BREAK
TRANSCRIPT
I
want to go back to some of the lib reaction to a passage in Mitt
Romney's speech yesterday. It just has the libs up in arms. In
fact,
let's go back and, Ed, grab sound bite five. We'll just start at
the
top here because this is worth hearing again. This is Romney from
the
speech yesterday in College Station, Texas, and he is quoting one of
the founders, John Adams.
ROMNEY: In John Adams' words: 'We
have no government armed with power capable of contending with human
passions unbridled by morality and religion... Our constitution was
made for a moral and religious people. Freedom requires religion
just
as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so
that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God.
Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.'
RUSH:
That last line -- well, not just that, but the "freedom requires
religion just as religion requires freedom," that just got a lot of
libs today turned upside down. Here Sally Quinn, wife of Ben
Bradley,
social doyenne, ex-social doyenne since there's not much social going
on in Washington, of Washington, DC.
 QUINN:
I was absolutely stunned by how exclusive it was. I expected him
to be
much more inclusive. The line that I was just absolutely shocked
by
was when he said, "freedom requires religion just as religion requires
freedom." And then went on to say, "freedom and religion endure
together or perish alone." And that sounded, to me, like he was
basically recommending a theocracy, and it sounded as though he was
excluding anybody who might be a doubter, an agnostic, an atheist, a
free thinker, even a seeker. It was as though he were saying, you
know, if you believe in God, then that's the American way. And it
seemed to me that it was exactly the opposite, the antithesis of the
American way, which is we are all Americans, and whether we are
believers or not, I include everyone.
RUSH: Sally, it's
embarrassing how profound your ignorance on the founding of this
country is, and the rest of you libs who might have this paranoid
belief, "He was leaving out the atheists, and he was leaving out the
agnostics. It was exclusive." He was encapsulating what the
Founding
Fathers said in the Declaration of Independence. They pointed to
natural law and the Creator. I am convinced these liberals have
no
more understanding of the founding of this country and the tradition
behind it than people who have never been born here or live here.
I
don't think they have the slightest -- (interruption) well, then if
they do, then they just can't stand it, whatever it is, either they
don't know or they've forgotten, or they do know and they can't stand
it. Whatever they're doing, they want to change it. They
don't like
it.
When you get right down to the bottom line, what really
grates on them is that our country was founded on the belief in God,
and natural law does not compel every future citizen to believe in
God. But it does mean that for our society to survive, the
founding
principles must be embraced by most of us, otherwise what do we have
here? Who are we? What is this place? It will cease
to be America.
It is why I ask the question over and over again, have you ever stopped
to wonder why, in the course of all human history, nations,
civilizations, thousands of years before we came into existence, we
dwarf them in every which way for good? Economics, technological
advancement, freedom, civil rights, human dignity, all of these things,
quality of life, standard of living. How did it happen? It
is not an
accident. It is not a coincidence. It's directly traceable
to our
founding. What he was talking about yesterday, he was
encapsulating
what the Founding Fathers said in the Declaration of
Independence. If
we lose this tradition, if we lose the roots to our founding, we are
not going to be the America that we are today, that we've always
been.
I'm really frightened that that's what some libs want to do, is
destroy and eliminate, as best they can. The court system is their
primary route, because they're insulated from elections there, to
totally destroy the link to the roots that make this country what it
is. Because there is a genuine fear, I said it yesterday, I'm
going to
say it again, because I firmly believe it. I think in a lot of
liberals, a lot of leftists, there is a genuine fear of people who have
faith in God. Liberals want people to have faith in them and
their
institutions, which is government, and they are frightened by the fact
that people who have faith in something larger than themselves that
can't be controlled, which is what liberalism must do in order to
thrive. It must control people. Nobody is required to
believe in God,
but it does mean that for our society to survive, I'm going to say this
again, the founding principles must be embraced by most of us,
otherwise, who are we? If you accept the founding had a religious
aspect, then you also have to accept what comes with it. If you
don't
want to accept that, then you want to deny. How about that?
You're a
founding denier. Yeah, those of us that don't buy the global
warming
hoax, we're called global warming deniers. Well, those of you who
want
to destroy or deny the truth about the founding of this nation are
founding deniers.
So there's dissent in this country, there
are different views, but most of us believe in God, and most of us
believe in natural law. Most of us do. Look at the Passion
of the
Christ. Look how well that did and how inflamed the liberals were
over
it, particularly out in Hollywood? That is the American
tradition. It
is our founding. That most of us believe in God and natural
law. Now,
I am sorry to report this to Sally Quinn and even Christopher Hitchens
and others, but our country was not founded by atheists. Our country
was not founded by agnostics. Our country was not founded by
deists.
Our country was founded by religious people. You have to go way,
way,
way out of line to deny it. You can't read any of George
Washington's
speeches, first Thanksgiving proclamation, farewell address, the
inaugural, everything. The first Thanksgiving was thanks to
God. We
tell the story each year here. Atheists had nothing to do with
founding this country, dissenters, yes, but not atheists. It's
called
the Judeo-Christian ethic, and that Judeo-Christian ethic and
principles undergird the society. They provide the foundation,
the
building blocks from which this great nation rose. There is no
other
answer for this, and this is precisely why our society is so
tolerant.
There was nothing intolerant in Mitt Romney's speech. But they
are
scared to death of it, nonetheless. They just don't get it.
Here,
listen to Jon Meacham. Jon Meacham is Newsweek editor.
MSNBC Live
yesterday afternoon, Norah O'Donnell said, "What do you make of the
phrase, when he said freedom requires religion just as religion
requires freedom?"
MEACHAM: He's half right. The second part
is true. The first part is not. And I'm curious about that,
since you
focused on it, it literally made me start when I -- when I saw
it.
Freedom doesn't require religion. As an empirical matter, in the
United States, the fight for freedom has been informed by American
religion. That is a fact, but the idea that somehow or another
you
have to have religion in order to have human freedom is actually not
true, I think.
RUSH: Yeah, okay, the editor at Newsweek here is
now a qualified expert to tell us that John Adams was full of it, one
of our founders. Yes, exactly right. The arrogance and the
condescension, the elitism. (Doing Meacham impression) "Adams, he
doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm the editor of Newsweek. I
know what I'm talking about. Yeah, John Adams, who the hell was
he?
He doesn't know what he's talking about."
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
|
WMP
| RealPlayer 
Audio clips available for Rush 24/7 members only -- Join Now!
DAVID SHUSTER: He mentioned the word
"Mormon" only once.
RUSH:
Now, that passage he's quoting John Adams. Listen to Sally Quinn
on
the Charlie Rose Show last night when asked about this passage.
So
you have the Sally Quinns of the world and all these people, the Jon
Meachams, the expert at Newsweek who is able to proclaim that John
Adams is half right. Why should we listen to Adams, when we have Jon
Meacham at Newsweek? These same people, my friends, are the
people
that gave us this willowy phrase, "the Constitution is a living and
breathing document." The founding of liberalism is based on moral
relativism. The main threat to that view, is the originalist view
of
our nation and the Constitution. So the founding and the original
intent of the Constitution are considered threats to liberalism, by
liberals, and they have to be dealt with. So, "Well, the
Constitution
is a living, breathing document. It must change and adapt with the
evolving mores of our corrupted, perverted society on which we will
make no judgment," say the liberals, and then the Founding Fathers have
no clue. Well, they were half right, until the editor of Newsweek
comes along and sets it straight on this. You know, I find it
always
useful to go back and read the words of former communists, because like
it or not, leftists in this country are far more comfortable with the
lines from Karl Marx than they are with some of the lines in the
Constitution of the United States of America, or the Declaration of
Independence. They think the Constitution and The Declaration of
Independence, like Romney's speech, are exclusionary, not inclusive,
not tolerant enough.