Black America and the Founding

RUSH: To Chicago and Verlin, thank you for waiting, sir. Great to have you on the EIB Network.

CALLER: Thanks for taking my call, Rush. You have a great show. Okay, now, I don’t want you to take me the wrong way because I am a conservative and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

RUSH: All right.

CALLER: But the reason why I never voted Democrat is because I’m aware of my history, and I know what the Democrat Party is about since it was founded. Now, I’ve been voting conservative up until now. Republican up until now. Now, I haven’t voted Democrat yet but the way the Conservative Party, the stands that it’s taking, it’s talking about, ‘Let’s reach back to our forefathers and things of that nature,’ and when I look back at the forefathers, I see the way the Constitution says it, I wasn’t even a man. So how can I relate to what the party is talking about now when it doesn’t relate to me? Now, normally you all say, ‘Let’s just move forward from right here.’ I’m with you on that. But when you start talking about George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and all that type of stuff, I just can’t relate to that — and when I try to debate that with my black friends or whoever I talk to, I lose the argument, because they always throw that in my face. ‘Well, they talking about the Constitution. You weren’t even three-fifths of a man in the Constitution,’ and I lose the argument.

RUSH: Let me —

CALLER: They were slave owners.

RUSH: Verlin.

CALLER: I lose the argument.

RUSH: Let me jump in here because over the years a bunch of journalists interviewing me have asked me, ‘Do you think you are being a little shallow in not really understanding what the founding of this country means to black people?’ And I said, ‘Well, no, I understand fully what it means, but I don’t know that they know the full history of what happened of the founding. But I also know that now is not the founding and I also know that when we talk about ‘returning to founding principles,’ we’re not talking about returning to slavery. We’re talking about returning to individual liberty.’ Now, let me tell you, Verlin, that at the constitutional convention the whole subject of the Southern states owning slaves was a huge problem. John Adams, no less recognized, it as such, and they almost were unable to put the coalition of the 13 colonies together because of it. The only reason that they acquiesced to it was they had to form a union in order to rebel against the king. When they wrote the Constitution, they provided the mechanism for all of these things that were wrong at the founding to be fixed. This was the first country, the Brits were close behind, to actually get rid of slavery, and we went to war with ourselves over it and 600,000 of our citizens died in the process. So the aspect of slavery in the founding days is our original sin, there’s no question about it, but nobody wants to return to that.

CALLER: Okay. But the whole thing is, is black people — I’m just talking from the perspective of what I hear. Black people want to feel like you care, like America cares, period. Because right now they feel like America doesn’t care and the Democratic Party is the party that always acts like they have the extended helping hand.

RUSH: Right. You need to ask these people: What has the Democratic Party done for them in the last 50 years?

CALLER: Oh, sure thing!

RUSH: They’re still complaining about the same old things, Verlin. The Democrat Party is what’s keeping them down. The Democrat Party is what’s busted up their families.

CALLER: I understand that. I totally understand all of the points as far as how they used to give the women housing but the man couldn’t be there, so like the government is taking care of the family. I understand that. The Democratic Party were the one that was behind all that. But get me right, now: Public housing and public aid system is for everyone, it’s not just for blacks. But black people started taking advantage of it in like the late sixties and early seventies.

RUSH: Yeah, but I’m going to tell you something. My whole view of that is that while the intentions might have been all that wonderful, the results were disastrous. Frankly, I question the intentions. I think the effort of the Democrat Party from the get-go has been to create as many dependent people as possible starting with minorities and continuing now with as many people — I don’t care what race — as possible. That’s what the Democrat Party is all about. And it’s a shame. I mean, it dehumanizes so many people. The Democrat Party and leftism in this country has robbed black people, Hispanics, minorities, all kinds of people of a genuine prosperous future by telling them they live in a horrible country that gives them no chance when all the evidence is to the opposite. I would tell your friends to grow up. It’s not the 1700s. It’s not even 1963 with Bull Connor, who was a Democrat. It’s 2010. We all gotta work together to save the country so that we all don’t end up like everybody else living in a housing project.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Not many people know this. The states outlawed slavery long before the federal government did. In 1804, every northern state had outlawed slavery. But if blacks can’t relate to the Founders, how can they relate to the Democrat Party? It’s the party of slavery, the KKK, secession, segregation. My God.