RUSH: Scott in Rockford, Illinois. Welcome, sir, to the EIB Network on Open Line Friday. Hello.
CALLER: Hey there, Rush. I’m a college kid, and I was in my history class, ancient history class strangely enough, but my professor digressed on to more modern topics and he was talking about Hitler and the Nazis. He ended up saying that during World War II that Hitler actually rose to power by being a conservative and a right-wing nut. At that point I laughed so hard, he kicked me out of class, but —
RUSH: Did he really?
CALLER: Yeah, he did. He asked me to leave. I just couldn’t even respond, I was laughing. My main question is, I’m wondering what exactly it’s founded on. Because he claims that he was a capitalist, and he claims — I mean obviously there wasn’t a free market if he was hanging people with piano wire, but what is this founded in, is it a complete lie or I mean —
RUSH: Yes, look, it’s like the Soviet hardliners back during the Cold War, Scott, were also referred to as conservatives. The extremist Ahmadinejad and his mullah buddies in Iran are called conservatives. This is something that the American left, from your spot in academe, all the way down to the Drive-By Media, has continually done to try to discredit and impugn the reputation of conservatives in America. Now, the Hitler thing, I’ve been doing this for 20 years. Every year I’ve gotten a call from a college student like you every year of this program wanting to know how in the world can Hitler be a conservative? The truth is, you know, the problem that people have here, if you look at the political spectrum, most people look at it as a straight line, and on the left you’ve got the Soviets and you’ve got the ChiComs and all the extreme communists, and in the center you have the wonderful moderates and independents, and, of course, the Democrat Party. And then, just go a little bit to the right, and you’ve got all the nuts in the world, and this line, Hitler ends up on the right side of the line. That’s the wrong way to view the political spectrum. You have to view the political spectrum as a circle. Because eventually these two things will meet, which is what happened to Hitler. The bottom line was, what did you end up with Hitler? You had Hitler who was deciding who was fit to live and who wasn’t; you had Hitler mesmerizing people taking away their freedoms; you had Hitler using the instrument of business and government together to limit freedom of people. He started out promising them just the opposite, the best and — just like liberals — this guy was a classic leftist is the point, Scott.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Which is why I think you instinctively started laughing. He was a classic leftist dictator. He was a murderous thug who didn’t just put people in jail; he exterminated them, on the basis of what they looked like.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: People like that today are celebrated. Can I give you Hugo Chavez, can I give you Fidel Castro. The left in this country celebrates those people.
CALLER: Yeah. That’s just what I thought. To me, Hitler, like the left, is trying to gain complete control over our economy, over our guns, over everything that we have as a freedom —
RUSH: Control over you, take away from you. Damn straight. But why do you think I coined the term ‘feminazi’ to describe the most fervent pro-abortion women in this country? Well, I mean what did the Nazis do? Killed people because they were inconvenient.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Taylor in Naperville, Illinois. Hi, Taylor.
CALLER: Hi. I was just calling, I know it was quite a while ago, took me awhile to get a hold of you, but I was calling about what the caller had called a while ago about the political spectrum thing.
RUSH: Yeah. I remember that.
CALLER: Yeah. And he was saying how it was a line, and you were saying, no, it’s a circle. Well, I remember I was in college a while ago, and I took a poli-sci class, and I learned so much since then, but they were teaching back then that it wasn’t a line, it was a political circle. And that’s what I was taught in college, but since then I think I’ve learned a lot more and, you know, being out in the real world, having a job and stuff, I don’t think it’s a circle anymore. I think it’s gone back to the line. And you’ll never end up in the same spot if you go far right and far left.
RUSH: Far right and far left. Well, I could see what you mean based on current circumstances.
CALLER: Well no, because I remember I was always taught, ever since I was, you know, first introduced into World War II in a history class, that the Nazis were right wing. But it wasn’t until recently, I don’t think they were right wing. They were left wing. Because it was the national and socialistic party, and they were —
RUSH: Right, but, you know, here’s the thing about these labels. Is the only thing that convinced you that the Nazis were not right wing was the fact they had socialist and workers in the name of their party?
CALLER: No. No. That wasn’t the only thing. It was more of, when I look at it, I look at it as, you know, right wing versus left wing, it’s big government versus small government. Everyone says if you go far enough right and you go far enough left you end up in the exact same spot, which is a dictatorship. But if you use that line of thinking, then where do the anarchists work into the political spectrum? There’s no room for them.
RUSH: Where do the anarchists, in your diagram, fit?
CALLER: I would say they are extremely far to the right. Because I look at it as more of a —
RUSH: Wait a minute. Let me ask you a question about this. How old are you, do you mind if I ask?
CALLER: I’m 23.
RUSH: Twenty-three.
CALLER: Yeah, I’ve been listening to you since I was six or eight years — I remember when you were on TV way back.
RUSH: That’s great. No, I appreciate that. Define ‘anarchist’ for me as you mean it here.
CALLER: Well, I would say anarchist as in no form of government.
RUSH: No rules?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: I would say, you know, very, very —
RUSH: Libertarians.
CALLER: Well, no —
RUSH: I’m just kidding. I couldn’t help it. I’m just kidding. Don’t get mad at me, Libertarians. You’re already mad enough because I don’t support your boy. But anarchy is a temporary thing. It never survives. Anarchy is the result of protest, it’s the result of dissent, and it’s usually the result of what?
CALLER: The breakdown of society?
RUSH: No, it’s the result of too much totalitarian control, and if the anarchists have the ability to do something about it, such as if they’re armed or something, they will say screw this, to hell with you guys and they’ll go live their lives and they will do whatever they can to stop the totalitarians from impacting their lives no matter what they have to do. In no population of people, in no group of people, if you want to have a civilized group, society, population, will anarchists be a viable political entity that are as competitive for people’s thoughts and minds as are, say, conservatives and liberals.
CALLER: Oh, no, and I agree. I think that if you go far enough —
RUSH: But the point is where they are in the spectrum really doesn’t matter because you’re always going to have liberals, you’re always going to have conservatives, sadly we’re always going to have communists, sadly we’re always going to have socialists, we’re always going to have totalitarians. But anarchists, they want to change to something, they want to change the status quo, but they don’t want to live that way.
CALLER: Yeah, I agree. I don’t think — because everybody says if you go far enough right. I don’t think you really can go — if you go far enough right, I don’t think you’re going to end up in the same place.
RUSH: Okay, so, if I understand you, the circle theory, rather than a straight-line theory to diagram ideological locations doesn’t work because for it to work, both liberals and conservatives have to end up meeting somewhere in the circle, which is dictatorship?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: And for people who believe, as we do, in less government and smaller government, your theory is it’s impossible to get from that to dictatorship?
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Interesting theory. I’m sitting here, the little gray cells, the neurons are flashing rapidly here. I’m trying to think how a small-government regime, if you will, could be taken to an extreme and the only way this could happen would be if some mad general decided he didn’t like where things were going and ran a coup.
CALLER: But see, I think even then, for him to come to the point where it’s totalitarian, I mean he would have to initiate things where he is now the head of the state, and it goes back to him taking the rights away from the people.
RUSH: No, what I’m thinking, even in a small government regime, you’re going to have to people who oppose it, like Bush. Bush is being undermined and sabotaged by Clinton holdovers and career Democrats and liberals who have done their best for eight years to sabotage foreign policy, military policy, a number of things. I’m not saying Bush is small, small, small government guy, we’re talking theoretically here, if we had one of those guys in there. Even Reagan was opposed internally by a lot of people who were trying to undermine him.
CALLER: Well, I think going on all the way back —
RUSH: A lot of people in government believe in it. You know, Taylor, the thing is that all these bureaucrats who have gone to the Ivy League for one reason, and that’s to be trained into taking over government and making it yours for life, you get some small government guy in there, he’s going to be opposed internally like you can’t understand, and if he succeeds too much — now, your theory is right because the small government people will not be the ones to do it, by definition, the small government people will not become dictators. But there are people oriented toward massive government control throughout our government today who would revolt and do whatever they had to if they saw it slipping away from them. It really is an interesting concept. Okay, so let’s stick with your straight line — I got time for one more question. Stick to your straight line theory, which you think we have to revert to now. You put the Nazis on the left?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: And I interrupted you when you said why, and you said it wasn’t because of the way they titled themselves.
CALLER: Oh, yeah. I was trying to look into, while I was on hold, do a little more research, because I love The History Channel, I love watching documentaries, and I love reading books.
RUSH: Run by liberals.
CALLER: The History Channel?
RUSH: Ah, ah, ah, run by liberals. If it’s on TV it’s run by liberals.
CALLER: Well, I still think they do some good stuff. I think they can be a little non-biased at certain times.
RUSH: I admire your positive outlook, I really do.
CALLER: But, no, I try and watch a lot of documentaries and read books.
RUSH: Books are published by liberals.
CALLER: No, no. What about your books?
RUSH: You know what? Taylor, hang on. I gotta take a break. I’m going to tell you a short little story. I just learned this this past Wednesday.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We got Taylor from Naperville, Illinois, on the phone. Last Wednesday, couple days ago, Taylor, I met with a guy who I’ve known but I never met him, and he came down here, just met him for the first time, you know, shot the bull and so forth. He told me something that a year or so ago, I’m not sure the time frame, I don’t recall it, but he said that he wanted to do a book on me that he thought the country needed, the accurate portrayal of what this program has meant to the media, what it’s meant to the country, what its role has been, what its role is, and he prepared a very long presentation, he took it to every major publisher in New York, including publishers that do conservative books, and was turned down flat by every one of them. Now, I know there are conservative books out there, and people publish them and so forth, and I don’t know that if I ever did want to write a book, that I would be turned down, but they were not interested in his focus, which was going to portray me in a light other than how they view me. They didn’t want to be part of it. The point is, they’ve got their images, they’ve got their little narratives, templates of who people are. Anything that might have credibility that comes along and will blow that up, they’re not going to be responsible for it getting out. Taylor?
CALLER: Yeah. Yeah, I was listening.
RUSH: Okay. I know you’re probably mesmerized. That happens when people listen to me. But you’re watching The History Channel — it’s great that you’re watching this stuff because you’re smart enough to figure out when they’re fooling you.
CALLER: Yes. Well, yeah. They did one where at the very end of it, it was all of a sudden Algore came on, started talking about global warming, and I was like, ‘Oh, they didn’t do that.’
RUSH: Wait a minute. What were you were watching something on the Nazis?
CALLER: Well, no, I think it was a while ago, they did a whole day special on World War II where everything is on.
RUSH: A special on World War II and then Gore comes on with a global warming message?
CALLER: No, no, no, no. It wasn’t the same. It was another day I was watching The History Channel. A separate program, completely unrelated.
RUSH: Oh, okay. You know, a lot of these outfits, Arts & Entertainment, Biography, they’re owned by conglomerates, networks, and so forth. Look, if it’s Big Media in America, the odds are it’s liberal. That’s all I’m telling you.
CALLER: Yeah, I know, and I agree. But I mean I try and stay away from like —
RUSH: Now, I got 30 seconds. Have you watched The History Channel thing on the Nazis?
CALLER: Yes, I’ve watched several.
RUSH: Did they portray the Nazis as conservatives?
CALLER: To a greater — I’d say more so than they did as liberals.
RUSH: Right. They will never portray the Nazis as liberals.
CALLER: Oh, yeah.
RUSH: No, they will never portray Hitler’s government, the Third Reich, as what happens at the extreme of liberalism. But it’s not that much different than what the Soviets did. The Soviets killed people for different reasons, but the Nazis did, too. Soviets killed ’em to keep ’em in, and the Nazis killed ’em to get rid of them.