RUSH: Let me go back to Jack here in Miami. Jack, welcome back to the program, and thanks again for holding on.
CALLER: That’s okay. How you doing, Rush?
RUSH: Very good, very well, just as good as the last time I spoke to you. Now, you’re 20 years old, you’re a Rush baby, and I have been the one constant voice in your life, I believe you said.
CALLER: Yes, that is true.
RUSH: You feel helpless? Describe this to me. What do you mean, helpless?
CALLER: Well, I kind of feel bad for saying this because I feel like I should know what to do, but as I’m getting more into the, quote, unquote, real world, I’m just being confronted by people that just in normal, every day discussions, that have the stupidest ideas about money, economy, law, power, and I try to explain it to them, and I don’t even try to explain it to them by using, you know, simple facts. I break it down as much as I can. Yesterday I was in a huge argument with my boss about why oil companies should have tax breaks. They can create more jobs with the money that they don’t have to pay to the government, obviously. I tried breaking that down, and no matter how hard I tried, it wasn’t even going in one ear to go out the other, it seems.
RUSH: Yeah, I understand that. I have encountered that, as we all have, all of us who are conservative encountered this all of our lives. But just to give you some optimism here, despite the fact that we’ve been encountering it all our lives, you’re only 20 years old. I was born in 1951. There was no such thing as — well, there was conservatism, but nobody knew yet. There were people like Bill Buckley and Russell Kirk and a number of others who were building a foundation. Barry Goldwater came along and Ronald Reagan, I’m sure you know enough recent history. The lesson here is that despite what you see as something hopeless, tremendous progress has been made and is being made. And you find yourself now, you’re young and you’re learning and you feel like you’re armed with information that’s correct; you’re surrounded by people who not only don’t get it, they’re not interested in it, and it frustrates you.
The one thing that you have to understand about all this is you have to understand the makeup of many liberals — not all of them. Some of them are thinking people, but you have to understand liberalism itself. It is a feeling. It’s an emotion. It’s not based on things that are reasonable. It’s based on a whole bunch of things that are really designed to make them feel better about themselves. I don’t want to get into too much discussion of liberals because you’re the focal point here and your helplessness. You should not give up trying because in the process of trying to talk to these people, what you’ll do is help yourself. You will learn to express your thoughts better, more coherently and more persuasively, the more you do it, and you can look at this as somewhat of a challenge. Do not get frustrated when they don’t hear it, believe it, or accept it, although you’ll find over time that some of them will – but not in your presence.
They will never allow you to know that you’ve changed their mind. What you’re going to have to do is take comfort and solace, as we all do, in your own sense of self-achievement as you get better at understanding, articulating, and explaining these things to people. So at the end of one of these typical conversations that you just described with your boss, you ought to learn to walk away from it feeling very good because you expressed your position cogently, you expressed it artfully, you expressed it persuasively. If he didn’t get it, that’s not your fault. In the process of doing all this, what’s going to happen is you’re going to influence far more people than you know. We all do this. We all have far more impact on far more people than any of us are ever aware, even if you’re looking for that impact. I know a lot of people who are looking for evidence that they’re having impact. They’re never satisfied, and that’s because they’re looking for others to provide personal feedback. Learn to provide your own satisfaction yourself. You’ll know when you’ve done a good job of this and when you haven’t, and those times where you haven’t will spur you to do even better the next time.
In the process, you’re going to meet like-minded people. You’re going to meet people who agree with you, who understand what you’re talking about, and those people will become your circle of friends. It’s not to say you can’t be friends with liberals, because you can, but not if every meeting with them is combat or argument or mild confrontation. There’s more to life than politics and ideology, and you need a well-rounded life as well, but in the process of being who you are, you’re going to attract people like you, which is what you want. You’re going to attract friends, you’re going to attract business associates, and in the process you’re going to feel far more confident as that begins to happen. And you’re going to get a sense here that you’re not alone, that you’re not lost, and that you can, if you want to use this phrase — I’m not crazy about it, but you can make a difference. The point is you’re going to make a difference far more than you know. You’re not married yet, are you?
CALLER: No, I’m not.
RUSH: Well, you’re going to be married someday, probably. The statistics say that you are, and someday you’re probably going to have children. The way you raise them, the household that they grow up in, the values that you inculcate to them. I mean, this is how these things spread. This is how your values that you consider important are inculcated to others. In this sense you’re not forcing them on anybody, you’re just exposing them to yours. Ah, your kids will rebel at times, that always happens, but don’t feel lost and alone, particularly when your ideas and your attempts to persuade are rejected by people who really don’t have half the information you have. What kind of business are you in?
CALLER: I’m in loss prevention.
RUSH: What’s that? I don’t know what it is.
CALLER: It’s like retail, you come in and shoplift, I apprehend you.
RUSH: Oh, okay, so you basically, you go out and you — I got it. So you have a boss —
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: — and you’re talking to him about these things, and he has no understanding of what you’re saying because in his mind, he has been raised, he’s been exposed to people who believe oil is bad.
CALLER: Yeah. It’s almost like he’s saying a swear word when he says ExxonMobil. It’s almost like it’s evil.
RUSH: Of course. Now, you can develop arguments for this. You can say, okay, ExxonMobil had a profit of whatever — the world’s largest profit ever — and this guy is probably outraged about it.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: Ask him if he’s concerned about the massive losses of Ford Motor Company. Ask him if he’s concerned about the massive profits of Toyota. Ask questions that make him question his own bigotry, which is what this guy is, but he’s been trained, he’s been raised this way.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Let me tell you a little story. I was out at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am a couple weeks ago which is where I’m sure I caught this mysterious ravaging virus, whatever is this disease coursing through my busy broadcast veins. There’s a traditional big party every Wednesday night that’s put on by one of the world’s most famous financiers, and this year I happened to be seated next to a huge — not going to mention any names — liberal, Hollywood liberal. This was done on purpose by the people who arranged the party, because they were hoping for fireworks, entertaining kind of fireworks with this guy and I getting into it. It’s happened before. It happened at the 60 Minutes 25th anniversary party at the Temple of Dundar at the Museum of Natural History — whatever it was — in New York.
They sat me next to Camille Paglia, Steve Kroft did. They thought, ?Oh, this was going to lead to fireworks!? So Steve Kroft and Ed Bradley were circling the table every five minutes waiting for the fireworks. Camille Paglia and I are now best buds. This friend of this guy that I was seated next to, when he first spotted me, the first thing he said to me, Jack, “You have gotta get your mind right about oil! You know that oil’s destroying this country. You know that oil is going to destroy the world with global warming.” I’m sitting here, I’m saying this is a party, I am here for a good time. I said to him, ?Sir, I’ll be glad to talk about this with you at any time other than here. I have a problem hearing when there are other people in the room, and I don’t want to get into it. This is not the place for it.? In the meantime, we ended up talking about other things and he ended up inviting me to his Academy Award party.
CALLER: Wow.
RUSH: But I’m sure that was just for the fireworks. ?If you’re in LA, come to my Academy Award party.? I’m not going to be in LA this weekend, so I can’t go to the Academy Award parties, but the point is I haven’t had the conversation about oil with him, but I will someday, but it’s probably going to be much like — and this is a big-time Hollywood big shot — it’s going to be much like you talking to your boss. But I look at it as an opportunity to hone my own ability to tell people what I think, rather than sit there. Don’t be intimidated. This guy is your boss, but don’t be intimidated. The point is you’re on the right track here, you have every reason to feel proud of yourself with what you believe. Don’t let your pride and your happiness and your self-satisfaction be determined by the fact that other people who were lesser than you don’t understand what you do. Don’t let that indicate that you’re a failure. You have to understand that it’s just unfortunate they don’t get it and you keep on keeping on.
CALLER: Wow. Is it safe to say that I feel like I owe you money?
RUSH: (Laughing) No, no, no, no. Look, I love getting calls like this from people who are 20 years old. You know, this whole thing keeps going. I mean, I’m 56. I was 20 once. I was where you are. I knew what I believed but I couldn’t tell people why. Bill Buckley and my dad were the two people that enabled me to finally be able to understand why I felt what I felt, thought what I thought intellectually, and they were role models for me. I emulated them in their ability to articulate what they believed in a very persuasive way. You’ve got a lot to look forward to. You’re just on the cusp of something here, and it’s people like you who are going to in ten, 15, 20 years keep the so-called conservative movement alive. You have a responsibility out there, Jack, and don’t let yourself get down on yourself because these other people who are liberals don’t buy what you believe. You’re giving them too much power when you do that.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: All right?
CALLER: Okay, man. Thank you very much.
RUSH: My pleasure.