El Rushbo: In fact, I was talking to Bill Donohue, the Catholic League, interviewed him for the latest issue of the Limbaugh Letter. You should read it. You should read every issue of the Limbaugh Letter. We just finished an interview with Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, and this is Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. He said something. I don't have the interview right in front of me.
But he made the point that practically everything the left, culturally, is trying to move -- everything that they're interested in, every cause, every issue, everything about what the left is trying to do -- is related to sex. Contraception, whatever it is, the left is obsessed with everybody and anybody having sex with anybody -- whoever, wherever, whenever they want -- with no limits and no judgment on it. It got me to thinking of all the things that I have heard.
I remember back in the nineties on this program, when it became fashion about during the AIDS crisis to say, "Okay, so we've gotta start teaching kids to use condoms." They'd take cucumbers to class, and they'd use condoms or balloons, and then that eventuated to parents actually agreeing to letting their teenaged kids have sex in their houses rather than the backseat of the car. Because, as one parent told me on the phone, "At least I know it's clean in my guest bathroom."
The parents said, "Rush, they're gonna have sex; we can't stop them," which became the liberal mantra. "We can't stop 'em, Rush. They're going to do it. You can't stop it." When I tried that same line of thinking on smoking, they wouldn't hear of it. "But wait a minute! Once they start smoking, you can't stop 'em. So why don't you put a pack of cigarettes on the nightstand for when they finish sex?"
"No, no. That's bad. We're not gonna let 'em smoke." "Well, but you say they're gonna have sex no matter what." "Yeah, that's right." Bill Donohue's point was that no matter where you look -- be it the abortion debate, be it the conception debate, be it whatever attempts to destroy the Catholic Church -- the left, it's always related to sex. And he may have a point. It is true that pornography is just rampant today.
It's much more visible, readily visible and easily accessed than it ever was 20, 30, 40 years ago. Part of that's the Internet, but television has also played a role in the oversexing and making it look like sex any time, anywhere, in anybody is normal. In fact, that defines whether you're not hip or not. It defines whether you're cool or not. And it has, in a suggestive sense, given license to people. This has led to sexual predators.
They're in much greater visibility today than they were when I was growing up, for sure. There's no question about it. I'm not even... Now, granted, I grew up small town, but it was nothing anybody in our town was concerned about. I think in many places, particularly non-big city areas, that was probably the way it was. But there's no question that the oversexed pop culture has created all kinds of apparent limitlessness, which equals cool behavior, and it has led to some detrimental things.
And this has caused parents who think they're responsible to end up being overprotective and trying to protect their kids from that. But if you do believe this, I mean, all you have to do is look at teenage pregnancy, teenage single motherhood. I mean, it is rampant, and it is almost uncontrollable. And you're not allowed to condemn it. You're not allowed to speak factually, correctly about it. The damage it does to both mother and child, the obstacles that that circumstance puts in people's way?
You're not allowed to say it, 'cause you're not allowed to condemn.
It's because, "Well, it's a product of their poor poverty, socio-economics. It's a problem that the rich have caused all this," and they turn every aspect of this then becomes politicized. But I had not thought of it the way Bill Donohue described it in the interview. The sex angle, obviously, is relevant. But I think also the elimination or prevention of risk -- the denial of opportunity to succeed, to become competent, to become independent -- has taken us to a point now where all of a sudden it's thought that we have a problem.
And we have a problem precisely because leftist engineers began to take over the whole notion of child rearing. And through the power of media and suggestion they began to intimidate parents into believing they didn't know what they were doing. So they go out and buy books written by these leftists on how to do it. All those books were aimed at was simply giving the state as much control over people as possible.
It was rooted in the belief that you as a parent were incompetent yourself. "You don't know how to raise a child. You didn't know how to raise yourself! You don't know how to spend your money the right way. You don't know the right kind of car to drive. You don't know the right way to eat. You're not responsible enough even to get the right health care or health care policy. We have to do that for you! You're not responsible enough to get yourself from point A to point B.
"We gotta get you there in mass transit and we gotta put you in the right kind of car if you're not gonna use mass transit." So it's become just as much control over all of life as they can secure for themselves rooted in their belief that you are incompetent. And they have succeeded in influencing parenthood to the point that they've raised millions of kids that are incompetent now, with no confidence, no ability to achieve independently. That's why I assigned this piece as homework over the weekend.
It's all relevant to everything that we discuss every day here on this program.
