Rush Limbaugh: Victims Of Hurricane Katrina Were Liberals On Welfare Without “Self-Reliance”
Limbaugh: Hurricane Katrina Was Like “A Reality Show,” And The Victims Chose To “Wait” For “A Boat To Come Pick Them Up,” Unlike Those Who “Got Out”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published
From the December 15 edition of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Rush Limbaugh Show:
CALLER: I want to make a quick point. I'm looking at the world, I've never seen it like this before, and I think there's been a revival and an awakening on both sides, on the right and the left. And on the right, we've realized we don't need the left. Capitalists don't need socialists. But what's scary is everybody on the left had an awakening also. And they realized that they do need us. And it -- the mask has dropped. And they've realized that they're irrelevant. They're inconsequential. They couldn't survive without the hard work of everybody on the right.
[...]
RUSH LIMBAUGH (HOST): Look, this is an intriguing concept. Let me go back to the very beginning of this. Because you think -- I just want to re-state this, you tell me if I've understood you correctly – you think there's been a re-awakening on both sides where those of us on the right have realized we don't need them. We don't need them for our lives to be lived the way we want to live and for the country to operate the way we want it to operate. We don't need them. OK?
CALLER: Absolutely.
LIMBAUGH: But they have realized they need us. That they can't have the country they want without us. And your theory is they need someone working. They need somebody paying taxes for them to all be on welfare with. They need somebody producing the things that they’re going to take from people to give away. Is that your basic theory?
CALLER: Well, they go one step further. If it was a reality tv show and you put a group from the right and a group from the left on an island, with some bare supplies, everybody on the left dies. They have no life skills whatsoever to make it and they’ve realized that. They have lived as leeches and --
LIMBAUGH: Well let's stop right there. Hold on. I want to bring your examples to life. We've got two reality shows. We've got a bunch of conservatives on an island, and they know self-reliance, and they know production, and they know the idea of incentive as motivation. On the other reality show, you have a bunch of liberals on an island and there's no golden goose there. There's nobody out producing wealth, there's nobody creating anything that can be taxed or transferred. There’s nobody -- there’s nothing that can be redistributed, and as such, they don't know how to go out and produce because they have not done so. We’ve actually -- we have seen that show. Are you aware that we've seen that show?
CALLER: We’ve seen it again and again in every system that’s tried it --
LIMBAUGH: No, no, no. I mean that actual show. We have seen that show. I'm going to get in trouble here folks.
CALLER: I’m not aware of that.
LIMBAUGH: Yeah, it's called Hurricane Katrina.
CALLER: Well that's true.
LIMBAUGH: We saw it.
CALLER: That’s true. You had people that were willing to sit there, waiting for --
LIMBAUGH: And wait. And wait for Shepherd Smith to get a boat to come pick them up, or Anderson Cooper to get somebody to come pick them up versus the people [who] either got out or stayed there and were driving the boats to go pick up the people that were asking for help.
Previously:
Limbaugh Mocks Shep Smith's Katrina Reporting: “He Was Crying So Much ... His Mascara Was Running”