These Aren't Ordinary Times August 10, 2011 Listen To It! WMP | Flash Audio clips available for Rush 24/7 members only -- Join Now! BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

These Aren't Ordinary Times
August 10, 2011

Listen To It! WMP | Flash
Audio clips available for Rush 24/7 members only -- Join Now!

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I went to dinner last night with a friend. You know, folks, I'm having trouble recalling the time in my life where no matter who I get together with the subject always ends up being how frightened people really are for the country. These are successful people. We're told about these people that they don't care what happens -- they've got theirs -- and nothing, of course, would be further from the truth. Now, we have faced unbelievable obstacles, America has, and we've overcome all of them since our founding.

But what is happening now is that the federal government... This is different. I guess I should preface this by saying that I've read a couple pieces in what I call the mainstream media, even mainstream conservative media. One piece was, "Hey, hey, hey, don't overreact. You know, this stuff happens in America all the time. We go through our ups and downs, and there are always challenges to America as founded. We've always triumphed, and we always will." It was Ramesh Ponnuru who writes at National Review Online and had an opinion piece at Bloomberg in which he basically spelled out how Obama is a lock to win reelection, citing the Reagan and Carter races and what was different about them today versus Reagan-Carter and the electorate and so forth.

I'm looking at both of these pieces and I'm wondering, "What do they not see that I see?" or, "How come they are not seeing this as drastically as we all do?" I mean, this is not precedent-ed. There are a lot of us who believe that we have not come this close to losing our country before, not eternally, anyway. So we've faced unbelievable obstacles, we've overcome all of them, but I think what's happening now is that the federal government is exercising power that it has never before had. Large ways, small ways. The federal government is exercising power for a specific purpose. The federal government under Obama is exercising power to undo what America stands up for.

I don't recall that ever happening, and I must admit that when I read pieces by people I respect and have known and read, I wonder: Why don't they see this? Why is this just the usual, normal ebb and flow political cycling to people? "Yeah, the Democrats are gonna win one here or there. We're gonna win one here and there. They're gonna have Congress for a while; we're gonna have Congress for a while. We'll have the power for a while to spend the money the way we think it should be spent. They'll have the power." How can people on our side not see what's being done to the country via the federal government? How can they not see how this is different? I ask myself that -- as an open-ended question, not as an insulting question. I'm genuinely curious: How do they not see it?

Why do they not see it? What don't they see? You and I pretty much all see it in the dire consequences that we've defined. The federal government is exercising power it's never before had, in large ways and small ways, to undo what America stands for. Which is what transformation's all about. And all of this has been years in the making. But now's the time with the current political leadership that it has reached a truly perilous point, and I don't think it helps to overcome it by downplaying it or by suggesting it's no different, really, than any other time. We've never been this much in debt! Folks, our credit rating, for the first time since ever, the credit rating first went into effect in 1917, year now AA+. The French! The French today, Standard & Poor's and Moody's both kept France at AAA+.

The world was told that France is a better credit risk than we are, and we got TV networks running crawls saying, "Dow surrenders!" The French a better credit risk than we are, and we are surrendering? You know, I'm all for looking for silver linings, but if they're not there, it's far more dangerous to misdiagnose the nature of things than not. What is occurring in America today is un-American. That's what sets it apart. That's what makes it different. We have no historical comparison to this kind of government morass. We have faced existential threats before, we've faced external threats before, we've even faced internal threats before, but not of this sort.

And if it is to be overcome, it's going to take a great deal of course reversing, and soon. Will take more than one election. It's going to take many elections, and the threat is from within. The very system that was to protect us has become the threat, and I do not understand how there are people that don't see that. I'm not talking about you. You do see it. You -- us, the average American -- are so far ahead of those who claim to be our betters; or if not our betters, the ones who intellectually more advanced, they're the ones to inform us and analyze for us we are so far ahead of our own analysts on this. The very system that was to protect us is and has become the threat.

That's why there's nervousness everywhere. There are people genuinely afraid of future of the country, for the future of the country. Not the future of the Republican Party or what's gonna happen in the next election, but the future of the country. It's a real danger. It's not a passing one. It has to be considered as such, not just another point in history. That's why this thing in Wisconsin last night was so important and the way it happened -- on its own without any external impact or influence. This was the people of Wisconsin on their own. You know, nations do decline, countries do decline. It's happened before, and it's happening all around us. It just isn't necessary.
END TRANSCRIPT