But anybody can say that.
Sometimes we put our beliefs in the form of parody and satire put to music in an effort to make the same point and entertained at the same time, such as In a Hugo.
And we're back.
It's Rush Limbaugh, and that's uh that's Paul Shanklin as Elvis.
And a parody of the of the great tune in the ghetto.
Entitled In a Yugo.
You remember this story.
This story is from two weeks ago.
Two weeks ago we had this story on this program.
It's from the Los Angeles Times.
The headline, hybrid car sales go from 60 to zero at breakneck speed.
The gas electric vehicles are piling up on dealers' lots as anxiety over gasoline prices evaporates.
But more hybrid models are on the way.
The Ford and Honda hybrids due out this month are among dozens planned for the coming years as automakers try to meet the new fuel efficiency standards and please politicians overseeing the industry's multi-million dollar bailout.
Nobody's buying them.
Nobody wants them.
The manufacturers are making them in droves to satisfy Obama.
Sorry for yelling.
Nobody wants them.
The Prius is supported because it loses money by the Toyota tundra and the whole Lexus division.
Nobody wants them.
The only people that have them, well, I'm not going to characterize them, but there aren't that many.
I will only say that those people have probably given up their individuality for what they think is a larger cause, but nobody wants them.
That doesn't matter.
Because as I mentioned earlier in the program, a couple hundred more million acres, a couple million more acres placed off limits, energy rich, shale oil, natural gas placed off limits by the U.S. Congress.
We're going to become more dependent on foreign oil, more dependent on foreign oil.
Gasoline prices are going to go through the roof at some point.
Big oil will be blamed by the Obama administration, and then you will be forced to start considering cars you do not want.
And you are not buying.
Goodbye freedom.
We have got to drive these people out of office.
Before it's too late.
Who's next?
Blair.
White House New Jersey, nice to have you on the program.
Welcome.
Hey, Rush.
When I was a consultant, uh one of the assignments I had was to evaluate the portfolios of blue chip companies, product portfolios.
And I had to analyze the Toyota portfolio, and it wasn't even close.
The tundra and the um Tacoma were the cash flow producers by far, and the Prius was a rapacious cash eater.
Well, yeah, the the the Prius, let's face it, you know, God bless Toyota, but the the the Prius is a loss leader.
They'll lose money on the Prius to keep Congress off their back, to have a good brand, to make them look like they're socially conscious citizens of the earth, but they're making the freight on the big cars and trucks they sell.
Yes, but here's the problem with that.
If the more the more hybrids that these big car manufacturers produce, the more cash they're going to lose, and they're going to be actually worse off in the long run with more of these hybrids because they are huge cash eaters.
And it's it's just going to require that they sell more and more of the irony is that.
Now wait, wait, wait, wait.
You need to explain here as a consultant if they sell more hybrids, wouldn't that be good?
Well, I'm saying they're going to be making more, not selling more, right?
So if they're going to be required to make more, they're going to be required to make more.
The cash that that consumes in in in manufacturing and setting up new plants and getting material and the technology, it takes the payback on that is years.
And when we really got into the reasons behind it, the tipping point was four dollar a gallon gas, and it had to be four dollars a gallon for like six months in order for this to really start people to get to get into the hybrid thing.
And look what happened when gasoline fell dramatically along with the price of oil.
Right on.
And the hybrid sales went from like LA Times headline 60 to zero in a flash.
And it's going to continue to do that the more they make them.
The more the people aren't going to buy them, and that's what our research showed.
Well, they are going to buy them because Obama's going to see too at the price gets back up to four bucks, since that is the tipping point.
That will happen.
That's that's I'm sure it's part of the agenda.
Big oil gonna get blamed for it.
Uh he's already said in public he didn't care the price was four bucks.
He was asked about it during the campaign.
Is it bothered you?
No, the price doesn't bother me.
I'm a little upset about how fast it got there, he said.
But look at this story says it all.
They're manufacturing Ford and Toyota manufacturing all kinds of new hybrids to keep politicians happy.
Politics.
You want to know what killed the auto industry?
Politics.
Politics.
Politics out of Washington and Sacramento and other state capitals.
Politics killed the auto industry.
Politics is why you can't get a car you really, really like or why they don't make as many as you really, really like.
Because they're being forced to keep the Gestapo off their back.
you They're forced to manufacture cars people aren't buying to keep the gestapo off their back.
We'll be back after this.
Somebody just sent me a note.
Rush, you're wrong.
Obama's not going to be able to sell Prius's.
He's not going to be able to go out there and make people buy hybrid.
Oh, he won't use the word hybrid, folks.
When it comes time for Obama to convince you, who those of you who have already given up your individuality, those of you who have already joined the cult, he'll simply say we need to buy green cars.
The word green will make it acceptable.
They won't use hybrid or you know, these these kinds of things.
But who can resist the tug of doing something green?
You're gonna have a green car, not the color, but it's gonna be the kind of car that will save the planet and so forth.
We'll go beyond what the uh you know the brand names are, the advertised names.
But it was just in first hour, second hour of this program speculated along with Jennifer Rubin Commentary Magazine, this whole thing with General Motors and Rick uh Wagner being fired was a charade.
General Motors' new chief executive said today, this is uh Fritz Henderson, that more of the automakers plants could close, and that bankruptcy is much more probable now, as GM works to meet new tougher requirements for government aid.
Bankruptcy much more probable now.
Some people thought this whole charade was about yesterday with uh with Wagner getting canned when when Obama came out and promised the federal government would guarantee your warranty.
Wait a second, why are you doing that then?
They still get sixty days to reorganize.
Well, they're gonna guarantee the warranty because that's a people concerned that others would not buy cars from a bankrupt company who they wouldn't trust that the warranty would be honored and so forth.
Here's uh Mike in Fayetteville, New York.
Fayetteville, New York, man, there's a lot of Fayetteville's out there, but I never knew there was one in New York.
Yeah, it's uh southeast of Syracuse.
How close is it to the 20th district in New York where Obama is pulling out all the stops to win that special election today?
Oh, not that close.
Um about a hundred miles, I mean.
Oh, yeah.
We all will.
But um I've always wanted to say this megadidto's rush.
Um you know, I'm calling in in response to uh the gentleman who called earlier lamenting the fact that there's no choice in in cars like the Geo Metro and the Honda CRX.
And I guess the simple answer to that is they can't make cars like that anymore.
Um, you know, those were basically stripped down a cono boxes, and then you know, they handled like brick sailboats.
But um in fact I'm glad you played the Hugo song because the Geo Metro is kind of like a reliable Hugo, but um Hey, wait a minute now, don't go denigrating the mighty Hugo.
Yeah.
But anyway, but you know, people like comfortable cars.
They like quiet cars, and and you know, those cars didn't have any sound deadening, and and sound ending adds adds weight, and but furthermore, uh uh again, you can't make cars like that because those cars wouldn't meet today's uh emission standards.
Uh but plus, you know, you have a lot of safety features available uh and in fact uh Well, that's what I was w how safe were these little cars, the C RX and the Geo, what is it, Metro?
Well, uh yeah, Geo Metro.
Well, they were pr they were pretty reliable cars and they handled the city.
Yeah, but what happens if it if you had a collision in one, you were you were a goner.
Well, and see that's the thing.
I mean, today's cars, the reason I say they can't make those cars anymore is because now, you know, the cars have things like anti-lack brakes, airbags, traction control, stability control, crash protection, c like uh crumple zones, safety beams and doors, they have rollover protection.
I mean, all those things add weight to the car and they reduce mileage.
So, I mean I I give the car makers a lot of credit today.
They you know, the the cars are much heavier, but yet they're g st still getting the same mileage out of those things, and and they had to resort to things like uh hybrid vehicles to to maintain that, to do that.
Although, you know, engines are much better today than they were then, and so you have cars like Maz does, you know, the Mazda 3, which gets, you know, forty some odd miles to the gallon, uh you know, just using regular gas.
So um but you also have the added benefit of all those safety features.
All right.
Now, here's something that I have heard today from you and a number of callers.
I find it fascinating.
Apparently, there are a lot of automobiles out there, if you want to buy one that get really good mileage.
Thirty, forty miles a gallon.
Apparently there are enough of them out there that if there were a national genuine market demand for these things, they'd be number one on the road.
Right.
Those cars apparently are there.
But look what's selling.
It ain't them.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, like the again, going back to the Mazda, the Mazda 3 gets forty some odd miles together or uh to the gallon.
Uh I own one.
My wife has one.
Is that have the overhead camshaft in it?
Yes.
Yeah, dual overhead cam.
But i it's uh it's a it's a very nice car, very comfortable, very quiet, and you just didn't get those out of yesterday's cars.
And you know, but but more than that, uh again, it's the emission standards, all this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I'm sure I'm sure it's a fine, fine car, and I'm sure the overhead cam appeals to certain people, but still, it's there for anybody who wants it.
And they're still buying big.
And that's gonna stop.
We're gonna make sure that that stops.
That's not what the Obama administration wants.
Well, another exciting excursion into broadcast excellence is over.
By the way, we're gonna put popular demand uh asking the monologue on the individual and sacrifice and self-interest be placed on the free side at rushlimbaugh.com when we update the site later this afternoon.
So that will be done as decreed by me, the head honcho of Rush Limbaugh.com.
Uh you have a wonderful day, rest of the day and night.
See you back here tomorrow.
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