Look at folks, this doctor-nurse thing, there's no reason we need to make this complicated.
And it's nothing new.
All right?
Most people's historical perspective begins the day they were born.
Most people's knowledge of history is when they're alive.
But this envy, wanting what somebody else has, thinking whatever somebody else has, they don't deserve.
And that you are more entitled to it, you are working harder than they do, that they have gamed the system.
There's nothing new about what is new is how that kind of envy is now being justified.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's Open Line Friday.
I mean, there's all kinds of bad behavior that's always gone on.
What's happening in America now, for whatever reason, is the bad behavior is being justified.
And we're being told to understand it and try to connect with the people and how they feel.
You can understand why they're envious and jealous because they have a right to be, blah, blah, blah.
So here we are at Open Line Friday, Rushland Bought 800-282-2882, the email address, lrushbo at EIBnet.com.
Okay, to set this up, out of the blue yesterday, we got a guy call on the phone, and I was a little slow on the uptake because what I thought he was going to talk about was entirely different.
So I got kind of caught up short.
It took me a while to figure out where this guy was coming from.
He starts out by saying he's a bit conservative and so forth, but there was nothing conservative about what he was taught.
He was, whether he knew it or not, he was advocating pure socialism.
And he was upset.
The time I stripped everything away.
This guy was upset that doctors don't work very hard and get all the money, and nurses are doing all the work and don't get jack anything.
And after being a nurse for 30 years, damn it, you ought to be a doctor.
You're doing everything the doctors are doing.
You know everything the doctors do.
The doctor's not doing diddly squat telling a nurse to do it all.
Nurse is doing it.
And still the nurses don't make anything that the doctors make.
So I finally figured out we just got a simple case of envy here.
Simple case of jealousy.
Now, I forget whether this guy was a nurse or his wife was a nurse or his daughter was a nurse or he hated his doctor.
I don't remember what it was that inspired all this, but it's simple envy.
Now, we've always had envious people.
We've always had people among us who want somebody else's lifestyle.
And we've always had people around us who think that successful people really don't deserve it.
They cheated somebody or they inherited it or they got lucky.
Nothing new about that.
And there have always been people think they've been screwed.
There's always been people think they're the ones doing all the work and getting none of the credit.
Nobody pays them any attention.
And why does everybody think he's so smart?
I'm smarter than everybody.
Those people are diamond dozens.
It's human nature.
What's changing is the envy and the jealousy we're now being told is understandable.
And it may be justifiable.
And it may be legitimate.
And this entire Proposition is how we say is explored in a piece in the New York Post, America's Ugly Epidemic of Social Media Envy.
And it's by Carol Markowitz.
When did envy become okay?
I'm constantly hearing or seeing not very guilty admissions of being jealous of a friend for, say, something on Instagram.
Whether it's eye-rolling at a friend's exotic trip, snarking on someone's great seats at the ball game, or commenting about an acquaintance's restaurant every night life, jealousy is in.
Have we become a culture of green-eyed monsters who, in the parlance of hip-hop, hate on our friends and acquaintances for all they have, and we don't?
Maybe it's social media.
Study after study shows that our jealousy spikes with our use of social sharing sites.
That's what she says here.
Study after study shows that our jealousy spikes, increases, as we use social media.
People who know take more luxurious vacations than you do.
People you know.
This, folks, I'm sorry, I need an actual microscope to read this.
People you know take more luxurious vacations than you do.
Their relationships are closer and more loving.
Their children are better behaved and cuter.
And the evidence is right there on the web because they're posting pictures of all of this.
University of Michigan study released in August found that the more people use Facebook, the worse they feel about their own lives.
Now, if I might, this was one of the major concerns I had when all of this social media exploded.
Now, because there's two things happening: one is this endless quest for fame.
Everybody is just telling everything about themselves.
They're not protecting any privacy.
They think that's what fame is.
They want everybody to know who they are and what they think and where they've been and where they are and where they're going and how long it's going to take them to get there.
And people are tweeting and force squaring.
Yeah, I'm 10 minutes away from the restaurant.
I'm five minutes away.
I just got here.
Where are you?
All this is happening, real time, social media.
The second thing about social media is everybody lies.
And I've always worried that this was going to lead to actual depression in the sense that because people are just who they are and they're going to brag about their kids, they're going to post their pictures and the vacation and all that.
They're going to create more insecurity out there than otherwise would be.
They're going to create illusory lifestyles.
People are going to brag about how well they're living and how much fun they're having, wouldn't it may not be.
But it's going to look legit because it's there.
They've got pictures of it and they're writing about it.
And it's going to create all this insecurity and jealousy and envy.
And it appears this is happening.
And now, again, what's noteworthy about this is that all this jealousy and envy is somehow okay now.
It's justifiable because it's being caused.
The haves are braggarts now.
The haves and the successful are warding it over everybody.
And they're making people feel bad about themselves.
And so the jealousy, we as a society have to try to understand it.
And that's the point here.
Now, the author here again is Carol Markowitz.
But is it just social media that makes us so envious?
Or some deeper change that social media facilitates?
I'm thinking of Karen, and again, A, this is a fax, and B, the type is so damn small I can't, it looks like Properno, but I'm thinking of Karen Properno, the owner of Park Slope Baby Boutique Boeing Boeing, who raged in Huffington Post in a Huffington Post piece about the growing affluence of her neighborhood and her difficulty in keeping up with the Joneses.
In this example of offline jealousy, the New York Times picked up the story and detailed the difficult life of a middle-class woman in a rich neighborhood.
And see, that just validates the envy.
The New York Times comes along, does a story.
Oh, look at how unfair.
Look at how unfortunate.
And it validates and justifies the person who's feeling jealous and envious.
Now, it's easy to feel sympathetic to this woman who works hard at a neighborhood business and whose husband's illness forced her to close a second business location.
At least it is until she admits to stealing spices, honey, coconut oil, granola, blah, blah, blah.
The Times called the market one of the many emblems of the new consumerist Park Slope, but it's most likely a small business just like Properno's.
Should its owners be allowed to steal from her shop too?
Never before have so many had so much while still wanting more.
There's nothing new about jealousy and envy, of course, which the story now says.
What's new is our cultural acceptance of it.
In a world where we talk about inequality, hello, President Obama and the Democrat Party, in a world where we talk about inequality as the greatest problem we face, of course we support each other's need to have as much stuff as our friends and neighbors.
Of course it's not fair somebody should have more than this is pure socialism that's what's happening here.
And it's exactly what leads to socialism, the unfairness, the unequal distribution of resources.
It's not fair.
So this guy that called yesterday, it's just simple jealousy and envy.
Let's just say for the sake of the discussion, he was the nurse.
He just doesn't want to do the work the doctor has to do to become a doctor.
And he thinks he's justified in that.
And so raising taxes, for example, to redistribute wealth or what becomes justifiable.
In fact, it becomes moral.
Taking from people who have more than you have becomes moral because it's justified to be jealous and envious because it isn't fair.
I'll tell you who's responsible for this.
You can blame it on social media all you want.
There's a political party that is living off of this kind of mentality.
They're promoting it.
They're getting votes based on it.
And they claim they've got a solution to it.
And what is their solution?
They're going to punish the achievers.
They're going to punish the haves.
So all of this talk about the widening gap, rich and poor, all this talk about growing inequality, income inequality, lifestyle inequality, all of it is political.
Now, these people in this story haven't the slightest idea any of it is.
To them, it's just human interest.
They have no idea that they are being used.
They have no idea they're being exploited.
They have no idea all these ideas are being put in their heads.
Well, not that, because envy and jealousy are common in the human condition.
Again, what's different about it is that that is being justified.
The envy and jealousy is being almost rewarded.
And there's a political party out telling all those envious, jealous people, vote for us, and we'll punish those people you hate.
We'll get even with them for you because we agree with you.
They shouldn't have all that.
You should have it.
The rich have all that stuff because they've taken it from you.
People are like, yeah, yeah, man, yeah, man.
I want to have a lot without having to do anything for it, too, man.
Yeah.
Cool.
Never before have so many had so much while still wanting more.
Never before have so many had so much and been so unhappy at the same time.
And I'm telling you, and I'm not, folks, I have this story.
This was not even at the top of the stack.
I wasn't even going to go into this until we got the call today from Jeannie in Houston that kept the call from the jealous male nurse from yesterday alive.
So this was not even something I'd spent any time thinking about.
But just reading this story and now understanding that the ugly epidemic of social envy is now justifiable, going to be one reason for it.
It's politicized.
And there's a brilliant, I mean, it's to capitalize on this politically is really quite brilliant.
This is the old class envy thing.
And Democrats have been working on this for 50 years and they've introduced finally something new to the argument.
And that is class envy makes sense.
Class envy is rewardable.
Class envy is exactly what you should have because you are being mistreated.
You are being screwed.
And these people who have more than you don't deserve it.
These people have more than you do.
They came by it in ways that screwed you to get it.
And we, the Democrat Party, are going to fix it.
Now, for those of you who might be hearing this and thinking I'm all wet on this being political, I want to ask you to think about something.
Don't doubt me when I tell you that this has been a political strategy that has been employed by socialists, Democrats, leftists forever.
It is how they have gotten to power.
I want you to honestly search the world.
I want you to find for me any country, society, where the redistribution of wealth, punishing the achievers, has resulted in you getting what they have.
And I'm here to tell you it never does.
The government will never, they're not even going to really try.
They just want you to think they are.
The government will never make you a doctor if all you are is a nurse.
And they will never take what that mean doctor has and give it to you.
They'll make you think they want to.
They'll make you think they're going to try to.
And they may raise the doctor's taxes, but they are not going to change your standard of living.
They are not going to make you rich.
In fact, they're not even going to get rid of your envy.
How many years have you been voting Democrat and you're still jealous?
How many years have you been voting Democrat?
You're still envious.
How many years have you been voting Democrat and you're probably more envious than ever?
How many years have you been voting Democrat and you're probably angrier than you've ever been?
So how's it working out for you?
Voting for all these people are going to make everything fair.
They can't.
They're not even really trying.
What they're doing is making everybody poorer.
And that's how they get to their precious equality.
They don't elevate you.
They will take from the people who have more than you, but you're not going to get it.
They do.
It goes to the government.
It's not going to come to you.
All that's going to happen is everybody is going to get poorer.
And I challenge you, don't believe me, try to find anywhere in the world where politicians promising to fix what you think is wrong has made you richer or anybody richer or happier or more equal or what have you.
It hasn't happened.
Best thing you could do is stop with the envy.
Stop with the jealousy.
Stop being angry at others for what you don't have and figure out a way to go get it yourself.
Ladies and gentlemen, the three great political pathologies of modern times were all based, not political movement, pathologies.
The three great political pathologies of modern times are all based on envy.
Nazism.
Nazism preached envy toward the rich and exploitative Jewish people.
Communism preaches envy toward the rich, exploitative bourgeoisie.
And Muslim terrorism preaches envy toward the rich, exploitative West.
And the roots of this have been taking hold in this country.
What do you think outcome-based education was?
It's based on envy.
What do you think not grading a paper with a red pen was all about?
What do you think about not having winners and losers in extracurricular football and high school is all about?
Listen, Rush, I wanted to get your opinion on something I've been thinking about, and that is, you know, under Obamacare, certain tests that doctors may want to order, they won't be able to.
So I'm wondering how that's going to impact malpractice suits.
My suspicion is that they'll go up, maybe dramatically.
And then, more importantly, how is that going to affect the practice of medicine?
Will more physicians decide to get out of medicine?
Paying exorbitant malpractice fees.
I just want to get your thoughts on that.
I haven't heard anybody talk about that.
Well, your theory on the malpractice, let me see if I understand what your theory is.
Okay, so Obamacare mandates less testing.
We're going to do fewer mammograms for women under 40 because the statistics say it's a waste of money and a waste of time.
Right.
And so the doctors, if the government's paying for it and the doctors are only going to get reimbursed by the government and you go in and want a mammogram and then they say, sorry, I can't give you one unless you're going to pay for yourself.
And they don't have the money to pay for it, so there's no mammogram.
And then lo and behold, a lump is found later.
And then the patient gets all mad and wants to sue the doctor for malpractice because it could have been discovered, but it wasn't because of, well, the government wouldn't let him test because I didn't have the money or whatever.
And is that going to lead patients to charge doctors with malpractice?
Right.
You know, I suppose it could.
I suppose it could.
As litigious as our society is, and it will cause rising malpractice and things like that.
Doctors, I think, in droves are going to be pulling out of this and trying to find alternate ways of staying in business without depending on government reimbursement.
In fact, that is happening.
Now, I mean, these are things that I don't think you can avoid happening once people lose control over their own health care, either to an insurance company or government or a combination of the two.
And once you just become thrown in with a statistic rather than being treated as an individual, the solution to this, of course, is if they won't do a mammogram because they won't pay for it, then pay for it yourself.
Right.
Yeah.
And then you might, well, what if I don't have the money?
Well, depends on what's important to you.
Right.
But I just, I think it's, you know, individual predictions of pitfalls are fairly easy to make in a generic sense.
The more individualistic you get in the prediction, it's problematic.
But it's already started this kind of stuff.
It's already starting.
There's no way medicine is going to be improved.
There's no way diagnostics are going to be improved.
And it's really sad.
Treatment isn't going to be, I mean, everybody's just going to be a number.
And their number is going to have whatever characteristics associated with the number.
Are you overweight?
Are you old?
Is it going to make any sense to spend money on treating you?
All of these things are going to become factors.
And if you, again, just want to take time to explain myself.
If you're a new listener and you think, man, Rush, it just sounds so stupid.
Let me remind you that five years ago, there was a prime time health care special from the White House broadcast on ABC.
And an American citizen, a woman, participated.
And she actually asked the president of the United States, who is not a doctor and is not her doctor and never will be her doctor.
In fact, isn't involved in her life at all.
And yet she had to ask the president if her mother, who was 100, would qualify for a pacemaker because she wasn't ready to die.
She's got a great spirit, great will to live.
I've told you this story countless times.
I just, I couldn't believe what I was watching.
That an American citizen is asking any president, not just a mummy, any president.
Well, what about my mom?
Under your plan, will my mom get a pacemaker?
And then, president, no, we're not going to factor things like spirit, will to live.
Those are too nebulous.
We can't do that.
And he said there are going to be a lot of circumstances where it's just going to be better for everybody, maybe even your mom, just to here take the pain pill and try to have as pain-free remainder days as possible.
I'm sitting there.
So if, folks, if you think that the premise of her question is kind of crockeyed, don't.
This is where we're headed with this stuff.
You believe that an American citizen asking the president if her mother can get a pacemaker?
I mean, once we've gotten to that point, you want to talk about freedom and liberty?
Why should you have to ask the president whether your mom can get a pacemaker?
Why shouldn't it be up to you, your doctor, your mom, and if you need to, your insurance company?
Well, what does a politician have to do with that?
And so that's all I'm saying.
You're not going to be an individual.
You're not even going to be a human being.
You're going to be a number.
And you're going to be a set of statistics.
And it's going to be a financial question.
Is it worth the money to keep you alive?
So is it worth the money to give you a test?
And your doctor's going to say, look, I can't.
Government says I can't give you a test.
You're not showing the proper statistics that would indicate you're at risk here.
So I'm not going to give you a test.
Now, whether that leads to malpractice, I don't know.
I suppose that it could.
It certainly is not going to preclude you from trying if that circumstance evolved and you actually wanted to sue malpractice.
Nothing could stop you, whether you'd succeed or not.
Another thing entirely.
Robert in northern New Jersey, great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Yes, good afternoon.
And so proud to talk to you about the situation.
It's a comparative analysis about a truth about the $15 an hour.
If you have a person working in the burger field, an annual salary of $31,200, and a soldier, an Army salary of $25,913, that's a sergeant of two years' experience.
And the difference of what the skills are needed, I got a problem with that.
Okay.
Make sure I understand.
The burger field, you mean a burger flipper?
Yes, sir.
And a burger flipper at $15,000 an hour is making $31,000 a year?
$31,200.
Do you know any such people making $31,000 a year flipping burgers?
No.
I don't either.
Well, it's going to happen in Washington State.
That's the problem.
It's going to start.
Okay, so you mean the minimum wage is going to be applied, and if they're given enough hours, the burger flipper could end up making $31,000 a year, whereas an American soldier will only make $25,000.
That's a sergeant with two years' experience.
Sergeant, two years' experience.
So you're comparisoning the relative worth.
Yeah.
And you got a one-week training for a program for testing for basic skills and restaurant procedure.
And here you go with an Army guy, 10 weeks basic training, physical stress, map reading, drill ceremonies, and land navigation, problem solving, all of this.
And then the workplace has it for him, includes death, dismemberment, loss of limbs, disability, PTSD.
I can go on and on.
And they're deployed 6,000 miles away from home for months at a time.
True.
All true.
But it's voluntary.
Yeah, I agree.
I agree.
So is working.
Well, the way we've done it today.
What do you think is the solution?
What do I think is the solution?
Yeah.
We don't pay it.
Either that or I don't see $15 an hour.
It's going to be crazy.
We're not paying soldiers $15 an hour.
And if we're going to pay Burger Flippers $15 an hour, we should pay soldiers $15 an hour.
Soldiers should be getting $25 an hour.
Burger flippers are going to get $15.
Think about it.
I'm thinking about it.
I don't know where this kind of thing stops, though.
Yeah, I agree.
I agree 100%.
Once you start making value judgments like this, I mean, let's get the old argument about, what do you mean, A-Rod?
$25 million versus Mrs. Small teaching my kid how to read?
What's really more important?
Yeah, yeah.
But I'm looking at the vulnerability of one person versus one field versus another.
You've obviously just had really bad experiences with people at fast food restaurants, and you have a built-in animosity toward them.
Oh, me?
I'm just kidding.
I'm just.
Oh, okay.
No, I don't.
I feel sorry for them also.
But it's a, you know, it's a stepping stone job.
It's not a lifetime situation.
It shouldn't be.
I know, but what would you do about it?
Would you reestablish, okay, if you're going to flip burgers, the most you can make is $20,000 a year?
You've got to make less than a soldier.
Would that be what you would say?
No, I would work.
I've come the hard way.
I've worked two jobs, three jobs.
I mean, you can't just work one job if you're only going to get paid $20,000 a year.
But that's what soldiers do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
So they really are underpaid.
I don't disagree with that at all.
But again, it's private sector versus public.
Yep, I agree.
I agree, but I was just making a comparative analysis.
And, you know, it's the world as it is.
But it's really, it hasn't, that's not different.
I mean, it's not new.
Soldiers have always, I mean, my God, they're way underpaid, no matter who you compare them to.
Especially when you figure that they make up less than one-tenth of 1% of the population, and they volunteer to do it.
I mean, if you're going to look at it in that way, there's no way you could justify what they're paid, but they do it.
The burger flipper thing, you know, that's just social activists and community organizers intimidating the fast food industry is all that is.
They're not being paid what anybody thinks they're worth.
They're being paid what they have to pay them to keep acorn off their back.
Anyway, I know this is injustice everywhere out there.
You can go nuts thinking about that.
And this is one of the reasons, by the way, why we here always have had such great respect and reverence for people in the military and honor them every which way we can.
And it's because they volunteer, knowing everything about what they're getting into.
They volunteer for it.
That's why I just cringe when these people are made fun of, impugned by the left.
They're criticized.
They make the choice to join the military, and the left will say, they do that because America's economy sucks.
There's nothing for them.
Or they're a bunch of dumb hayseeds in the first place.
And the only way they can get an education because America is so unfair.
And I've never understood why I put them down.
Except the left considers the military the focus of evil in the world, but it's again, it's not something that's really brand new.
I appreciate the call.
Quick time out.
Back with more after this.
Don't go.
Etiquette experts are confused, ladies and gentlemen.
And right here it is in the Washington Post.
Guests attending.
I mentioned this yesterday.
There's a big gala birthday party, 50th birthday party for Muchell Obama tomorrow night in the White House.
And guests have been told to eat before you come.
And the etiquette experts contacted by the Washington Post think that this is cheap, it's rude.
And, well, they don't think it's rude, but it's really, it's curious.
This is a little different than what people are used to.
How's that for putting it delicately joked?
Lizzie Post, the great-great-granddaughter of Emily Post and the co-author of Great Get Togethers, Casual Gatherings and Elegant Parties at Home.
They're being nice.
This is rude.
Big gala 50th birthday party.
This is not like somebody's 32nd birthday.
50th birthday at the White House.
Eat before you come.
And I'll tell you why.
It's because the Obamas are tight wads.
They can't use taxpayer money.
They are.
They can't use taxpayer money for this.
That's why they're doing this.
You know, I just got through during the break.
CNN, these media people are such, I don't know, suck-ups.
I mean, I don't know how these people have self-respect.
So they're doing this.
Michelle Obama redefining what it means to be 50.
What do you mean, redefining what it is to be 50?
And then they had pictures of her in some nightgowns.
Sorry, not nightgowns.
Ball gowns and, you know, dressed to the nines and whatever, holding up her AARP card.
Now, what in the hell is she redefining?
This is just pure suck up.
And these are journalists doing this.
I don't have any problem with her turning 50, but what trend is she setting here except throwing a party with an invitation?
Oh, by the way, eat before you come because we're not serving you anything.
Michelle Obama redefining.
Folks, don't misunderstand me here.
I'm commenting on the sycophant, the pure suck-up of the media here.
It's just, it's so blatant, it's so unprofessional, and it is sickening.
These people are not kings and queens for crying out loud, and they're certainly not redefining anything.
At least not for me, not in a positive sense.
This is okay.
We got some audio soundbites.
They feature me, and that's why I waited until the third and final hour.
Because as you know, I do not like to make this program about me.
And half of the sound bites today are about me, such as TV anchors in LA telling me that global warming is responsible for the fires out there.