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Our “New Normal” Reaction to Terror Is Unacceptable

by Rush Limbaugh - May 23,2017

RUSH: So it’s become a pattern. It’s obviously a pattern, and nobody’s really doing anything about it. We have a terror attack. Everybody expresses their shock and their outrage and their anger and their sorrows and their sympathies and their surprise, and then it repeats. We’re into a pattern here. It’s almost like this is the new norm. This is just something that we’re gonna have to put up with from now on because it doesn’t seem like there’s any effort to stop it. And whenever anybody attempts to mount a serious effort to stop it, they’re slapped down.

They’re slapped down by judges or they’re slapped down by politically correct anal retentives all over the world. You remember John Kerry, the haughty John Kerry, who once served in Vietnam, once said when he was secretary of state, telling everybody in America (paraphrasing), “You know, just chill, just chill. Terrorism is a nuisance. It’s not a big deal. Yes, it’s mass murder, but it’s not happening every day. It’s just a nuisance. We’re just gonna have to learn to put up with it.” And that was the attitude. We can’t even agree that it’s radical Islamic extremists that are doing this.

Anyway, I want to get into this in a little bit more detail, but I had to make that observation, because I, frankly, folks, I don’t like this pattern. You know what this pattern is? The pattern is, a terror event happens — in this case, 22 people dead and some children — and all of the serious and compassionate people run to the nearest camera, and they run to the nearest microphone. And they express their sorrow and their compassion and their shock. And that’s it. Mission accomplished. “Look at me, I care. Look at me, I have compassion. I care. Look at me, I’m a good person. I recognize that this is not good. But that’s as far as I’m gonna go.”

And then it happens again, the same people come out, and also in the process of this pattern repeating itself, we have lies and misstatements as to who’s responsible for it. Part of the pattern is, “Let’s not be hasty. Let’s not prejudge.” What do you mean, prejudge? We know who the terrorist is here. His name is Salman Abedi Mohammed Salman Skyhook. I guess that’s why it took 24 hours to figure out who he is. ISIS claiming credit. What do you mean, prejudge?

No, we’re not supposed to prejudge, and we are not supposed to have a backlash. Must guard against the backlash. Must make sure that we try to find common ground. There isn’t any common ground with these people. So it’s, to me, very frustrating. It is a pattern that repeats, and the people that react to it are doing so for image and branding, running to cameras and microphones to be seen as knowledgeable, aware, caring, and concerned and compassionate. And then we drop it and get back to trying to impeach Trump.

In fact, CNN had trouble letting go of the impeach Trump story last night. Did you know this? CNN was fighting with itself over even covering the terror attack, because it would take away from the ongoing effort to destroy Trump.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The terror stuff that I have today is mostly idiotic reactions to it. As I said at the opening of the program, it’s gotten to the point that this is a pattern. Terrorism happens and everybody says, “Oh, it’s so horrible,” and they pray, and they express sympathy for the victims and their families; then they go away. Nobody does anything about it.

If anybody seriously tries to, they’re condemned as an Islamophobe or what have you. So it appears to me that, as far as governing bodies are concerned in Europe and here in the United States, it’s like John Kerry said, “Hey, the best the best way to look at terrorism is as a nuisance. It’s just there. It’s a crime that’s just always gonna be with us. It’s a bit more drastic than some crimes, but there’s nothing we can do about it. The American people are just gonna have to come to grips with it, that it is a nuisance of modern life.” That’s essentially what John Kerry said when he was Obama’s secretary of state.

And it reminded me of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who famously coined the phrase “defining deviancy down.” What that means is that as a society continues to fail in dealing with criminal behavior, aberrant behavior, and gets tired of fighting it, you just declare, “It’s normal,” and you move on. And in the process, you’re defining deviancy down. You are normalizing more and more reprobate behavior. That’s what we’re doing with terrorism if it’s to become an accepted nuisance, because they’re committed and we can’t stop ’em.

To this day, we do not properly acknowledge what this is about. I mean, this idiot Richard Clarke — who has not succeeded in fighting terrorism through I don’t know how many years of presidential advisory positions — is out there again today saying that terrorism is the result of poverty and hopelessness and anger at American policy. It’s just absolutely offensive and ridiculous. That’s not what terrorism is about. Terrorism is an ideology. It is commanded by the imams and in the Koran. It’s not because of poverty!

We try to Americanize these things and we say, “Well, poverty in America creates crime! People need money. They need food.” It’s not what this is about. If we’re not even gonna be honest in assessing it and if we’re gonna start using terms like “moderate Islamist,” we’re defeated. We may as well just look at this as an ongoing presence in our lives that is a nuisance. And some of them are gonna be really bad, like 9/11; others are not gonna be as bad (only 22 are gonna get killed like in the U.K.), but because of our openness and our society and our criminal justice system, we cannot stop people before they commit crimes.

And we cannot engage in anti-Islamic phobia, because that is prejudging a religion, and we can’t do that. So we can’t stop it. To stop it is to be bigoted and prejudiced. To even correctly identify it is to be bigoted and prejudiced. So what other option is there than to just accept it and try to not put yourself in locations and positions where it is statistically likely to happen? Which, by the way, those places are increasing. Now it’s rockand pop concerts, sporting events, airplanes, office buildings — offices, such as San Bernardino — or in the military in a barracks.

I mean, these are places we’re just gonna have to avoid going forward if we accept that this is an ongoing presence in our lives. And note who it is, the kind of people that tell us these things: Establishmentarians and rich people who are never, ever gonna be touched by it — or very rarely. At least they’re not gonna live with it. It’s like illegal immigration: They’re never gonna live with the effects of this stuff. They’re always insulated by position, power, walls, what have you, where they get to pontificate and theorize and opine to the rest of us.


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