RUSH: When did the concept of hate speech arrive?
Can you remember when the whole idea of hate crimes as an accepted phenomenon arrived? Think back in your life. When did you first hear about it? When did you first hear about hate crimes? “Okay, you have an assault on somebody. It’s bad. The assault’s very bad. All of a sudden now, we’re gonna call it a hate crime because the victim was gay.” When did that first start? When did the concept of hate crimes and hate speech — when did all of that start?
I think once you answer that, many other vistas will open up and become clear.
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RUSH: Okay, back to the audio sound bites, ladies… (interruption) Yeah, I know when it began, but I’m gonna wait and see if people figure it out. Hate speech, hate crimes, I can peg it. I know exactly when it began, the left’s decision to start characterizing things that way. I mean, crime’s always been around. This hate crime crap is just a leftist creation to politicize it. I’m not talking about when crime began.
When did the left start to characterize crime as “hate crime” and speech as “hate speech”? (interruption) No, it was in the late eighties, actually, 1988 is when it began, with the arrival of this program. If you want to say the early nineties with the explosion of talk radio into the mainstream culture, all of a sudden “hate speech” began to be popularized — and from that, hate crimes started happening.
Once conservatism achieved prominence in popular/mainstream culture, all of a sudden it was hate-filled. The left began to characterize it that way as a way of diminishing it, impugning it, and discrediting it. It was talk radio. I’m telling you. It’s not because it’s me doing it. I’m telling you, talk radio has these people turning upside down in fits of rage. I think talk radio, that’s when the media threw in.
I think the media surrendered their constitutional freedom and threw in officially with the left, with the rise of talk radio. I believe that with every fiber of my sizable soul and beating heart. Let’s go to New York City last night. This is on the YES Network, the Yankees sports network, cable network. What we have here is a portion of the play-by-play of the Brooklyn Nets center Jason Collins.
He’s the first openly gay player to actually play in a professional sports game. It happened last night, the Brooklyn Nets against the Los Angeles Lakers. This is the Nets play-by-play announcer Ryan Ruocco, as Jason Collins — who, by the way, took the number 98 in solidarity with Matthew Shepard, who it’s now been proven didn’t happen, but was reputed to have been beaten up by a bunch of anti-gay bigots. Anyway, here’s how it sounded. I haven’t heard this. Let’s see how it sounds.
RUOCCO: You begin to hear a little bit of applause in the crowd as Collins gets ready. (buzzer) Here it is.
ANNOUNCER: Number 46, Jason Collins.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
RUOCCO: You hear the applause. A historic moment at Staples Center as Jason Collins becomes the first openly gay athlete to play in any of this country’s four major professional sports!
RUSH: Now, you’re gonna have to help me out here, because my guidance on the sound bite says that the fans “applauded mildly.” I can’t tell. Was that a standing ovation? Was it raucous, big-time applause? Or was it just mild? Which was it? (interruption) Could you tell? (interruption) “It wasn’t a triumphant standing ovation, this kind of stuff. It was just polite applause.” Okay, cool. Here’s Jason Collins after the game. This makes Michael Sam number two now. Jason Collins is number one, ’cause he’s actually played in a game as a gay athlete.
Yeah, we got time for this. This is what he said after the game.
COLLINS: The most important thing’s that my team won. That’s all I’ve ever cared about is just going out there and making plays to help my team win. My role, um, is to be a mentor and to be, you know, that example and try to help the people who come after me.
RUSH: And there you have. His job is to be a mentor and help the people that come after him. Oh. Oh. And win games.