{"id":22418,"date":"2005-01-28T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T06:55:39","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T06:55:39","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T06:55:39","slug":"rush_limbaugh_speech_to_council_on_national_policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/01\/28\/rush_limbaugh_speech_to_council_on_national_policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Rush Limbaugh speech to Council on National Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT<\/line> I must tell you, folks, I was a little squeamish accepting this invitation because of a prior experience. Many of you might have been there. It was 12 or 13 years ago; it was the CNP at the Pentagon Ritz, Ritz Pentagon, whatever it was, and I had not been briefed as to the makeup of the group. I was just told it\u2019s a bunch of conservative leaders, and I said, “It\u2019s my people.” So I said, well, I\u2019m gonna go out and I\u2019m going to start with a Ted Kennedy joke. There\u2019s no way a Ted Kennedy joke will bomb at any conservative group. It did. When I got to the punch line, you could have heard a pin drop. I was stunned. I spent the last half of the evening apologizing from this — well, not this podium — but from the podium and microphone for my transgression. It was graciously accepted, and it was a learning experience. But this literally was — had to be 1992 or \u201993, which was my fourth year into what I\u2019m doing. <\/line>So I thought what I would do is try another joke. Backstage they\u2019re saying, “No, tell the same one!” No. I mean it\u2019s a great joke, but the thing is not a joke. It\u2019s a true story. I think that\u2019s part of what bothered people. It\u2019s about Senator Kennedy. Oh, you want to hear it now? Oh, okay. All right, now, you have been warned. If anybody complains about it, no complaint\u2019s going to be given any validity here because you\u2019ve been warned. There\u2019s no shock value here. True story. This is sometime in the late eighties, Senator Kennedy, not married, is vacationing off of the coast of the south of France, and he has a little, you know, speed boat type thing that he\u2019s piloting himself. He\u2019s got a young, nubile female with him. And a bunch of tabloid photographers chartered boats and helicopters and followed him out. And three of the pictures were published in the New York Daily News. And the first picture was of this nubile, young, bikini-clad woman jumping off the side of the boat going for a swim. The next picture was of Senator Kennedy jumping in after her — which was a first — and then the third picture was the two back in the boat in a warm and loving embrace. These pictures made the rounds of Capitol Hill, and they found their way to Howell Heflin, the then senator from Alabama. And Howell Heflin was looking at these pictures, and he said — I swear, folks, this is true — “Well, I do declare?” — you remember how he used to speak — “it sure look to me like the senator has changed his position on offshore drilling.” <\/line>I mean, I can see some people still not amused. Some people very, very casually taking a sip of? so let me try another one. Larry King dies, goes to heaven. He\u2019s greeted there at the gates and is given a tour. “Mr. King, welcome. Would you like a tour?” “Sure.” They start showing him around various places, and he\u2019s agog and aghast. They finally take him into this just indescribably ornate, human mind can\u2019t conceive of the beauty in this room, and King says, “This is where I want to be.” “No, no, no, Mr. King, this is not for anyone, certainly not you.” “Well, who\u2019s is it?” And he looks and sees there\u2019s a sign that says Rush Limbaugh over the throne in the room. And King says, “Don\u2019t tell me he\u2019s here!” “No, no, no, no,” says Saint Peter, “this is God\u2019s room; he just thinks he\u2019s Rush Limbaugh.” Now, folks, you know, it\u2019s like the left doesn\u2019t understand when I say “talent on loan from God.” That\u2019s a blessing. That\u2019s a way to make fun of Larry King, who considers me one of his chief competitors. <\/line><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve brought along a little news, a little news digest that I wanted to share with you before we get into some of the meat and potatoes tonight, interesting stories you may not have heard about today since you\u2019ve been tied up and busy. The president of Planned Parenthood resigned. Her name is Gloria Feldt. She abruptly resigned. She resigned yesterday. I doubt that her reason was that she wants to spend more time with her family.<\/line>As you know, the Super Bowl is in Jacksonville this year, a week from Sunday. And a judge in Jacksonville has ruled that Jacksonville\u2019s ban on drinking alcohol, adult beverages in public, is unconstitutional, just a month before the fans pour in for the Super Bowl. The story actually cleared on January the 11th, and I just saw it today. Here\u2019s how this happened. Three homeless drunks were charged with drinking beer in the city\u2019s Treaty Park, which is an area where Super Bowl fans will be allowed to drink. And these three homeless drunks got a public defender, and the public defender goes to the judge and said, wait a second, you let all these football fans tailgate and get drunk before football games on Sunday; the Super Bowl fans are coming in, and they\u2019re going to get drunk all weekend when they\u2019re here, and why can\u2019t we drink on Wednesday in the park? And judge said, you\u2019re right, you can. So public drunkenness in Jacksonville has just been sanctioned by a district county judge.<\/line>I don\u2019t know how many of you have been following the militant environmental movement, but I have for my entire career. And one of the things I remember, they tried to say that methane was a pollutant that led to greenhouse gases, to global warming, and methane has many sources, one of them is cows. And for the longest time, bovine flatulence has been blamed for global warming. There\u2019s a lot of people who believe this, and it\u2019s one of the reasons McDonald\u2019s has come under assault and attack. And just today from Bakersfield, California, a relationship between dairies and the Central Valley\u2019s polluted air changed dramatically when a UC Davis researcher reported that dairies produce far less pollution than previously believed. So we can all sleep better at night because bovine flatulence can now occur without harming us and causing us to be… (loud moo sound from back of the room) Is that the hook? <\/line>One more study that shows smoking is bad: Parents smoking can kill children years later. Now, I smoke cigars, and I don\u2019t subject it to people who don\u2019t want to be around it, but I got to thinking. They say that secondhand smoke can kill children years later. Did a research survey, folks, got in touch with a number of hospitals. Ninety-nine percent of the people who died in automobile accidents had eaten carrots two years prior to the accident. Eighty-nine percent of the people who had lost their eyesight after age 80 had spent a lifetime eating carrots. I mean, these statistics are absolutely ridiculous, and it gets to the point here — you know, one of the things that bothers me about all of these is that these are experts, we don\u2019t have any idea who they are. They come out and they say, this is happening to the environment, and, by the way, it\u2019s all being caused by Americans and our technological advancement. All these things are literally killing people and people are so obsessed with the negative, they\u2019re so obsessed with doom and gloom that they are willing to sop it up and believe all this stuff, and it\u2019s how global warming gets — there\u2019s no proof whatsoever that manmade global warming has any effect on the climate. I\u2019m appalled at the vanity of people who think that we, mere creatures created on this planet along with everybody else, have the ability to destroy it. It\u2019s sophistry to think this, particularly to think that we have the ability to destroy it when we are advancing our lifestyle, when we are cleaning up our environment better than any other country in the world, when we are providing cleaner air, cleaner water, more food for the rest of the world, for everybody to pull back and blame all of this on us, and then for a number of Americans to believe it is just sad. It is. (applause)<\/line><\/p>\n

You go to the library, and there\u2019s a bunch of books you will not find. You will not find a book called Great Moderates in American History. And you will not see a book called How to Fail, because everybody knows how to do that. Everybody has and everybody can fail. But you will go to the library and you will see books on great Americans who have done great things; you\u2019ll see books on how to succeed, and how to think positively. And the people that write books on how to succeed and how to think positively are making millions of dollars because it\u2019s so hard, because it\u2019s something that apparently doesn\u2019t come naturally. And all of these people in the doom-and-gloom movement, which is all occupied on the left, take advantage of this and zero in on people\u2019s pessimism and try to convince even more people to be pessimistic, which is something I want to touch on in a little bit of detail in just a second. But this global warming business, just for example, I can remember I was in Sacramento, it was 1984, \u201985, and I\u2019m watching This Week with David Brinkley, back when the show was watchable. And there was some environmentalist wacko on, some scientist that gets a government grant from the EPA or something, his last name was Oppenheimer, and he was saying in response to questioning, “Well, we can\u2019t really prove global warming. We know it is, but we can\u2019t really prove it. But we don\u2019t have long to wait, 20 years. If we don\u2019t do something in 20 years, all is lost.” About this time Ted Danson was saying we only had ten years to save the oceans or all was lost. Well, it\u2019s 20 years, folks, and nobody is buying into it other than the United Nations. And so they\u2019re getting more extreme and more wacko and more cacophonous each and every day with these doomsday scenarios about global warming. And I think one of the problems that results from this, or one of the reasons for this, actually, can be found in the literal paranoia that greeted the left after this election last November. <\/line>What did they think this election was about? Values. They thought they got beat because of values and they were paranoid; they were panicked. Now, why? They get panicked about God. They get panicked about the mention of God in public. Why? It got me to thinking. It\u2019s not just that they are politically weak. There has to be some institutional reason why liberals and why people on the left have such a fear of something so great and something so magnificent. So I\u2019ve been studying it, and I\u2019ve been looking into it. And when the president delivered his inaugural address, and I gauged the reaction to this, some things started to click. Now, I\u2019ve done something here I\u2019ve never done in 15 years, 16 years of doing speeches. I\u2019ve never written one. Sometimes I have an outline, but I just come out and wing it. But I know you all are a very serious group, and I took very seriously the invitation to come here tonight, and there are a couple things here tonight that I really want to address with some seriousness. <\/line>So I wrote this out, and I\u2019ve not done this before, so if it appears choppy, I apologize in advance. If you listen to the criticism of the president\u2019s speech after it was made, there was a lot of it. Some of the right complained about too much God, and it was too this or that, but it was the criticism from the left that most interested me. They said, among other things, that he didn\u2019t mention any specifics about his plan to promote freedom in the world. I thought the speech was philosophically ambitious, and I find it fascinating that standing for and desiring and promoting freedom for every human being can become so controversial. It literally stuns me. You know, the president says it his way; I say it my way. I think we are all, as human beings, created by God with the natural yearning to be free. It\u2019s not something given to us by a government or given to us by a family or man or anybody else. This is how we\u2019re created; it\u2019s the natural yearning, and it is what made this country great. Enshrining the source of our freedom in our founding documents is what has preserved this country, and of course our willingness to continue to be loyal and have fealty to those documents. Lincoln\u2019s Gettysburg Address. I was struck, too, by these complaints that there was nothing specific. “The president didn\u2019t say how we\u2019re going to go about installing freedom around the world.” I even heard somebody say, “He didn\u2019t go into how we were going to impose freedom.” Freedom is not an imposition. How in the world can anybody, an American especially, look at freedom as an imposition? <\/line>Well, the American left has plenty of people that do, and it\u2019s one of the reasons, folks, that they are imploding. I know a lot of people, depending on where you live, probably still have a lot of fear about the left, and it may be warranted to some degree, but these people are imploding faster than I have ever seen a political movement implode. I couldn\u2019t be happier. I want them to speak up. I want them to say what they believe; I want the world to finally hear who these people are. They have been hiding and masquerading behind these different terms of “progressive” or “compassion” or whatever. They\u2019re so frustrated that they are out of power, they\u2019re so frustrated that they\u2019ve lost, that they\u2019re telling everyone they think they haven\u2019t gotten their message out. And the fact is they have. Their message has gotten out in droves the last 20 years; everybody knows what they\u2019re about; and they\u2019re now amplifying how wacko and kooky and wrong and dangerous they are with their public utterances. And the more of that the better. And their reaction to this speech was classic. “Well, what\u2019s the president gonna do? How\u2019s he going to impose this? How is he going to bring all this?” And they got really afraid that the president was going to go to war with the world. <\/line>Now, the Gettysburg Address was also panned. You should look at the media after the Gettysburg Address. It\u2019s almost word-for-word for the media after any Bush press conference. I kid you not. But the Gettysburg Address did not get into the details of the Civil War, and nobody complained about that. Lincoln didn\u2019t discuss in detail his postwar plans for victory in the Civil War. He wasn\u2019t running around making specific speeches detailing his battle plans. What is the demand of people who want the specificity here? You take a look at the big ideas that drove this country in the 20th century. We defeated the Axis powers, the World War II Axis powers. That was ambitious. We got hit at Pearl Harbor, and we decided, okay, we\u2019ve got to clean this whole world up. We went to Italy; we went to Europe; we went to North Africa. We went wherever we had to go and do what we had to do to clean the world up. It was ambitious. It was extraordinarily visionary. It was also a must; it was required.<\/line>Saving the union, the Civil War, that was ambitious. Five hundred thousand American citizens died to save the nation. It was called the Civil War. Ending slavery, a number of different things that resulted in the war taking place. But it took great ambition, it took people in this country, 500,000 people to end slavery, to preserve the union. Winning the Cold War. That was ambitious. Many of you in this room were right there when it was happening, leading the fight from behind the scenes because so many people were of the belief, “Oh, you can\u2019t do that, we can\u2019t beat the Soviet Union. What do you mean? Why, there has to be a balance of power. We can\u2019t beat them. There would be a nuclear holocaust. We can\u2019t do that.” Well, we won it without firing a shot. We just buried the man responsible for it, Ronald Reagan. Where are our memories? What do you mean, we can\u2019t do this? What do you mean we can\u2019t stand for freedom around the world? We can\u2019t stand for freedom and liberty and democracy around the world? If you don\u2019t shoot for the heavens, if you don\u2019t shoot for the stars, you won\u2019t get there. And you\u2019re certainly not going to get there by not aiming at them.<\/line>It troubles me, when I ask myself, what in the world is happening to our society where a broad-themed vision of goodness and kindness and freedom for as many people as possible is snickered at and in fact becomes controversial. I think a president needs to think big, because if he doesn\u2019t, he won\u2019t accomplish anything; becomes mired in the agenda of bureaucrats, diplomats, and civil servants. Like Bill Clinton. Let\u2019s do that. Let\u2019s have the Clinton agenda where you don\u2019t do anything hard, you don\u2019t do anything majestic, you don\u2019t do anything big because your approval rating might sink and you might not get $163 million to build your library and massage parlor that nobody wants to visit in Little Rock anyway. All you have to do, if you want to get along, you have to love the United Nations, you have to love the state department, you have to love Madeleine Albright, you have to have the approval of everybody who doesn\u2019t like you, and then you won\u2019t get anything done. You tackle big, visionary issues like Abraham Lincoln did or Ronald Reagan did, any of a number of other presidents, yeah, you\u2019re going to have enemies, they\u2019re going to hate you, and they\u2019re going to snicker. But thinking big throughout the last century is what got us where we are. Thinking small, you end up accomplishing nothing.<\/line><\/p>\n

When you realize that there are things larger than yourself, things larger than ourselves, such as God or your faith, you end up thinking big as well, and you end up being humble. The latest mantra — I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard this — if you go back to 2000, the presidential campaign, shortly after George Bush chose Cheney, the mantra in the media was, “Well, Cheney brings the ticket gravitas.” I have a montage of about 20 different media people in two days making this point. Some fax had gone out from the Democratic National Committee, and they all started saying, Cheney brings Bush gravitas, Bush doesn\u2019t have gravitas, he\u2019s a frat boy, he\u2019s a cowboy, he\u2019s an idiot, he\u2019s a Texan, go let him barbecue, but don\u2019t let him run the country. Well, the new mantra is, Bush is running the risk of hubris. Okay, so this hayseed hick cowboy, frat boy is now running the risk of becoming a braggart and overreaching, and it\u2019s hubris, nobody can touch him, and that\u2019s the latest mantra that has set in. Somebody tell me, when you have faith in God, and you have an understanding that there are things much larger than yourself, that, to me, ends up causing humility, not hubris. When you realize there\u2019s something bigger than yourself, you cannot have hubris. I never thought that I would see the day, folks, when a speech focused on liberty and freedom in this country, the fundamental foundation on which our country is built, would be panned, would be ridiculed, and would be said to be, of all things, controversial. <\/line>But the truth is the elites everywhere are saying just that. They\u2019re still worried about it. And you know what I think really is at root here is their fear of God. They don\u2019t like hearing about God, and you want to know why they don\u2019t like hearing about freedom and big visions and so forth? It\u2019s because they, the liberals, play God. They are God in their minds and in everybody else\u2019s life. They are stewards of heaven. Heaven to them is big government, and this is what liberalism is all about. Any time God is mentioned by anybody in a political realm, who panics? The left panics. What are they so afraid of? Why be afraid of God? There has to be a reason. Why be so afraid of God that you can\u2019t teach — now, in Cupertino, California, you cannot teach the Declaration of Independence, because it mentions God, and that violates separation of church and state. These are Americans doing this, American liberals. How in the world can such a circumstance, a situation, happen? There has to be a legitimate fear. You have Americans wanting to take references to God out of the Pledge of Allegiance. There are people that don\u2019t want the word “God” uttered or invoked by elected officials. And I think it\u2019s because God threatens the left. God is a competitor to them.<\/line>Faith in something larger than government, faith in something larger than ourselves, why, that\u2019s competitive. It\u2019s competition to the left, and they don\u2019t like competition. They want to stamp competition out. It\u2019s called political correctness. Look at Larry Summers. He doesn\u2019t even have freedom of speech, and he\u2019s a liberal. He says something, there may be innate difference in men and women. By the way, I don\u2019t know what\u2019s so strange about this. TIME Magazine had a cover story six or so years ago, “Bulletin, men and women are born different.” Now, stop and think of that. Think if you\u2019re on the editorial board of TIME and something crosses the wire, and you become convinced, my gosh, it\u2019s right, men and women are born different. It\u2019s so stunning to you, you make it a cover story. Why are we afraid of these people? There\u2019s no reason to fear these people. These are the people quaking in their boots. The American left is operating out of fear today. They had 40 years to run the show. They had a monopoly. They had a media monopoly; they had a Washington monopoly; they ran the country. They don\u2019t know how to act as losers, and I\u2019m afraid some of us on the right are not yet really accustomed to being winners. It\u2019s sort of like if you\u2019ve been heavy all your life, and you go on a big diet and you lose the weight, it takes a while before you start thinking thin. You stop at every mirror, am I gaining weight? Well, it\u2019s a psychological adjustment. These people, I think what happened, to them, is that during this period of time of the media monopoly where all we had were the three networks, ABC — well, I call them ABS, CBS, NBS, CNNBS. <\/line>But back in the day when there were only three, only those three, they ruled the roost. Why do you think Senator Kennedy with that near treasonous, traitorous speech of his at Johns Hopkins yesterday, or on Wednesday, why do you think that Senator Kennedy and a number of these other people are acting in the way that they are? It\u2019s because they still think they\u2019re running the show. Why is he using the word “quagmire”? The word “quagmire” to describe Iraq is because that\u2019s how Walter Cronkite killed the Vietnam war. When he referred to it as a quagmire, that\u2019s when public opinion started turning. And the media came of age even before the Vietnam war, but as Howard Fineman wrote, the media actually thinks of themselves now as a political party. The mainstream media, the liberal spin machine, actually thinks they\u2019re the ones that steer the Democrats now because the Democrats don\u2019t have the guts to go where the party wants, or the media wants to take them. And they may have a point.<\/line>But for all of these years, there was this monopoly, and they made these outrageous statements, they implemented these programs, whatever, and they were never challenged and they never had to develop an intellectual defense of what they were doing. It was all emotion, it was all “we\u2019re doing it all for you,” but it was all about their power and the acquisition of it. During these 40 years there were people working in the basements, trying to educate people about conservatism. And, God love them, because if they hadn\u2019t been there doing that, those of us like me who have inherited the bounty of their work would not have a chance to be the successes that we\u2019ve had. You know, those of us that are doing well today have all of those who toiled away in the basements all of these years with no recognition because they believed it in their hearts and were committed to it, and they have enabled us and people like me to take it, learn it myself, and make it explainable and understandable to other people. And this was going on for these 40 years. And during these 40 years the people that ran the show were the monopoly, were making fun of us and laughing at us and impugning us. And we had to develop intellectual responses to their challenges of our ideas, and we did. <\/line>It took a while, it was bubbling up, these things don\u2019t happen overnight, but there\u2019s not a liberal that can beat a conservative in a substance argument today in America, because they will resort to name-calling and discrediting and a number of things within 30 seconds. They cannot win on the issues because their issues are losers. We have triumphed now, and the danger that we face and the triumph is, I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s permanent, and I\u2019m trying to share my optimism with you here; we could blow this as well as anybody could. I think one of the problems we had in 1994, for example, was that we thought in that election, okay, country agrees with us, it\u2019s over with, we can just keep implementing the agenda, we sort of stopped teaching. We made an incorrect assumption that the country had made this switch from liberalism to conservatism, and I don\u2019t think we should make that mistake now. I think what\u2019s happening is the media monopoly is over; a political monopoly is over. There\u2019s all kinds of so-called new media out there. But there\u2019s another new media that nobody is really talking about that I think is injurious to the left as well, and that\u2019s their own new media. When you have these fringe, left-wing kooks like MoveOn.org and Americans Coming Together sending Terry McAuliffe letters saying, if you don\u2019t straighten up, we\u2019re taking over the party from you, you\u2019re too close to the K Street lobbyists, you\u2019ve got a mutiny going on in the party. <\/line>What\u2019s happened is the mainstream of this party has been taken over by these fringe, left-wing kooks, these nut burgers out there who actually believe the stuff that Michael Moore says. That\u2019s the mainstream of the Democratic Party now, so much so that Barbara Boxer has to raise funds for them by taking on Condoleezza Rice and some of these other Jurassic Park Democrats in the Senate for following suit and doing the same thing. Now, there\u2019s no way they cannot appeal to a broad-based coalition of Americans by talking the way they\u2019re talking, saying the things they\u2019re saying, opposing nominations that are foregone conclusions, trying to hold up the electoral vote count in Ohio, that\u2019s not a way they\u2019re going to get back. They have nothing to offer. If you listen to the average liberal today, you will not hear one thing positive. You don\u2019t hear one thing good about the country. You don\u2019t hear one thing good about any of the people in this country. They live in total fear. They look at life through a prism of fear, and the fear is based on the fact they know they\u2019ve lost their power. And without their power, they don\u2019t have a reason to live. The liberal establishment in this country has, of course, a desire to grow government, but they can\u2019t do that when they don\u2019t control it. They don\u2019t have the thing that they run and control. They don\u2019t control it right now, and so they can\u2019t actually make it what they want, so they\u2019ve become a party of pure opposition, negativism, and self-destruction. <\/line>And I find it interesting that people, because of the 40 years experience, there are a lot of people still deathly afraid of them. I\u2019m not. And please don\u2019t misunderstand here, folks, and I\u2019m not saying I\u2019m right about it. I\u2019m just giving you a sense of my perception of things. But I have an audience of 20 million a week. Our fall rating book during the election, the report\u2019s just coming in, and it\u2019s going through the roof at record levels in terms of audience ratings. <\/line>The lack of a media monopoly is making it so that the left\u2019s message is not automatically accepted. Ten years ago, fifteen years ago, when Ted Kennedy delivers a speech like the one he gave at Johns Hopkins, my phones would have been boiling with people who were scared to death. “Oh, Rush, did you hear what Kennedy said? You\u2019ve got to put it in perspective. Why, the media is just going to echo it and people are going to believe it and, oh, it\u2019s horrible, it\u2019s horrible, and they\u2019re going to cause us to lose in Iraq.” Today, people are just mad, but they\u2019re not afraid, because they know Kennedy looks like the absolute buffoon that he is. He is not persuading anybody. (applause) Before I came out here tonight, I was talking to some of the august members of your group who found my backstage hiding place, and I won\u2019t mention any names here, but this is something that gave me a little sounding board. The discussion of the efforts by the left to defeat the president\u2019s Social Security reform were brought up. And it was stated that the Democrats are studying day by day the way Newt and the boys defeated Hillary Care. And if you look at some things, there are some similarities. And I detected that there was some concern on the part those who were imparting the information to me. And, with all due respect, I think they\u2019re barking up a tree. If they think that there is any similarity to us defeating Hillary Care and them defeating Social Security, it shows just how out of sync and whacked they are. <\/line>For example, let\u2019s just look at the cultural differences. Back in 1993, here you have an unelected first lady who wants to take over one-seventh of the U.S. economy, put it under the control of the government. Back then, we were able to read her plan and we were able to tell people what was in it. You wanted to be a specialist as a doctor? They were going to choose it for you. If there was a shortage in some specialties, you might be assigned one. You might also be assigned the med school you were going to have to go to, and after that you might be assigned a city in which you lived. They tried to camouflage this and hide this, but once the people found out about it, look at what happened. Mrs. Clinton had this bus tour from Seattle to wherever. Well, at every stop there were ten times as many people greeting her not on the bus as there were on the bus, and they were all in opposition to her plan, because in 1993, and even more so today, the people of this country do not want one-seventh their economy nationalized and run by the federal government.<\/line>Now, let\u2019s run to today. That was then. Let\u2019s come to 2005. Social Security reform is not health care reform in any way, shape, manner, or form. Social Security reform is taking the government out of your life. It is putting you as part of an ownership society in charge of a small portion of your Social Security check or deduction. It\u2019s the exact opposite of health care. I don\u2019t care what they\u2019re trying to say are similarities, there\u2019s none whatsoever. And if you look at the latest poll, Zogby just did a poll for Cato. People under 30, 60% in favor of the president\u2019s private accounts. People under 50, 58% in favor of the president\u2019s private accounts. Hillary Clinton would have killed for numbers like that. Hillary Clinton never had anywhere near 50% that wanted national health care. It never has gotten there. The cultural differences alone — If the Democrats are too blind with rage and seething hatred to see the realities, if they think that Social Security reform, which is getting government out of people\u2019s lives, is the same thing as her health care reform, and it can be defeated the same way, bring \u2019em on! The more they look like idiots, the happier I\u2019m going to be and the better off we\u2019re all going to be, folks, and they\u2019d be plain to people and willing to look like idiots today.<\/line>Now, I realize I\u2019m not getting into the intricacies of politics here, because that\u2019s not what I do. I\u2019m not a political scientist, and I know that there\u2019s some problems with this; I know that the Republicans in the House and Senate, they\u2019re a little shaky on it; they still believe that it can impact their election if they take on Social Security. The fact is, if you go back and look at the 2004 elections, you\u2019ll find every candidate, Republican side, who ran with the president, on Social Security reform, won. This is a time for big vision; this is a time for boldness; this is a time to get big things done. And you don\u2019t get big things done by saying you can\u2019t. The we-can\u2019ts, the we-shouldn\u2019ts, they\u2019re all over the place out there, and they never, ever got anything done. And too many people listen to them, because too many people want to get mired in their own misery. I tell young people asking me, “What should I do to succeed?” I say, “What do you want to do?” “Well, I don\u2019t know.” “Well, find out, and then when you find out, go talk to people who have succeeded at it. Don\u2019t talk to people who failed at it, because they\u2019re embittered, and they don\u2019t want you to succeed, either.” Why do we want to listen to a bunch of Democrats say this can\u2019t be done, that can\u2019t be done. Screw them, folks! I\u2019m sorry. It\u2019s too important a time. And the idea of spreading democracy around the world and freedom around the world, as a vision, as a concept, we\u2019re all created this way. What\u2019s wrong with endorsing it? <\/line>You go back to Germany in World War II, the president made reference to this in the speech the other day, and I posted on my website some stories from TIME Magazine and Life from about 1946. You would be amazed to read those stories. They read just like what we\u2019re getting out of Iraq today. Only the date and the place is different. Back in these stories about Germany, “We\u2019re losing the peace, we\u2019ll never be able to keep the peace, the Germans hate us, our soldiers are corrupt, they\u2019re stealing bread and milk from Germans\u2019 homes.” It was the same, folks, same stuff. And yet the naysayers lost out, as they most always do and always should. So, yeah, I know some Republicans are reluctant, but the president has the ability to get done what he wants to get done, and the American people get what they want, something that I\u2019m so proud to be able to say, I firmly believe this. I know things, many people think they happen in Washington. But the American people get what they want. If they want Social Security reform, and they make it known in enough ways, it\u2019ll happen. This is still a representative republic, more so when Republicans are in control than Democrats, but people get what they want. And all people need to do is be educated, just like they were about Hillary\u2019s health care plan, just like they were throughout the campaign about John Kerry\u2019s lies and miscues and everything else.<\/line>There are so many reasons to be optimistic in this country. The greatest time to be alive ever. Tomorrow is a better day than yesterday in this country. I firmly believe it; it always will be. It\u2019s a great time to be alive. We have some great challenges and we\u2019re confronted with a lot of doom-and-gloomers. They represent an opportunity: an opportunity to teach, an opportunity to inform, and an opportunity to persuade. Now, all is not rosy, and I don\u2019t want anybody getting the wrong impression. There are some pitfalls out there among and above those I mentioned, such as getting cocky and arrogant and thinking that we\u2019ve won it all. There\u2019s some issue pitfalls out there, and I think one of them is immigration, illegal immigration. If we don\u2019t ? (applause) you know, it\u2019s an amazing thing. There was a story today that I shared with people on the news. I understand there\u2019s an Arizona contingent here tonight. The foreign minister of Mexico today has threatened to go to international courts to overturn Arizona\u2019s Proposition 200. I know it sounds funny. The foreign minister of Mexico has just said, we want citizens from Mexico to go to America illegally, and we want America to pay for it. Aside from what it says about his own government, what does it say about what he thinks of us? That the international court can just simply say to the American people, the people of Arizona, what you think doesn\u2019t count, your democratic process is irrelevant. There are a number of arguments that I\u2019ve heard all my life about illegal immigration. “Well, you know, Rush, it\u2019s a value in one sense because the work that they do is work that Americans won\u2019t do.” And I used to believe that. There was part of that that made sense. But then gradually things started happening and made me change my mind about it.<\/line> <\/line>But I think in an era such as we\u2019re in where our sovereignty is challenged, national security is a threat, if we\u2019re not going to enforce our laws, what good are they? We enforce them against American citizens. You don\u2019t pay your taxes, you\u2019ll find out about it. You break any of a number of laws, you\u2019ll find out about it and you will not be allowed to get away with it. But somehow you come here illegally and get yourself involved in our — well, they call it a social safety net. It\u2019s a hammock. You get yourself in the hammock, and you\u2019ve got people supporting you. The other day some Hollywood people, 30 of them, actors, writers, producers, said they think it\u2019s incorrect for them to be required to have legal status to get legal driver\u2019s licenses. I said, a-ha. You need your nannies, you need year caterers, you need your limo drivers. But you people in Hollywood would be the first to complain if the prices for actors and writers and producers went down because illegal immigrants were hired to do the job you\u2019ve been trained to do. That\u2019s what\u2019s wrong with the left, folks, no principle. But this is a problem that we face. The American people — and this is the problem the Republican and the Democratic Party faced, too — the American people are fed up to here with this, and they\u2019re going to take it out against whoever doesn\u2019t do it the right way. Democrats and Republicans in Washington had better pay attention to this, the president on down, because the vast majority of the American people are fed up and sick and tired of this, and they don\u2019t understand the politics of it. <\/line>What in the world are elected officials deferring to civil rights and special interest groups? What\u2019s the fear of being hard on illegals? We\u2019re not talking about legal immigration, we\u2019re not talking about letting people in who are trained to do high-tech jobs or whatever they want to do. We\u2019re talking illegal. What is so hard about standing up for that law? What is so hard about making sure that people don\u2019t come in and bastardize our economic system by causing wages to go down, because they will do work that Americans will not work for, wage-wise. And it does end up lowering the wage cycle; it does increase calls for the minimum wage to go up, and causes Social Security pressures and all sorts of things. And people — as you can see, California even, Prop whatever it was, 187, federal judge said, you people don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing, and overturned it, and almost did that in Arizona. And now the Mexican foreign minister is trying to do the same thing. <\/line>It\u2019s something that the politicians in Washington, I think, are going to have to get a handle on because the American people will take it out against anybody. This is not even a partisan issue. They just don\u2019t understand, a number of them, and it\u2019s a growing number, do not understand why in the world there is such fear of all of these special interest groups that support the rights of “illegals.” The word means something to the American people. When it\u2019s randomly enforced it weakens all of our laws and makes them all less meaningful. So that\u2019s the picture from where I stand. I\u2019ve gone over my allotted time, but I want to tell you how much I\u2019ve enjoyed it, and I appreciate the invitation to come back. And if any of you were offended by the opening jokes, sorry again. But I really, in closing, let me amplify something I said just a moment ago, and there are a lot of people in this room that I admire, and I can\u2019t really see specifically because of the spotlight\u2019s in my face, and you would think I would be used to the spotlight. But I know Paul Weyrich is here, and Ed Feulner is here, and I don\u2019t want to leave anybody out, but I get a lot of credit that I don\u2019t deserve. Well, there are people who helped me become what I am who will never get the credit they deserve, let me put it that way, unless those of us who benefited pass that credit along. All of you who have supported the CNP and other conservative organizations and have enabled the great thinkers of this movement to work and to produce output that people like me can come along and have my beliefs validated. You know, these guys did not turn me conservative; my father did that. But a lot of times, you know, I instinctively knew what I believed, but I wasn\u2019t able to tell anybody why. I can tell people why now because of the work of CNP and so many other groups that are like this. And they wouldn\u2019t be what they are without the people who support them and donate. <\/line>Now, this has taken a long time. This is 40 years, and it\u2019s ongoing. And if you take a look at where we were 40 years ago and where we are today, or maybe 50, I don\u2019t know how far back you want to go, but whatever has propelled us to this point needs to keep propelling us, and the one fuel of the greatest engine is optimism. And there\u2019s no reason not to be optimistic. I\u2019m not saying shouldn\u2019t be cautious and all of that, but if you start acting afraid that this is going to happen or that\u2019s going to happen, you start telling yourself stories, things you can\u2019t possibly know, the outcome of events, start telling yourself negative stories, you\u2019re going to make it really harder for a good thing to happen. The people who are optimistic, based on experience, with substantive reasons to be optimistic, will infect and inspire others to join them and be the same way. Believe me, if given the chance and shown how, most people would be happy, most people would choose optimism, most people would choose to learn how to make those things happen in their lives. And it\u2019s hard because they\u2019re bombarded with an endless parade of negativism every day from the media. I don\u2019t care what the story is from the left, it\u2019s part and parcel of what they\u2019re selling. They want people down and distraught and unhappy and looking to government or the liberals or whatever for hope and salvation. The elites think that people don\u2019t have what it takes to make the choices in life to be successful or be happy. And people do. They just don\u2019t know it in many cases. But when shown how and when inspired, there\u2019s no stopping them once they\u2019re turned loose, take the shackles away from them, however you want to look at it, lower taxes, get rid of regulations, it works every time it\u2019s tried, as does optimism. <\/line>And I learned that, by the way, from many of the people that I\u2019ve mentioned and others that I\u2019ve met along the way. So I want to thank you all for all that you\u2019ve done in supporting all of this great work that has gone on, because there are many people like me whose names are out front, who get all this credit, who would not have had a chance to succeed to the degree we have were it not for the real work that\u2019s gone on, as I like to say, in the basement, that I\u2019ve been able to absorb and learn well enough to be able to regurgitate to others. So thank you all very much. You have been great, and I appreciate the opportunity to come speak to you once again.<\/line>END TRANSCRIPT<\/line><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT I must tell you, folks, I was a little squeamish accepting this invitation because of a prior experience. Many of you might have been there. It was 12 or 13 years ago; it was the CNP at the Pentagon Ritz, Ritz Pentagon, whatever it was, and I had not been briefed as to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nRush Limbaugh speech to Council on National Policy - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/01\/28\/rush_limbaugh_speech_to_council_on_national_policy\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Rush Limbaugh speech to Council on National Policy - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"BEGIN TRANSCRIPT I must tell you, folks, I was a little squeamish accepting this invitation because of a prior experience. 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