RUSH: Hi and welcome back. Rush Limbaugh here at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. This the most listened to radio talk show in the country. And I am America’s Real Anchorman, America’s Truth Detector and the Doctor of Democracy, all combined in one harmless, lovable little fuzzball bundle. Great to have you with us. Our telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

There are two million more kids qualifying for free school meals this year than there were in 2010. Fourteen million, up from 12 million in 2010. All told, the number of students receiving subsidized lunches rose to 21 million last year from 18 million in 2006-2007, a 17% increase. And in Tennessee the number of students receiving subsidized meals has grown 37% since 2007. And speaking of expanding government, Fox News and other channels are running a PSA about how Medicare is now holding open enrollment. You need to sign up now so you don’t miss any of your free benefits. Yep, all you have to do, call 1-800-Medicare.

There’s a story on all of these bureaucrats, these security people at Heathrow walked off the job because they’re gonna have to pay a little bit more for their own pensions, and things are running more smooth than they have in anybody’s memory. These people have walked off the job and operations at Heathrow are smooth as silk. I think it’s an interesting backfire.

What I was gonna say here before the break at the top of the hour, a lot of this that is happening in this country is happening because there are people who hate this country. And if that’s too strong a word for you, there are people that don’t like this country. Now, I mentioned this to the electric crowd in New York last night at the Town Hall. By the way, Snerdley, did you know that at Town Hall almost 90 years ago to the day that I was there last night, Margaret Sanger was arrested on stage? Margaret Sanger was arrested on stage for discussing contraception to a mixed-sex audience. It’s amazing how times have changed. Margaret Sanger today would be arrested for wanting to wipe out black people, which was part of what she really planned. Planned Parenthood, that’s what its original purpose was. People don’t want to admit this. Margaret Sanger is a hero to the abortion crowd, but what she really had in mind was something far more devious.

At any rate, folks, I know I’m naive. I’m 60 years old, and I remain naive. There are some things that I’m just never going to understand. I mean in my heart. Intellectually, after I’ve looked into it and studied it, it’s even tough to say I understand. I have the hardest time coming to grips with the fact that people born in this country hate it. I just can’t get my arms around that. Of all the other places in the world you could be, of all the other places in the world that need to be changed, all the other places in the world that need to be improved, this is the last place. It’s not perfect. Again, nothing ever is. (interruption) Am I naive by choice? Maybe. But still, I have to stop and analyze it when I see, hear, read people that don’t like this country.

I’ve heard all the reasons. Slavery, for one. But throw that out, ’cause we’ve lost half a million of our citizens fixing that. We’re one of the first nations to abolish it, make it illegal, in the modern era. Slavery is still practiced around the world. In fact, in Africa. I’ve had African-American people tell me that Thanksgiving doesn’t mean anything to them, and July 4th doesn’t mean anything to them. I even have trouble with that. ‘Cause this is not 1776. It’s 2011. I just have a tough time understanding people who hate and don’t like this country. The reasons that they come up with don’t move me. I see a country that’s been in existence less than 250 years, with less than 300 million people and has done miraculous things, and I say this a lot, but I think it’s worth repeating.

Our DNA is not different than any other human being. We’re not different in any way. We’re human like everybody else on earth. We’re special in a lot of ways but we’re not different. There’s nothing that sets us apart in terms of our humanity. So how is it possible that a nation of less than 300 million people, in fewer than 250 years, when there have been societies and countries and populations around thousands of years that still can’t do 20% of what we have accomplished? Of course the answers are obvious. The first one that comes to mind is freedom, true. But there have been places around the world that had decent amounts of freedom. The British Empire was built by people who were free. It doesn’t exist anymore, by the way, British Empire. But there’s magic. There was a spiritual blessing in the founding of this country. It was a miraculous thing.

The history of the humanity has been poverty and bondage, slavery, tyranny. Certainly hasn’t been freedom. You talk about American exceptionalism, in one sense, the term doesn’t mean we’re better. That’s how people like Obama look at it. “I’m sure the British think they’re exceptional, too.” Look, small mind, that’s not what American exceptionalism means. American exceptionalism is not a braggadocious term. American exceptionalism is not a superiorist term. American exceptionalism is an acknowledgement that this country was an exception to the way people lived, to the way people were forced to live.

This country is an exception to the standard operating procedure of human beings. This was the first serious country to govern itself outside of central planning, a powerful government dictating and ordering everything. That’s where we’re headed now. But that’s not how we were founded. I really don’t mind admitting my naivete. I do not understand how you can hate this country. And, look, life hasn’t been a bowl of cherries for me. Fired seven or eight times, whatever it was. I never made any money ’til I was in my late forties. Didn’t matter. The possibility was always there. The opportunity was always up to me.

Yeah, there were people that held me back. I had to find a way around them, but mostly I just had to find out what I loved to do then remain dedicated to it. Then work hard. Now all of that, that’s even laughed at and made fun of. “Oh, yeah, easy for you to say! Easy for you to work hard and get a job. You were just lucky.” No. No. I had lucky elements, lucky things happen. Everybody does. But it has never occurred to me to hate the country! It has just never occurred to me. But you take a guy like Obama and half of his administration if not all of it, and they run around and they look at America as exceptionally evil. They think that America became what it became by virtue of crime. We stole all the stuff that we have.

First from the Indians, and then the people in the Caribbean, and then we stole it from the Indians again, then we made the Indians alcoholics, then we turned ’em into this and we’ve stolen all the oil in the world, and we’ve stolen all the grass, and we’ve stolen all the broccoli. We’ve stolen all the corn and we’ve stolen all the natural gas, and because of that we’re destroying the world. I can’t intellectually follow this. I try to find out, “Okay, if I wanted to change somebody’s mind who has this view of America, how would I do it?” You have to be able to, as a starting point, understand the grievance that they’ve got. But if the grievance they have is totally irrational, what do you do with them? As far as I’m concerned, you defeat ’em. You don’t try to bring ’em along.

Those days are over. The only thing they have to do is make sure people like that don’t win elections anymore. They’re still always gonna be a problem. The simplest way to do this, simplest way would simply be to take over the education system. If every university was Hillsdale College, for example. Think of that. I say that not just because they’re a sponsor even though they are. What do they do? I don’t care what your degree is at Hillsdale, you study the Constitution for four years and you understand when you get out of that place why this country is what it is. You understand how it happened. You understand the imperfections, you understand the greatness, and you understand the flaws. You know it.

Now, it used to be that that was rote. It used to be that go to school, that’s what you were taught. Now the multicultural curriculum has taken over, and that’s the last thing you’re taught. You are taught as a young student how flawed your country is, how criminal it is, how unjust and immoral it has been. How your country’s destroying the planet, and only you can save the planet by agreeing to let the government run your life, pay higher taxes, have a bunch of windmills that you don’t want, a bunch of solar panels that you can’t afford, that don’t work; drive a bunch of cars that are gonna catch fire on you after you run through the 30-mile charge. Yeah, progress!