by Rush Limbaugh in the Limbaugh Letter, October 2017
"The United States of America has been among the greatest forces for good in the history of the world." -- President Donald Trump, U.N. speech, 9/19/17
"Controversy erupts at Vista Del Lago High School in Folsom [CA] over students chanting 'USA' ... [S]chool and district officials are now warning students that the chants could appear inappropriate and intolerant." -- CBS Sacramento, 9/14/17
"Racist anthem." -- graffiti defacing monument to Francis Scott Key on the 203rd anniversary of his poem, "The Star Spangled Banner," The Baltimore Sun, 9/13/17
America is under attack -- from within. Our culture, our history, our Founding are under the most direct assault I have seen in my life. It could be argued that we are on the cusp of a second civil war. Indeed, some of you might say it has already begun. The attack is largely financed from without, by people like George Soros and others. They make common cause with Americans whose objective is to take the nation down, hasten our decline, knock us out as a superpower.
To defend America, which I believe is incumbent upon all of us, it is necessary to know our history. The purpose of the United States of America and its proud legacy must be understood to be protected. Which is why unmooring us from our own history is crucial for the Left to succeed.
Nothing Leftists are doing is random. The riots, the protests, the mayhem, the destruction of monuments -- none of it is by happenstance. It all has one objective: to erase American history. The aim is to impugn our past.
Because, you see, if enough Americans can be persuaded that the United States, as founded, is inherently unjust, racist, immoral, and illegitimate, then the United States, as founded, can be blotted out. Our rich history and our national strength go hand in hand, which is why decoupling them is the objective of all these groups on the Left.
"America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great," was the observation attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville. The message of Antifa, the Black Bloc, Occupy, whatever else these Leftist groups are called, is brutal: "America was never good." The more people can be convinced of that, the more likely is is that our greatness ceases.
The Left's objective is to recast the history of America, to re-characterize it, in such a way as to to convince a majority of Americans that their country is bigoted, and has been nothing more than "white supremacism" from the get-go. If enough Americans can be persuaded that America was forged as a lie, it's over. Which is the Left's mission: to create in as many American minds as possible the notion that America as founded is not worth defending.
This is a lethal attack. Sadly, it has too many allies who should know better. Even some Republicans are participating in the effort to cast America as indefensible with Donald Trump as President. Attacks on Trump and his Presidency are designed to "prove" how flawed the United States is; the Constitution isn't worth spit if it allowed a President Trump. The argument is being advanced that we must eliminate whatever structures and institutions made Trump possible.
Which is how you get an article titled "The Electoral College Is a National Security Threat", published at Politico on 9/20/17. The Electoral College gave us Donald Trump -- so now it has to go. Such undermining the pillars of the republic has the support of the media, the support of the worldwide Left and the Democrat Party.
Born in Liberty. It is a global, sustained, relentless assault on the truth: that America's morality, generosity, kindness, widespread prosperity, and profound design for equal opportunity make our nation unique in history. It is a near crime that those characteristics of our country are so rarely discussed, when they should be shouted from the rooftops. Speaking about American greatness is considered a social faux pas -- it's just not done in polite company. If such facts are stated at all, it's with embarrassment or apology. Which is why America's true history is being erased from cultural awareness. It certainly isn't taught in school, and it surely isn't accurately reported by "journalists".
The facts are these. America is unlike any nation known to mankind. Every other country was like the others, in that its governments denied individual freedom and opportunity. Until America, authoritarianism, tyranny, royal rule was the standard, nation to nation, people to people. That is the history of humanity -- poverty, struggle, oppression -- until the United States was born, which copied nothing.
The United States and its Founders rejected tyranny. In America, for the first time in history, power was vested in the individual. (That is being scorned now, under the miserable Leftist premise that the individual is corrupt: probably a racist or transphobe or homophobe or supremacist or some other horrible piece of human debris.) America was born in liberty.
This is not to say our history is unstained. The promise of American liberty was unjustly denied; people in chains were bought and sold. But our Founders constructed a government that contemplated war and crime and abuses and, in the Constitutional phrase, "redress of grievances". All to be worked out within the framework of human freedom and limited government -- which had never happened before on earth. And, thanks to that incomparable embrace of humanity that is the United States of America, there's nowhere else that human beings would rather be.
Yet the truth about the United States and its character is under withering bombardment. People born and raised here have been convinced -- by damn lies -- that America is a hellhole, a sewer, or a prison. Americans are being poisoned into ignorance, and ignorant people will not remain free for very long.
The media is working parallel with the education system to wipe out all vestiges of our history and our memories that testify to the greatness of America and her people. Now major corporations are joining in this effort. Free, informed speech is punished, diversity of thought is attacked and discouraged. It's all coming to a head with leftist mob violence.
And let me tell you, the Left's goal is not just to remove statues, or Republicans, or Donald Trump. The campaign is to convince you that your country is so intrinsically flawed that it needs to be completely remade, outside the framework of a Constitutional republic. They want you to believe the Constitution has failed, so we must replace it with a new system of expert "benevolent" rulers -- themselves. Their push is to accumulate concentrated power, and to end individual liberty. This is the road to tyranny.
Sacred Honor. I'm laying out for you here on of the most important warnings I've ever given you. Which is why I decided to make it the cover story of the 25th anniversary issue of my newsletter. Milestones like this afford an opportunity to assess and reflect. And if there's anything I've focused on since the debut issue of The Limbaugh Letter in October 1992, it is an appreciation and reverence for the greatness of America. Ladies and gentlemen, it is under siege.
The future of the country as founded is in jeopardy -- because fewer and fewer people know the country's past. Fewer and fewer people know why the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence risked everything -- pledged "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor" to break free from the tyranny of the day. For many of them, their signatures sealed their death warrants.
They all prayed that posterity -- you and I -- would deeply appreciate the price they paid for individual liberty, in blood and treasure, and would therefore understand how precious it is. To our Founders, every one of them, freedom was priceless. And that freedom has been preserved and passed down, till now, in this wonderful, blessed nation, which has been so good and so generous -- and has opened the doors of indescribable opportunity.
The Left wants you to forget what the United States is, and who we are -- the goodness of our people, the greatness of our way of life, our decency, our philanthropy, our sharing, our kindness. I'm sorry, folks, but I don't accept their ugly lies that America is a land of bigots. It isn't true. I'm so tired of my country being blamed for the globe's ills. We are the solution to the world's problems, not the cause!
And what do we get for it? Jealousy, envy, resentment, and hatred. We are constantly rebuked, derided, criticized. At the same time, we are looked at as the world's piggy bank. Every U.N. policy is a scheme to get the world's hands into our back pocket. Climate change, immigration, whatever the issue, the purpose is always to fleece the Treasury of the United States.
Enough. I'm fed up with America being portrayed as the focus of evil in the world. I've had it with accusations that our wealth, or prosperity, our superpower status, is somehow illegitimate because it's unfairly acquired. What a crock. We have earned what we produce. We feed the world. We benefit every corner of the earth with our technological advances. We share medical breakthroughs and scientific discoveries of all kinds with the rest of the planet. We are the first on the scene at natural disasters all over creation. The United States is the greatest force for uplift, for dynamism, for growth that the world has ever seen.
As President Trump said in his speech to the U.N., "From its very first moments, the American story is the story of what is possible when people take ownership of their future." We can only take ownership of our future because we're free. This is the true definition of American exceptionalism. Even today, the majority of the world does not know liberty as we know it. It's not that we're better than anybody. It's that we are 300-plus million individuals who are free to pursue ambitions, hopes, and creativity, however we wish, as far as our dreams take us.
And that is the purpose of the United States as founded. To preserve human liberty, endowed by our Creator. Here in America, the last best hope of earth.