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January 03, 2008
Why Conservatism Matters Most ~ Rush Limbugh
Taken from a transcript at Rush Limbugh's website
Here is the complete audio..............
Audio of transcript
Below is just small part of all that was said, so I am putting the highlights here...............
Let me ask the question again I just asked about Senator McCain. If somebody told you that a conservative was someone who supported amnesty for illegal aliens, who supported limiting free political speech (McCain-Feingold) who embraced the ACLU's brief for terrorist detainees getting US constitutional rights. If someone told you that a conservative is someone who opposed tax cuts during the Bush administration, and has recently confirmed he would do it again, what would you say? Most likely you would say, "Hell no! That's not a conservative." Yet I just described to you several of Senator McCain's positions over the years. Now, the idea that he's a great conservative in this race is an affront to conservatives.
So it doesn't matter to the Drive-Bys, anyway. It would mean that in November, there is no conservative -- quote, "real thoroughbred conservative" -- running, and if we don't have anybody on the ballot on the Republican side who is a conservative and who is willing to say he's a conservative and espouse those principles, we are going to lose.
The Northeast liberal Republican elites are going to be loving the whole campaign because they think that their ideas have regained prominence and power in the Republican Party all before it goes down to defeat in a massive landslide. So the question that you ask is: "What do we want?" Now, this notion -- getting back to the question asked by the guy from Grand Rapids, Michigan -- who else has conservative bona fides? Ladies and gentlemen (sigh), Governor Huckabee -- who might be a fine man, and is a great Christian -- is not a conservative. He's just not. If you look at his record, as governor, he's got some conservative tendencies on things, but he's certainly not the most conservative of the candidates running on the Republican side. There are other aspects, too, which, if I wanted to, I could spend time getting into. But I didn't start this program today on Huckabee because I didn't want people to think that the whole point here was to focus on Huckabee, and I'm going to keep some of the powder dry here because I don't want to be accused of piling on. But if people are going to ask me questions, I'm not going to shirk from them and try to hem-haw around. So there you have it.
~~~~BREAK TRANSCRIPT~~~~
Now, my friends, I'm sorry here. I haven't spent a lifetime, and particularly the last 23 years on radio, advocating conservative principles only to throw them away to embrace some candidate. I don't support open borders and amnesty, as does Governor Huckabee. I don't support the release of hundreds of criminals. I don't support repeated increases in taxes. I don't support national health care. I don't care what you call it, whether it's in the name of the children or not. I don't support anti-war rhetoric that sounds as if it was written by Nancy Pelosi. And yet I'm being asked to put all that aside in the midst of a Republican primary. As I've tried to point out countless times, a primary is a time to sort these things out. Now, I, speaking for myself, am not going to put aside my principles to accommodate a single politician or campaign operative, period. Too much is at stake here. And being asked to do this, to put all this aside for any single issue is not the point.
Now, I don't want somebody in the White House who has no problem with abortion. I don't want anybody in the White House who thinks that it's okay and that we ought not do anything about it. Don't misunderstand. But I also don't want anybody to misunderstand what a president can actually do about it and how far a president can actually take the issue. It's about judges, if your concern is overturning Roe vs. Wade. If it's not, if you realize that's going to be a ways down the line and yet we want to do something about abortion prior to that then it's about changing minds and hearts. There are several ways of going about doing that, and one of the ways is not wagging your finger in people's faces and telling them they're sinning or telling them they're wrong, you're just going to seal their resolve against you. I think we're in the process of changing minds and hearts. I think abortion figures are falling. I think as generations grow and change, there's a greater repugnance attached to the whole practice. It is not an 80% majority issue, pro-choice isn't. It's not even 50% now. Progress is being made on this. But I'm not going to sit here and put aside all of these things that I believe in and have worked for and that I know work.
One of the most frustrating things to me about this entire Republican primary is sitting out there right in front of us for all of us to see. I don't care how far you want to go back, if you want to go back to Buckley and Russell Kirk, if you want to go back to Edmund Burke, if you want to go back to Goldwater, you can do that and you can find how conservatism has positively influenced change in this country. But all you have to do, if you don't want to go that far back, all you gotta do is go back to 1980. Now, I realize a lot of people get sick and tired of hearing about Ronald Reagan because there isn't another Reagan out there, Reagan was a unique individual and so forth. I'm not pining away for somebody to be Ronald Reagan. What I am asking some Republican to see is that Ronald Reagan won two landslides coming off of a Jimmy Carter four years of malaise. Following Ronald Reagan, in 1994 we took back the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, and we did this with conservative principles. What frustrates me is why the latest current crop of Republicans wants to ignore that and think that there's a better way, when the evidence that shows progress, both economic, social, you name it, national security, defeating the Soviets in the Cold War, it's all there. And why it is eschewed, why it is ignored, is something I've long told you this, in different ways, starting in the early days of this primary campaign. I've warned you that one of the things that concerns me most about all this is how conservatism is going to be redefined so as to fit whatever the current crop of candidates said it is. There's a bunch of these guys running around saying they're Reagan. None of them are. There's not one Reagan conservative -- well, I can't say there's not one, there may be one.
But the bottom line, the point is that the lessons are clear on whatever issue you want to raise: national security, taxes, economics, individual prosperity, domestic security. It's all there: How to beat liberals; how to beat Democrats; how to take power from them. It's all there. The frustrating thing to me is it's being ignored. Or, some people are trying to redefine it. And I think I understand why, given some of the candidates here, based on the geography of their lives and where they live, it's embarrassing to admit they're a conservative because it causes them to be identified with a bunch of people they don't want to be identified with when they go to parties or engage in their social life or what have you, all of which is profoundly frustrating to me, which is when I'm called an elite, I have to just chuckle. So that's what's frustrating to me. But I'll tell you something else that's frustrating to me. I've been behind this microphone 19-and-a-half years, behind a microphone during this type of show for 23 years, going back to 1984. And yet, identity politics, which is that politics practiced by the left, still is not seen through. Single-issue can cause people to end up choosing or supporting somebody, something, some candidate that is truly anathema to the rest of the lives that they lead. But we keep plugging away. But just don't ask me to compromise my principles. You want to compromise yours, fine, but don't ask me to make you feel better by joining you.
Wild Thing's comment........
Sorry it is so long, but I wanted you all to see this. Rush is right on with what he has said. We have all said similar things on here as well. I am so fed up with selling out to rino's.
Add to all of this the lies that have been made by so called conservatives like Huckabee and what he said about John Bolton. This totally has me outraged!!!!!!!!!
Look at this........
"Huckabee told reporters in Iowa recently that he was being advised by John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations. But Bolton has said he never talked with Huckabee. Huckabee then said he had sent an e-mail to Bolton."
John Bolton IS a conservtive and I trust HIM NOT Huckabee. John Bolton has consistently shown to be a man of honor!!
Posted by Wild Thing at January 3, 2008 03:47 AM
Comments
Tell 'Reverand' Huckleberry Hound that he should review Exodus 20 in the Old Testament: The Ten Commandments "Thou shalt not LIE!" Yes, SPIN is another way of truth distortion!
Posted by: darthcrUSAderworldtour07 at January 3, 2008 06:15 AM
2008 is looking grim for Conservatives. I really fear that by 2012, we will have an amnesty passed for illegals and they will be given the right to vote. I can actually visualize any one of the four front running RINOs, if one of the should win the presidency, happily signing an amnesty bill. That will be the death knell of the Republican Party as we knew it in the 8o's.
Posted by: TomR at January 3, 2008 06:23 AM
I was listening to Rush yesterday when he said that and it got me to really thinking. Will I vote for the lesser of two evils, again, to prevent a Democrat from getting the White House?
I think I've come to the conclusion that if the Republican candidate is Huckabee, Giuliani, McCain or Romney, I'm not voting for either; I'll write in Thompson. We weathered 8 years of Bill Clinton and although it was tough, we survived as a nation. Maybe 4 years of another Democrat is what the Republicans need to realize the American people are sick and tired of RINO's.
In 2004 the Republicans controlled the White House and Congress and didn't do a stinking thing. We still can't drill for oil either off-shore or in the ANWR. No new refineries have been built and neither have any nuclear power plants. They had the power to change this and they didn't.
Posted by: BobF at January 3, 2008 07:31 AM
Bob I can't imagine how bad it could get if Hillary or worse Edwards or Obama were to get elected.
Sick and tired of RINOs sure, but I am also sick of Liberal Democrats who as we speak are plotting to remove more of our rights from the constitution and are pushing for a One World Government via the U.N.
Not voting is exactly what the dems want us to do NOT VOTE. That way their agenda has a sure bet of sailing through congress. Then they can turn around and claim they have a mandate from the American people to implement these cock-eyed left wing policies.
Except for Hucklebee I'd have no problem voting for McCain, Rommney or Guilliani if it would prevent Hillary or one of the other evil twins from getting in. I'd hate to think what kind of a mess we would have by the year 2012.
At this point I don't think we could weather another leftists barage on our God given rights.
Posted by: Mark at January 3, 2008 11:58 AM
What? A man of the cloth fibbing, oh, that's right he's from Arkansas the land of the Clinton prevaricators.
Two points loom from Rush's statement: It's about judges, damned right, it's about packing the courts with leftists. Those who will destroy our Constitution and defer all to the Hague. The other is "Single-issue can cause people to end up choosing or supporting somebody, something, some candidate that is truly anathema to the rest of the lives that they lead."
Spot on Rush .
Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo are being scorned by the elitists, we lost Tancredo and Fred Thompson is too ambivalent to register even a warm and fuzzy. That leaves ....nobody I can consciously support.. Rumor has it that Bloomberg may drop his hat into the arena, just what we need, another RINO.
Maybe the tact should be to throw all our support to Kucinich that way both parties can reap the blessings they want and the entire nation can become bankrupt like Cleveland. I find it very hard to have to vote against the Communist evil that has control of congress, knowing full well that who ever I vote for will facilitate them.
Posted by: Jack at January 3, 2008 01:45 PM
Mark, it's going to be a hard decision. We definitely don't need a Democrat but voting for the lesser of two evils just keeps things going they way they've been. The RNC knows this and that's why they only uplift candidates that are Rino's. This election is going to be the toughest one Conservatives have faced. The 2006 elections showed that Conservatives are no longer satisfied with the status-quo Republicans.
Posted by: BobF at January 3, 2008 02:22 PM
The Republican Party survived the huge election loss of Barry Goldwater in 1964 and came back even stronger with his conservative values later on. However, we will not have that opportunity again if any of the leading Democrats makes it to the White House. Their appointment of liberal "rewrite the Constitution" judges including to the Supreme Court, granting of amnesty to illegal aliens, uncontrolled raising of taxes, and imposition of costly and big government nanny state programs will irreversibly change the nation into a Socialist country.
So, I will support a Thompson/Hunter ticket as long as feasible and hold my nose voting for a RINO if need be hoping to gain a little 'wiggle room' to martial enough conservative support and voting power for a better candidate in 2012.
Posted by: Les at January 3, 2008 08:21 PM
Darth, yes he should read that.
Posted by: Wild Thing at January 3, 2008 11:55 PM
Tom I agree, I have never been concerned like I am for our country.
Posted by: Wild Thing at January 3, 2008 11:57 PM
Bob I'm so glad you heard it too.
Rush was so on target with this I just had to post it.
Posted by: Wild Thing at January 3, 2008 11:59 PM
Mark, yes, Rush said something similar to what you just said too. He said it back in November that he would vote like you said if he had to so Hillary or Obama etc. would not win.
Posted by: Wild Thing at January 4, 2008 12:04 AM
Jack, yes I heard Bloomberg he might run as an independent. He is such jerk.
Posted by: Wild Thing at January 4, 2008 12:08 AM
Les me too, in our primary when it comes if Thompson is still in it, I am voting for him. I am having hard time finding things on Hunter right now.
Posted by: Wild Thing at January 4, 2008 12:11 AM
