RUSH: Midland, Michigan. This is Tim. Tim, great to have you with us. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I wanted to call and let you know I’m an exception to the Obama economy rule. In the last six years I have more than doubled, almost tripled my income, and it has nothing to do with Obama. It all has to do with something you said in a tirade a few years back. I was an uninformed Democrat. I started listening to you because my car only got one station and you were on it. And you were on a tirade about if you want to improve yourself, don’t wait for the government. Take care of business, get off your butt and educate yourself. It just clicked in my head. So I must call and thank you for changing my life.
RUSH: Well, I appreciate you saying that, sir. I really do. You know, it’s all about challenging conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is a powerful thing and it doesn’t just have to be conventional wisdom in the news. It’s amazing the motivational things that work on people. For example, if you were to say to somebody, “Create your own circumstances. You don’t have to live under the circumstances that dominate your life right now.
“I don’t?”
No. Create your own. People fall into — you know the old phrase change is hard? Most people don’t like change? They don’t, because it’s new. Everything about change is new. And people, they get comfortable. They get comfortable in routine and it’s oftentimes safer to just stay within the friendly confines of routine. To go outside that is to really upset apple carts. It’s change and sometimes it’s scary and that can freeze people and keep them from doing things that are in their best interests. But all it would take is change your own circumstance. If they’re going to have a recession, I’m not participating, any number of things. So whatever it was, it got to you, and I’m glad that it did, because now you have independence. You don’t have to depend on what they’re doing in order for your livelihood, more than likely, right?
CALLER: That is correct. I was blaming my boss. I was blaming the rich people. I was blaming the Republicans. And once I started blaming myself and taking care of my own business, I have truly freed myself.
RUSH: That is great. By the way, you weren’t uncommon. Most people will gladly accept an excuse that doesn’t involve them. That’s one of the reasons why liberalism sells so well. Liberals gladly tell you, “You have nothing to do with your own failure. You’ve got nothing to do with how screwed up you are. You have nothing to do with how odd and weird you are. It’s somebody else’s fault. It’s the Republicans. It’s the conservatives. It’s Wall Street. Whoever.”
Somebody can come along and convince you that in your misery you are fine, that your misery is owing to somebody else. And the Democrats, we’re going to punish them for you. We’re going to raise their taxes. We’re going to increase regulations on them. We’re going to make their lives miserable, too. Yours isn’t improved, but you think they’re getting the shaft a little bit so you’re supposed to be happier. Liberalism is a real easy sell. You’re not responsible for anything. It’s always somebody else’s fault, and as an added bonus, whoever’s fault it is the libs are really going to punish.
But even after all that, the people the libs punish, at least economically still seem to be doing okay. After all that, you’re still miserable. After turning your life over to the left to get even with the people you think are screwing you, nothing changes. You’re still miserable. You’re still blaming the same people until you get hold of things and realize you have much more control over your life than you believe, and the real key to it is there’s nobody. It isn’t Ted Kennedy. It isn’t Barack Obama. It isn’t Hillary Clinton. It isn’t Bill Clinton. There’s nobody who cares as much about you as you do.
But you may have been taught that it’s selfish to care about yourself. You may have been guilt tripped into believing that acting in your own self-interest is selfish. That acting in your own self-interest is leaving other people out or taking advantage of other people. You may have been led to believe that staying miserable and average is fair and nice, because it doesn’t humiliate anybody else. All you’re doing is allowing other people to determine your lot in life, your position in life, and they never make it better. Not appreciably. Liberalism’s life changing impacts are almost always negative.
Pick any abundantly wealthy person, outside of someone who inherited their money, and try and figure out what it was about liberalism that did it for them. I acknowledge there might be some things. If you were able to form a crony relationship with government and your business benefited and you as the owner benefited, yeah, that can happen. But you know how many people that really affects. You can put them in a thimble, compared to the population. Compared to the number of people who rely on themselves, invest in themselves, take control of their lives and become whatever, that’s where the big numbers are.
But it’s change. It’s risky. And if you listen to too many liberals, it’s unfair because you might have more advantages than other people. You might be better at something than somebody else is or you might be a little smarter, and it’s not fair that you should have more. They guilt trip people every day. It’s part and parcel of liberalism. It’s just easy. Nothing’s ever your fault and whoever is to blame for where you are in life, the left is going to punish them for you. Very seductive. I’m glad you called, Tim. Thanks so much.