Hubbub Over Graduation Cheers

RUSH: Jim in Fayetteville, North Carolina, I’m glad you waited. You’re first up today. Great to have you on the EIB Network.

CALLER: Hello.

RUSH: Hello.

CALLER: I’m calling about the people standing up and cheering in South Carolina, and you make it sound like, you know, the Gestapo is going to swoop in and arrest ’em. Have you been to a high school graduation in the last 30 or 40 years?

RUSH: Yeah, I’ve spoken at a couple.

CALLER: A-ha. Well, I hadn’t been to one since my own in ’64, and I went to one not too long ago, and it’s a whole different ball game now, and the people in the stands stand up and cheer and dance and raise hell. You know, it’s just ridiculous.

RUSH: What Jim is reacting to here is a story we had in the first hour that, wherever it was, I forget now, South Carolina —

CALLER: South Carolina.

RUSH: — there’s a rule that as graduates are granted their diplomas and so forth, you’re not supposed to cheer as each name is announced.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: You’re supposed to wait ’til everybody is finished, then you go nuts. But seven people were arrested and taken away in handcuffs because they cheered individuals at the time they got their diplomas.

CALLER: Yeah. And it’s probably not just cheering, it’s probably dancing and waving their arms and singing and, you know, I mean —

RUSH: I know, that’s really destructive stuff.

CALLER: Well —

RUSH: It’s worth getting handcuffed for. I know the rule is the rule, but for crying out loud, handcuffs?

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: And cops coming in here and something on your record?

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Look, I went to a graduation. You asked me the question. I went to a graduation, this has to be mid-nineties, and there was cheering, some of the kids got cheered, others didn’t, when they graduated, but nobody got carted away, and there was no rule that said suspend until everybody gets their diploma, and I didn’t find anything wrong with it. If everybody wants to make their own rules and abide by them, fine, but to have the cops come in there and handcuff people and take them away, maybe you’re right, maybe they’re doing more than just standing up and cheering.

CALLER: Yeah, I think so, and I’d like to see a little bit of dignity and respect for the feelings of the people that aren’t cheering.

RUSH: Well, I understand that, but I’ve been to too many of these things where the kids cheer each other, it’s once in a lifetime — you only graduate from high school once — unless of course you have to go back later, vocational school or something. The fact of the matter is it was fun to watch these people do this. It’s their graduation, there’s too much fun being taken out of all of this. I mean, if you want to handcuff people, I’m telling you there are plenty of things going on, I’ll bet you, while this graduation is taking place of people engaging in activity who genuinely deserve to be handcuffed. This is not isolated. It starts out by saying you can’t pray, you can’t have any religious reference at your graduation, and then you can’t cheer at your graduation, and then, who knows what it’s going to be next. Everybody sits around and lets all these little, bitty encroachments take place, pretty soon the cumulative effect pops up and you realize that a lot of things you used to be able to do, you can’t do.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Mack in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Good afternoon. How are you?

RUSH: Very well, sir. Thank you.

CALLER: I’m calling about the recent graduation situation out in the suburb of Cleveland. I read in the paper where the students that were wearing military uniforms were denied the right to be on the platform in uniform, and that’s the way I read it in the paper. So I got a little annoyed and I tracked down the principal of this school, and the story as it appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer was completely incorrect. The true story is the school board had passed an edict that they could not graduate in uniform. So the principal compromised, and what he did was have the recent military guys that had recently graduated basic and so forth wear their uniforms, carry the colors, and stand up for a standing ovation by the public that was attending the ceremony. So when I asked the principal why the story in the paper was completely different than what he has told me, he said that he accurately reported it to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and they changed the story. So there’s a perfect example of the hit-and-run media. Roger that?

RUSH: Roger that. Roger that. Drive-By Media.

CALLER: That’s correct.

RUSH: Drive-By Media, hit-and-run media, same thing. They run over everybody’s street and keep driving on.

CALLER: Roger that (laughing) and it really got me annoyed.

RUSH: Well, you know, it’s a good thing you called the principal. A lot of people wouldn’t have done that, they just read the paper and got steamed and so forth, but —

CALLER: Well, he took my call, and he was an outstanding gentleman, and I promised him I’d call you and report the story as it really happened and —

RUSH: Well, I’m sure that made his day.

CALLER: And he said the Marine was wearing his dress blues, and they just wouldn’t stop applauding, and I said, you know, to take a uniform off a Marine is like trying to skin ’em alive.

RUSH: Thanks for the call out there, Mack, great story.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: John in Coral Springs, Florida, nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Hello, sir. How are you?

RUSH: Good.

CALLER: I just had a comment for you. I — I think you’re a little bit mistaken about the high school commencement exercises and the cheering.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: Being — being a teacher, I’ve taught in high school, public school for about ten years, and been teaching in a private school for about five years, and the — the whole idea of — of standing and cheering, it comes from — I don’t — comes from a place of — It’s a class kind of thing. It’s undignified. Now teaching at a religious high school. It’s actually a religious ceremony and a commencement exercise, and it’s just inappropriate. It’s just undignified, and I don’t — I don’t quite see that it’s analogous to the — the other things that you mentioned like the turtles and the — the endangered — endangered —

RUSH: The red-cockaded woodpecker.

CALLER: Right. It — it — it’s to me, and what you try to get students to understand, it’s unclassy, it’s undignified. It’s not just that they’re cheering and — they’re being loud and obnoxious. It’s kind of — it’s kind of what — what I’ve experienced. You know, you want it to be a dignified setting, and —

RUSH: What are we talking here? We’re talking high school students. High school students and dignified?

CALLER: (laughs) Well, we try to teach them, anyway.

RUSH: They’re getting out of prison!

CALLER: (laughs)

RUSH: They’re getting out of prison here, John. They can’t wait to get out of there. They’re proud that they’ve graduated against the odds, that they had rotten teachers and a rotten school, and they still getting out of there with a diploma.

CALLER: Well, but you’re trying to prepare them to be — to be more than that. You — you want them to — to see what — what is possible and not just stay within —

RUSH: You don’t see the loss of freedom in this? You don’t see the slow encroaching on freedom? This is a celebration! This is not a funeral.

CALLER: Well, yeah, you can clap and you can applaud.

RUSH: Well, that’s what they did!

CALLER: I think — I think whether a — what — what — what — what the problem was is that it was more than that. It was beach balls, whooping and hollering and just undignified.

RUSH: Well, we didn’t see that in the story, beach balls and so forth. I didn’t see that.

CALLER: (laughter)

RUSH: At least they weren’t burning the American flag.

CALLER: I love you, Rush. I just think that, you know, I see — I see that you want it to be a dignified — an experience to remember, with class, not just like —

RUSH: Okay, let’s go to baseball or football game.

CALLER: (laughing) Okay.

RUSH: Are we going to ban cheering for the good guys, booing for the bad team?

CALLER: No, it’s a completely different setting.

RUSH: Why? We want dignity!

CALLER: (laughs)

RUSH: We want manners and we want dignity. I mean this is applauding achievement. This is acknowledging achievement.

CALLER: Right, but —

RUSH: We going to call that classless?

CALLER: Well, if you’re doing the commencement in a — in a football stadium, okay? I can see — I can see where it would be much more rambunctious, but if it’s in a church or if it’s in somewhere that’s a more intimate setting, something that is used not just for sporting events, but it needs to be something dignified.

RUSH: You mean like the high school auditorium where everybody gets to play Snow White in the school play?

CALLER: (laughing) Well, then I guess that’s why you tend to have it being like a sporting event. I guess the question you have to ask yourself is, ‘Do you want it to be like a sporting event, or do you want it to be something more, something different?’ I guess.

RUSH: See, this is just it.

CALLER: (laughs)

RUSH: I don’t feel, sitting from afar here, that I should impose what I think the proper behavior here for a graduation ceremony should be. Now, if I ran a school district or a school, if I was the principal, board; yeah it would be my responsibility to do that, and if I did set up rules that said, ‘There won’t be any cheering,’ I would I’ve got trouble. I’m trying to control some 18- and 17-year-olds who only want to get outta there because they’ve been in prison all of their lives — and here they have finally done it, and the more restrictions I put on them, the more I’m going to inspire them to break ’em. These are high school kids. These are kids that tried to solder the doors locked every day so they didn’t have to get in there! These are kids that wrote ”89 sucks’ on roofs that the paint wouldn’t cover. These kids are just getting out uncontrolled energy. You and I don’t have that kind of energy anymore. But I certainly would not handcuff ’em and have the cops come out, unless — and the story doesn’t say this — they were really causing problems for other people and harassing them, and if there was some physicality here. If there were threats, if the actions they were taking threatened the safety or the security of other people, then of course that’s a different thing. But if they’re just cheering the achievement of their friends or themselves, then I have to be a little bit more lenient here.

CALLER: But there again, okay. They —

RUSH: You remember back during the condom craze of the late eighties, early nineties? People said, ‘These kids are going to have sex anyway. We can’t stop it.’ That’s why we had to give ’em condoms. That’s when I said, ‘Okay, fine. Why don’t we give them the school nurse and her office to have sex in. Have the school nurse do the sex with the kids where we know it’s clean and safe. Have her put a pack of cigarettes out. Obama smokes. Put a pack of cigarettes and some matches on the bedside, ’cause kids ‘are going to do it anyway.”

CALLER: Well, no, that’s exactly what I’m saying. As a — as a — as a high school teacher, I hope to leave an impression upon the kids that there is more to life — yes, we do — We live in a society of rules, and if you want to succeed and be successful and — and — and — and achieve something more than just ordinary, then we have to —

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: I’m sorry?

RUSH: The discipline, you’re talking about —

CALLER: Yes, talking about discipline.

RUSH: Maintaining discipline and teaching kids respect.

CALLER: Yeah, morals and discipline, yes.

RUSH: Right, right, right, right, right.

CALLER: You know, say you’re before me in line at the commencement graduation exercise, and all your friends are whooping and hollering, and then, you know, they call my name — and my name is not even heard because of the noise that’s created.

RUSH: Well, they should —

CALLER: (laughs)

RUSH: Wait. No, the better analogy would be this. You’re friend in front of you gets his diploma, and he’s got a cheering section, and they go bonkers, they go wacko.

CALLER: Right, and my self-esteem is going to be hurt.

RUSH: No, it shouldn’t, but then you get up to line and you get your diploma and nobody showed up for you and there’s hardly any noise, that’s when you’re humiliated.

CALLER: Exactly!

RUSH: But in that indicated, you wouldn’t want them to hear your name since nobody’s there to cheer for you, so you would think the residual cheers are for you, because here you’ve got your diploma. You’ve gotta have a picture designed. Let me ask you a quick question before you go, John.

CALLER: Yes, sir. (laughs)

RUSH: I saw the most amazing video today. You speak about discipline and so forth. It’s a high school or college baseball game, I’m not sure which. And apparently the home plate umpire has just called a rotten game. And the catcher goes out, has a meeting with the pitcher, comes back behind the plate, squats down. The pitcher throws a high hard fastball straight down the million dollars of the plate. The catcher ducks, and it hits the ump right in the face. Right in the face mask! (laughs) I mean, there’s no question what this catcher did. It was no way he thought the pitch was going to be a drop-off-the-table curveball and was going down to get it in the dirt. He just got out of the way.

CALLER: Well, that’s unsportsmanlike.

RUSH: Of course, but the ump showed no ill effects. He’s wiring a mask. Now, the ump, couple days later, is going to sue!

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: (laughing)

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: But, now, I betcha that catcher was denied the chance to cheer at his graduation and was just getting back for lost time.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I can’t believe it. This happens every now and again. An innocent little story that I tell at the open of the program that is designed to illustrate the encroaching and gradual loss of freedom is causing the biggest hubbub — well, it’s not the biggest, but it’s a hubbub, much bigger hubbub than I thought it would be. Snerdley is livid in there. Dawn just told me during the break that at her daughter’s high school — she’s not ready to graduate yet, but they’ve got a new rule, not only can you not cheer, the graduates cannot throw their caps in the air like they do at the Air Force Academy and the Military Academy and the Naval Academy. They can’t do it because, ‘That’s right, Mr. Limbaugh, because those caps have pointed edges that could knock somebody’s eye out when they fall back from the sky.’ You can’t throw your caps in the air. The North Carolina mistress is berating me in e-mail after e-mail: ‘You are wrong, you are wrong, you are wrong, it’s an issue of manners.’ I’m getting it from both ends.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Orem, Utah, next. This is Lee. You’re on the EIB Network. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Hey, how you doing, Rush?

RUSH: Good. Thank you.

CALLER: Well, I heard your consternation about that one high school graduation, and ours were nothing like that. I went to a graduation a couple weeks ago, and it was nothing like that. We had horns. We didn’t have any balloons or anything, but we had a lot of noise. Everybody just had a good time. There were no police, just some ushers, and it’s always been that way here. I’m surprised that they have such a hard time with that in other parts of the country.

RUSH: Well, who knows why? I’m catching it from both sides on this. Let me reach into my trash paper box. I just got something I threw away because I thought the subject had played out, but here, I got it. I have an e-mail from a friend of mine in Kansas City. ‘Dear Rush: One of my sons just graduated high school. There were 25-plus valedictorians. Many had 4.2 GPAs. (Extra credit.) There were several speeches, a few by students and one by a school board member. The students gave disappointing talks even for high school, and the school board member was just terrible. It was a litany of things that kids shouldn’t do, according to an overprotective mother who kept all her slips of paper from fortune cookies! I was cheering wildly when this thing was over. How about passing a rule or a law requiring that only compelling, interesting riveting speeches be given? Impose dignity on the content of those ceremonies before you even think of imposing dignity on the people who went through the nonsense and then had to endure the ceremony itself.’

CALLER: Well, our ceremony was fun — and our speeches were bad, too, but nobody paid attention to them.

RUSH: Most of these speeches are bad.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Most of them are bad.

CALLER: We just had a good time. We spent an hour and it went smoothly, no problems. Everybody got cheered, and went outside, took pictures, and it was a fun time for everybody.

RUSH: Yeah, but you don’t have any rules, right?

CALLER: No. (laughs) Everybody kind of was on their honor, you know, and it works well.

RUSH: How many people are involved here?

CALLER: Well, 600 people graduated.

RUSH: Six hundred people graduated so that means you’ve got one-and-a-half parents per student.

CALLER: No, went in there, and they were saving seats, two and three rows of seats, grandparents, great-grandparents, grandchildren.

RUSH: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is Utah. I forgot.

CALLER: Yeah, this is Utah, right. (laughs) Yeah. But we had a good time. We really did. It was a lot of fun, and so I don’t want you thinking now all these high school graduations are that way, you know, like one wherever it was, down east or somewhere.

RUSH: Well, I don’t think there is such a thing as a uniform graduation ceremony. That’s the thing.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Everybody can do their own whenever.

CALLER: Well, that’s what we did, and works fine. It’s worked fine for years. Probably keep going that way, too.

RUSH: Did you have a daughter, a son or which?

CALLER: I had two daughters, twins, yeah.

RUSH: Did they graduate?

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Oh, twins, yeah, okay.

CALLER: Yeah. And they had fun. Some of the students would ham it up. They had little pictures taken right before they got on the floor, on the big screen, you know, and they’re all hamming it up.

RUSH: Can they throw their hats after the ceremony?

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Can’t do that in Florida, might hurt somebody when it falls.

CALLER: Well, all you gotta do is duck your head, you know, when the hats come down. (laughter)

RUSH: Well, I like that line: The school board member is reading a list of don’ts in her speech to the graduating seniors. Reading a list of don’ts to the student that was nothing different than if she had saved every fortune from every fortune cookie that she had received and was just reading off the various fortunes, ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t do this.’ He has a good point. If you make the ceremony a little dignified, make the ceremony a little interesting, you might have less of a problem with the students trying to make it interesting themselves.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Madeleine in Huntington Beach, what is this, California?

CALLER: Yes, it is.

RUSH: Welcome to the program. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Thank you. We just went to our son’s medical school graduation a week ago, at UC Irvine, and there was shouting, there were several bullhorns, there were Mylar balloons everywhere, which the California legislature is trying to outlaw now —

RUSH: Mylar balloons. Yes, I’ve heard of the threat —

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: — posed by Mylar balloons.

CALLER: Yes. And the most politically incorrect thing — it was a very dignified ceremony, you know, only a hundred graduates, classical music, very nice, outdoors, they released three flocks of doves at the end.

RUSH: No.

CALLER: When I saw that —

RUSH: That’s the problem with the Mylar balloons, because if the doves come into contacts with them you could have a disaster.

CALLER: But they flew away. I couldn’t figure out where the doves went.

RUSH: Well, if you were a dove would you hang around a graduation ceremony with a bunch of people whose expertise is scalpels?

CALLER: Probably not. (laughing) But I really expected someone to complain or protest about the doves.

RUSH: Why? They’re the symbols of peace, Una Paloma Blanca.

CALLER: It was absolutely beautiful.

RUSH: Who would have complained about that?

CALLER: Well, you never know. I mean even though this is Orange County, there’s surprisingly, California is a —

RUSH: Well, I know, but I mean dove releases, it happens at the Olympics, a couple of them end up getting baked on the flame every time, but they still release them.

CALLER: Well, I just wondered, where do they go?

RUSH: Maybe they return to their cages. They’re birds. I mean, they fly around, they live in the atmosphere, trees, doves, they probably end up in New Orleans begging that guy that feeds ’em there in front of the church.

CALLER: I thought maybe like carrier pigeons, do they come back, or — I don’t know. Anyway, it was noisy, it was raucous, and, you know, there were only a hundred graduates, so it didn’t take forever. But in between, each graduate, as they were announced, there were all sorts of screaming and hooting and bullhorns and —

RUSH: Yeah, this seems to be the norm in an informal survey that I have taken here today of anecdotal evidence presented by callers. So it seems the one place that we have had heard about anecdotally today that has a sticking point is this place in South Carolina. And I think there was also a school in North Carolina mentioned in this story. I’m not sure. I am certain about South Carolina. So it may well be. It may well be that there are problems there that have not been detailed for us in the Drive-By Media accounts, ’cause the Drive-By Media accounts say, yeah, they were cheering and then they were handcuffed and taken away. Maybe it is that the Drive-Bys were not telling us exactly what they were doing beyond cheering that might require uniformed security officials known as policemen to come in with handcuffs and take them away. Could be. I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time the Drive-By Media purposely left out crucial elements of a story to help us understand and explain these things.