{"id":22998,"date":"2005-09-23T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T06:40:39","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T06:40:39","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T06:40:39","slug":"two_calls_on_race_and_poverty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/09\/23\/two_calls_on_race_and_poverty\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Calls on Race and Poverty"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: Let\u2019s go to Kenisha in Columbus, Georgia<\/a>. Hi, Kenisha. It\u2019s nice to have you on the program.<\/line>CALLER: Hi, Rush. Mega dittos from Georgia. How you doing?<\/line>RUSH: Fine. Never better. Thank you.<\/line>CALLER: Well, I am an African-American female, and I\u2019m prior military. My husband runs his own company and I\u2019m an educated person as well as a stay-at-home mom, and I am so insulted by the language of these people that say they represent my race, the Congressional Black Caucus. I became a Republican this last election and I will tell you, Rush, that from my observation all my friends, all this condescending talk is just pushing more and more young people — because I just turned 30 — in my generation away from the Democratic Party. It\u2019s condescending to think that we\u2019re too stupid to get an ID. I mean we have to have it for everything else, and it\u2019s just a very insulting. I\u2019ll tell you, it\u2019s really turning off a lot of people of my age-group and turning us to say we need to be solution oriented and stop complaining and make some things happen, and that\u2019s what pushed my husband and I and our family over to the other side.<\/line>RUSH: Congratulations. I know it takes courage for you to do this, and to even admit it.<\/line>CALLER: Oh, yeah, definitely, I mean we have Bush stickers on our car. We\u2019ve taken a stand, but, you know, it takes people to take a stand and point out the truth without all the emotion and the screaming, and I\u2019ll tell you that I wouldn\u2019t vote for Hillary, even if I was a Democrat. She doesn\u2019t represent me as a woman. I don\u2019t admire her, and I just —<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: You know, this is the thing. Kenisha, the thing I\u2019ve always wondered about — I don\u2019t care what the race of these people is. Anybody that\u2019s in poverty, it\u2019s been a 60-year quest here that\u2019s obviously failed!<\/line>CALLER: Mmm-hmm.<\/line>RUSH: And the people who continue to make the whines and moans about it created the programs to “fix” it and have been in possession of the White House for a whole bunch of years during all of this and yet there\u2019s never any progress. If you listen to them, we\u2019re losing ground. We\u2019ve spent $6 trillion on it, and I just… As a human being, I get worn out listening to whining and moaning and complaining. It doesn\u2019t take very long, these people have been doing it for years, and I\u2019m just wondering why it has not worn itself out with the intended recipients of this stuff, the recipients of the words.<\/line>CALLER: Yep.<\/line>RUSH: I know who Charles Rangel<\/a> and Harry Belafonte are talking to. They\u2019re talking not just to black poor, including them, but they\u2019re talking to everybody that\u2019s poor, and they want everybody in that group to believe that they are poor only because there are Republicans who are stealing money from them to give it to the rich. The poor have been made to believe that if it weren\u2019t for all the theft from them, there wouldn\u2019t be any rich people. It\u2019s a disconnect. It\u2019s a little total disconnect.<\/line> CALLER: Rush, it doesn\u2019t make sense to me. How can you steal from poor people if they so-called don\u2019t have anything.<\/line>RUSH: Well, individually they don\u2019t, but, see, their view of America\u2019s capitalist system is that it\u2019s structurally unjust —<\/line>CALLER: (scoffs)<\/line>RUSH: — and that if the rich didn\u2019t have all they have because they\u2019re just lucky. They\u2019re “the winners of life\u2019s lottery.” <\/line>CALLER: Mmm-hmm.<\/line>RUSH: The rich have taken most of the money out of the economy, and it hasn\u2019t left enough to be distributed so that each poor person has more than what they do. They don\u2019t mean they\u2019ve stolen it from each individual poor people, but they have a finite view of the American economy. It\u2019s a pie that never gets any bigger.<\/line>CALLER: Mmm-hmm.<\/line>RUSH: It\u2019s only got certain number of pieces, and the disadvantaged don\u2019t have their fair share of pieces, and the Democrats look at themselves as being in charge of slicing up the pie. It\u2019s to them, a finite, zero-sum game. They think if somebody gets a job; somebody loses a job. They don\u2019t understand increased economic output. They don\u2019t understand growth cycles. They don\u2019t understand the dynamics of tax cuts and other policies. It\u2019s just stunning to me, and I know there have been generation after generation of inculcating this stuff into people\u2019s minds, but at some point — like in your case — the lights have to go off.<\/line>CALLER: Well, you know, Rush, if that was the truth that the pie never was split up and that the rich are taking from the poor, then how do you explain all the people that struggle to come to our country for opportunities, that own small businesses, that oftentimes are in the black communities, and they make it? And then we get upset at them! I really believe it\u2019s the heart of the individual that makes the decision to be somebody. It\u2019s not the government\u2019s responsibility, and the bottom line is, my grandmother who has recently voted for Bush and listens to your show every single day, is of the generation when rights were not there. She always talks about how when she was a child and when she was going to college, she was one of the first black nurses in the state of Connecticut, and grew up in this segregation times, and she said that back then we as a people carried ourselves with class and dignity, and the same people that are complaining now got their success — like Harry Belafonte and people like that — through this wonderful capitalistic society that we have. That\u2019s what gives them the pulpit to speak even now, the freedoms we have in this country. So to me and to a lot of people in my generation, black and white, it\u2019s just insulting, and they\u2019re going to lose more and more elections the more they attack the foundations of our families and telling us that we\u2019re too stupid as individuals, as God-given, this God-given right we have in this country to make our own decisions, and it\u2019s turning a lot of people off. They can just keep on doing it and we\u2019ll just keep winning. (laughs)<\/line>RUSH: Well, well stated, Kenisha, and thanks much for the call. <\/line>CALLER: Thanks, Rush!<\/line>RUSH: You are a brilliant young woman and very important to the future of this country.<\/line>CALLER: Thank you.<\/line>RUSH: So have a lot of kids and inculcate them with your beliefs.<\/line>CALLER: We are. Thank you for all you\u2019re doing, Rush.<\/line>RUSH: Hubba hubba! All right.<\/line>BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: Doug in Toledo<\/a>, you\u2019re next on Open Line Friday. Hi.<\/line>CALLER: Hi, Mr. Limbaugh. I wanted to speak to you briefly about something you were saying earlier about there being… “All a person has to do is apply themselves,” and you oftentimes say that. I want to respectfully disagree with you. There are exceptions to every rule, and some people do actually make it out of certain situations. But unless you are exposed to or have access to the various tools and things that you need in order to accomplish things, then sometimes the best that you can do is average. I mean —<\/line>RUSH: All right, well, okay, hold it. Let\u2019s discuss some of this. Who is depriving the poor of access to the tools that they need?<\/line>CALLER: Well, I agree with you in that. I\u2019m not arguing that point. It\u2019s just that I hear you, sir, and a lot of other people. I am an African-American who come from I would say average to below average means and situation, and I would say that I am performing or above average or at least average myself, and I\u2019m okay with that. But oftentimes your people say, “Well, if you want to be rich, or if you want to have…” I disagree with that. You know, if my grandparents, which were, you know, sharecroppers, et cetera, et cetera, all they know how to do is work a field. Those various — that knowledge does not make me rich in today\u2019s society.<\/line>RUSH: Hold it. Hold it. Hold, just a second.<\/line>CALLER: Okay.<\/line>RUSH: We don\u2019t have sharecroppers anymore.<\/line> CALLER: My great-grandparents are from Mississippi. Both of them are deceased now.<\/line>RUSH: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Now, don\u2019t have a knee-jerk reaction. We don\u2019t have sharecroppers anymore. How can that be if there\u2019s no opportunity?<\/line>CALLER: Mr. Limbaugh, I am simply saying that this is years and years of a situation compiling and becoming worse and worse.<\/line>RUSH: It\u2019s not. See, Doug, you\u2019re talking yourself into a situation here. The situation is not getting worse and worse. This country is more prosperous than anyone\u2019s wildest dreams, and it\u2019s getting more so each and every year, and more and more Americans who have sat around for 60 years and believed a bunch of promises from a bunch of politicians and told them, “We\u2019re going to take care of this inequity. We\u2019re going to make sure,” and they never do. All they do is go out and make a joke out of supposedly punishing the rich with high taxes, regulations, but none of that seems to help the poor. Now, I can tell you that there are countless millions of poor people who have escaped it, and many of them black. Many of them, what will you say, foreign. But people moving in and out of different levels of prosperity, income quintiles. The five top income levels are divided into five groups; they\u2019re called quintiles, and people move in and out of those things all the time. This is the country where that is possible. This is a country with a rich history of that very thing happening, and it is not too easy to say, “If you want it, you can get it,” in this country it\u2019s possible. We all have obstacles, every one of us. I\u2019ve had them. I don\u2019t complain about them because nobody would be sympathetic, and I don\u2019t want any sympathy. But we\u2019ve all had obstacles. <\/line>I\u2019ve worked for rotten creeps. I\u2019ve worked for people thought I didn\u2019t amount to anything. Three of the people I worked with in radio told me I never had what it took, would never give me a shot at anything. I got fired seven times. I\u2019ve been broke a couple of times. I\u2019ve not been in poverty. I\u2019ve not been poor. But I also know that the recipes that we have employed to get people out of poverty have not worked, because the same people keep complaining about it. Those who authored the policies keep complaining about it. One of the things that we are learning, as we study people that are in the depths of poverty, there are four things that you can do that will really help you avoid those straits. One is: Graduate from high school. Number two: Do not have a child before you get married, or two, or three. Number three is: Don\u2019t get married until long after you\u2019re out of high school, and have a job and so forth — and I forgot what the fourth is. But if you take a look at the demographics of people who are stuck in poverty — and poverty is a relative thing. The poverty in America generally consists of a couple television sets in your house, a car. Poverty in Africa, that\u2019s poverty. Poverty in the rest of the world, that\u2019s poverty. Poverty in America is relative compared to the prosperity that we have, and I\u2019m not saying that poverty in America is a panacea. Please don\u2019t take me out of context. <\/line>But there are clearly things that, if you study the demographics of poverty, you can see that there are some things in common — and if they could be taught to be avoided, if people had some reason, if they were inspired rather than told the deck is stacked against them, if they were motivated — and generally it\u2019s parents and teachers that do this. But if you\u2019re a parent when you\u2019re 13 or 14, and you yourself have never been out of the situation you\u2019re in, it\u2019s going to be awhile before you\u2019ve lived long enough to be able to maturity to raise your kids a different way than you were raised. There\u2019s all kinds of factors here. But the one thing that\u2019s not the primary root of the problem is our structure, our capitalist structure. It does not choose winners and losers. It does not predetermine winners and losers and keep them there forever. There are not winners of life\u2019s lottery. There are winners of Powerball, but there are not winners of life\u2019s lottery. The idea… Well, I take it back. Take it back. There are the trust funders who all they had to do, the Lucky Sperm Club. All they had to do was be born, and I can give you names from both political parties, starting with the Kennedys. “There are exceptions to everything,” as you say. But for most everybody who has made it, defined however they choose, there is a foundation and something that\u2019s irreplaceable and it\u2019s called hard work.<\/line>END TRANSCRIPT<\/line><\/p>\n

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RUSH: Let\u2019s go to Kenisha in Columbus, Georgia. Hi, Kenisha. It\u2019s nice to have you on the program.CALLER: Hi, Rush. Mega dittos from Georgia. How you doing?RUSH: Fine. Never better. Thank you.CALLER: Well, I am an African-American female, and I\u2019m prior military. My husband runs his own company and I\u2019m an educated person as well […]<\/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":"\nTwo Calls on Race and Poverty - 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:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/09\/23\/two_calls_on_race_and_poverty\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Two Calls on Race and Poverty - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Let\u2019s go to Kenisha in Columbus, Georgia. Hi, Kenisha. 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