The following is a reprint of a Rush Limbaugh monologue.
Have you ever stopped to think why, how did the United States, in less than 300 years, reach heights that no nation in the history of humanity has reached, and some of these nations have existed for thousands of years, how did it happen?
How did it happen that a country of human beings who are no different DNA-wise than anywhere else in the world, what is it that sets the United States apart? If you have traveled anywhere internationally, basic hygiene, basic services, basic auto, what have you, you always ask yourself, "My gosh, when are these people gonna get to the twentieth century?" In whatever country you go to, even the UK. How did it happen?
Here's another way, let's boil it down to something a little bit more understandable and less esoteric, although I like the esoteric. Stop and think for a moment of everything in your life that really matters that you take for granted. And let me just list some. Plentiful food, electricity, the flick of a switch for most anything you want, flush toilets, the finest cars, the finest trucks, the finest airplanes, toasters, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, cell phones, smartphones, computers, large-screen TVs, air-conditioning, heating, quality homes and apartments, cutting-edge medicines, cutting-edge medical devices. The list goes on and on and on and on in every one of those categories. We either invented it or perfected it beyond anybody's wildest imagination.
And the question is, why did it take us to do it? Why didn't others do it first? Why did it happen to be that we did it, realizing our DNA is no different than anybody else's.
You see, these things, and more that you can mention in your own life, these things all happened because we were the freest people on earth. These things all happened because of a degree and amount of liberty that people around the world have never known before the United States came into existence. There have been socialist, communist, tyrannical governments since the beginning of time. And I am confident in saying that no government anywhere, any time, including ours, is responsible for any of these things on this list that I just mentioned. People with the freedom and the liberty to use their God-given talents and ambitions and ingenuity and creativity made all this happen.
If governments could do these kind of things, it woulda happened long before the founding of the United States. But it was not even the founding of the United States government per se that made these things happen. It wasn't the government that did it. This is what's missing when people in politics talk about the importance of liberty and freedom. Oh, yeah, we can talk about it all day long, but you've got to then finish the sentence. You've got to explain to people what it means. It's not just freedom from a dungeon. It's not just freedom from burdensome regulation. It really, really matters to quality of life and standard of living, the best the world has ever known. Okay, so, folks, why do Republicans not make these connections? Liberty equals what? Liberty means what?
Mark Levin, first chapter of his book Liberty and Tyranny is on this whole business of why freedom and liberty are so hard to sell. Here's a little excerpt. "Liberty's permanence in American society often makes its manifestations elusive or invisible to those born into it. And even if liberty is acknowledged, it's often taken for granted and its permanence assumed." So by asking people, "Next time you throw on that switch, next time you push the button to start your car, next time you download your e-mail on your cell phone or whatever, don't take it for granted, stop to think of it, and ask yourself, 'What government did that?'"
It's liberty, it's freedom. A greater amount for humanity than has ever existed was in this country, and it's what made all these advances take place. And it's not just consumerism. The finest medical research, treatment, you name it. Air-conditioning, the productivity of economies, the productivity of individuals. Air-conditioning alone, the economic impact, the positive economic impact resulting from the invention of air-conditioning. I need to stress again that socialist or tyrannical or all kinds of oppressive governments have been around for years. And it wasn't until we came along that all of this stuff began to happen in ways that had never happened before.
So what is hard about linking liberty to capitalism, freedom to all of these things I mentioned. Well, just one explanation is, in today's world, and there are many more cases than these I mentioned, these are just things off the top of my head, but let's talk about cutting-edge medicines. A Republican comes out and starts praising cutting edge medicines, that's, what, drug companies. What are the Democrats gonna do to him? Tool of Big Pharma, or he's a tool of Big Oil. That's another thing. Energy, you want to talk about taking something for granted that has improved lifestyles and created more economic productivity and output than anybody could dream of a hundred years ago. In the modern culture in which we live, linking liberty and freedom to Big Oil is an indictment of liberty and freedom by the time the Democrats get finished with it, by the time the media gets finished.
It's like this silly Benghazi stuff. Everyone knows that Susan Rice was sent out to push the Obama adiministrations story. There's no question that everybody involved, be it intel, CIA, State Department, knew that it was a terror attack. But now the people trying to get to the bottom of this so that American lives might be saved in the future are simply called racists and bigots, a bunch of white guys going after an innocent black woman, Susan Rice. And guess who the voters happen to believe as we sit here today? I'm telling you, a majority of people watching the news think, "Yep, a couple old white guys are unnecessarily attacking a poor black woman. She doesn't deserve this." That's the majority view. It's just the world we live in right now.
By the way, speaking of Benghazi, have you heard the latest massage of this? There were actually two protests. The first one was bouncing off of Cairo, and it was because of the video, and then Al-Qaeda saw that and jumped into the fray with their coordinated attack. So Obama was telling the truth all along, folks, it really was a protest, and it really was the video that these mean Al-Qaeda people took advantage of later on. And that's why it became a seven hour -- I'm sorry, when we're up against people willing to concoct and manufacture such blatant lies and distortions, it tests the mettle of people who want to oppose it. It tests the mettle of people who want to make themselves targets.
