{"id":7593,"date":"2014-12-08T19:02:50","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T19:02:50","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2014-12-08T19:02:50","modified_gmt":"2014-12-08T19:02:50","slug":"america_the_miserable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2014\/12\/08\/america_the_miserable\/","title":{"rendered":"America, the Miserable"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: We go to upstate New York and say hi to Rebecca. I\u2019m glad you waited, really appreciate that, and great to have you. Hi.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Hi. I just wanted to make a point on the whole racial issue and stuff like that.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n

CALLER: I was watching a movie the other day. Have you seen The Giver?<\/p>\n

RUSH: The Giver?<\/p>\n

CALLER: The Giver. Yes.<\/p>\n

RUSH: No.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Great movie.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Wait a minute. Are you saying Gipper with a P?<\/line><\/p>\n

CALLER: G-i-v-e-r. The Giver<\/a>. It\u2019s based on a novel.<\/p>\n

RUSH: The Giver. No, I\u2019ve not seen it.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Great movie. And pretty much the whole idea of the movie was, what if everything was the same, everybody was equal, everybody was the same. And my point is pretty much it\u2019s an unrealistic idea to think that there\u2019s never gonna be racism, that there\u2019s always gonna be income inequality. There\u2019s always gonna be somebody who\u2019s a racist. There\u2019s always gonna be somebody who makes more money than you. No matter how hard the world tries, it\u2019s never gonna be fixed. It\u2019s just unrealistic.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Well, that is true, but that won\u2019t carry any weight with anybody. I know you didn\u2019t mean it this way, but some people could interpret that as saying it\u2019s pointless to even try since it\u2019s impossible to achieve, and then that would just fuel the grievance industry even more. What you say is totally correct. It\u2019s impossible to make everybody the same. But that\u2019s what liberalism strives to do. Equality of outcome. And the only way you can even get close to that is by making people as poor as you can or as miserable. <\/p>\n

You cannot give enough money away to make everybody rich, but you can give just enough away to a lot of people to make them poor or miserable. And in liberalism, equality is what counts. But they want credit for their good intentions, you see. This is the dirty little secret that few people really glom onto. Every liberal program, from Lyndon Johnson forward, has been an abject failure in terms of achieving its desired end result. <\/p>\n

The War on Poverty didn\u2019t wipe out poverty. It\u2019s still going on, in fact, never gonna be able to claim victory. The Great Society, which was designed to end racial strife and poverty, the Civil Rights Act, all these things have been abject failures. And when you point this out to people who are behind it, they say, “At least we tried.” And they want credit for their good intentions, for caring and all of that. <\/line><\/p>\n

The truth of what you say is indisputable. But the problem has arisen from the fact that now we punish the people who excel beyond the average. We punish people who seem to be immune from circumstances that harm others. And so there is now a stigma attached to success. There is a stigma attached to achievement, and we\u2019re doing everything we can to denigrate those who have accomplished and achieved things by mischaracterizing it and by delegitimizing it, by suggesting it\u2019s not real, it happened on the backs of others. <\/p>\n

For example, the rich are not rich. They\u2019re thieves. The rich got rich by stealing everybody\u2019s money. The rich got rich by stealing it from the poor. The math on that doesn\u2019t work out, but that\u2019s what they say. And then the rich are really doubly mean \u2019cause they don\u2019t share it then. After they steal it they don\u2019t give any of it back, and that\u2019s the definition of trickle-down doesn\u2019t work. The point of all this is to roil the society. The point is to constantly get everybody, as many people as possible in the whole mix of victimology and promote disunity.<\/p>\n

And you say, why would anybody want to do that? Because there is political power to be derived from convincing all those victims that you\u2019re gonna fix it for \u2019em. You never do fix it. You always blame the opposing political party for the problem, and you convince the victims that you are doing everything you can to punish the people making your misery real, for being responsible for your being miserable. (interruption) I don\u2019t know. Snerdley just said, do you think people are more miserable now than they ever have been. I really don\u2019t know. It\u2019s hard to say, because we live in an era when there is more media than there\u2019s ever been and there are more people telling us how they felt than ever before. <\/p>\n

It could well be that there is as much misery then as there is now, just there wasn\u2019t an outlet for everybody to know it. I think what\u2019s different now is publicly expressing your misery is a way to get sympathy. Publicly expressing your misery, publicly becoming a victim, it used to be a stigma to be a victim. I was just talking about that in the last hour. It used to be you\u2019d hear people say all the time, “I\u2019m not gonna play the victim.” Now it\u2019s valorous to be a victim. If you are a victim, that makes you a real American. Real American, yeah, because you are being victimized. You are being punished by this mythical, powerful bunch of people that are using you, chewing you up, and spitting you out. <\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s interesting, this question of are people more miserable now than they\u2019ve ever been. That\u2019s really impossible to tell, but there\u2019s one thing I think is true: The less time you spend interacting with people, sharing feelings, the happier you\u2019re gonna be. The more time you spend with people miserable and unhappy, whining and complaining, the greater the odds you\u2019re gonna become one of them. It\u2019s impossible to be around all that and not be affected by it. The happiest people, I\u2019m convinced, are people who somehow are able to just compartmentalize all that away, or not even access it, not even go there. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to with as prevalent as media is today. But I think the general sense that you get, I mean, I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s like this for you, but wherever I go there seems to be a malaise. I think back 20, 30 years ago, and there seemed to be — I don\u2019t want to fall into a trap saying this, I be could be dead wrong — perceptions sometimes are not correct, but the perception 20, 30 years ago there was a much greater happiness and acceptance overall of just day-to-day life. Today we\u2019re pummeled. I mean, the news is nothing but horrible, damning things that are happening to people all over the world. And of course it\u2019s not that things are happening; it\u2019s things people are doing to other people. <\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not new, either. People have always been mean. People have always been unfair to others. It\u2019s tough to say. You know, comparing one generation to the next or one era to the next. But, man, that\u2019s why I think it\u2019s wise — you know, every generation thinks it\u2019s living in the last days, and every generation has people in it that think that things have never been worse. But even in our politics, it could be accurately stated that we have been far more divided in the past at times in our country than we are today. The Civil War would be a great example of that and the period of time leading up to it. The founding itself was not this magical thing that everybody supported. <\/p>\n

So it requires, I think, a mature temperance if you\u2019re gonna start to make comparisons along those lines because people do it in order to try to predict the future, \u2019cause everyone wants to know, is it getting better? Is it getting worse? The thing I think we can conclude is that in terms of our leadership there isn\u2019t any uplifting or inspiring going on. The president clearly isn\u2019t and there isn\u2019t at the highest levels of our government, highest reaches of our political power. You\u2019d have to think long and hard to come up with a truly inspiring person. <\/p>\n

Everybody seems enmeshed and swallowed up by all the pessimism, and it does take effort to avoid it. It\u2019s easy to fall into that pit. That\u2019s why there have been people that made millions of dollars writing books on how to think positively. And it\u2019s why you won\u2019t be able to find a book in the library called “How to Fail,” because we all already know how to do that, having done it numerous times. But how to succeed, whoa. Come up with a way that people think it can work for them, and you\u2019ll make a million dollars on the book. Well, $400,000, after taxes.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Okay. Here\u2019s an example of what I\u2019m talking about. By the way, let me admit something to you. You know, I prepare this show every day. I spend more time than you would believe in show prep immersing myself in what could only be described as the misery in our country. I mean, to prepare yourself every day to talk about the latest in politics, the latest in culture, and sometimes even the latest in sports is to immerse yourself in story after story after story of malcontent, discontent, distraction, unhappiness. <\/p>\n

There doesn\u2019t seem to be a lot of joy in a whole lot of places. Right in today\u2019s Stack of Stuff, I have three different stories, and they\u2019re all about the same thing. Let me read to you just the headlines. The first one is from The Atlantic<\/a>. “The Incredible Shrinking Incomes of Young Americans.” You know what this story\u2019s about? This story is about Millennials, and this story tells Millennials why and how they will never even get into the middle class, much less beyond. <\/line><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a name that you will not find in this story, and that\u2019s Obama. The economic circumstances that are going to deny Millennials entry to the middle class and beyond does not feature the name Barack Obama. The next story is from Slate.com<\/a>: “Why Poor People Stay Poor.” The subhead: “Saving Money Costs Money. Period.” Now, the point of this story is that when you have expenses that are caused by not having enough money, that\u2019s expensive.<\/p>\n

You may think, “Well, of course! That\u2019s obvious.” No, it means something specific. When you are charged late fees in addition to your bill, when you are charged disconnect charges when you don\u2019t pay the bill, they disconnect you and charge you for it. When you are faced with selective taxes in the form of court fines or fees, that kind of expense makes it practically impossible to get ahead.<\/p>\n

When running out of money costs you additional money, is what this story is about. When running out of money costs you even more money. But still, it\u2019s another story about how you are destined to be poor, and there\u2019s no way out. The third story is from the New York Times<\/a>: “Unsteady Incomes Keep Millions Behind on Their Bills.” <\/p>\n

The New York Times writes a very descriptive story on the plight of a little family as they deal with job losses and a string of events that keep them from getting even one step ahead. These people are living without a safety net. They\u2019re portrayed as walking the financial tight rope every day. They live one meager paycheck to paycheck — and, of course, in this story as well, nowhere is the name Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

Nowhere is the parallel between economic plight and economic policy mentioned. The reasons you can\u2019t get a job is not mentioned. The reason your job doesn\u2019t pay you very much is not mentioned. The reason that the country is converting more full-time, career-oriented jobs to part time is not given. All of these things are mentioned, but the reason for them is not, and that would be Obama economics. <\/p>\n

So in all three stories, each story is a variation on how you do not have a smidgen of a chance to do well financially. And all three of these, quite naturally, are liberal publications. The Atlantic, Slate.com, and the New York Times. I guarantee you their readers are gonna read this, and they\u2019re gonna believe every word of it, and they\u2019re gonna get down in the dumps and they\u2019re gonna get dejected and they\u2019re gonna start wanting to blame somebody.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re gonna look around and they\u2019re gonna find out, “Well, who\u2019s rich? Who\u2019s got a lot? Who is doing well?” and those people will get the blame. That\u2019s how it works. The achievers and the successful become stigmatized as uncaring and selfish, and then they become targets from whom we need to take even more. Because if it weren\u2019t for their greed, if they weren\u2019t desirous of earning so much money, there\u2019d be more to spread around to everybody else.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what these stories imply, or at least the reader will infer. You add to this whatever type of poison they\u2019re being taught… I tell you, this story about Rolling Stone and the phantom rape? There\u2019s a woman that wrote a story. I can\u2019t remember where. She\u2019s so off the rails, she is so consumed with rage, she\u2019s making the point that we have a duty to, as a default, accept every accuser\u2019s word on rape or sexual abuse, because we women are truly hated in this country.<\/p>\n

This is a writer at a major American publication, and I\u2019m sure she really believes it. I see stuff like this and ask, “Who told her this?” She didn\u2019t leave the womb thinking this stuff. Her parents might have believed it. But more than likely, I think the poison that people are being fed at American universities explains a lot of this tripe. That\u2019s what you find in the professors. That\u2019s where you find really rage and anger, and they\u2019ve got tenure and nobody can shut them up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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