This is a rush transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," December 8, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Culture Warriors" segment tonight: It's no accident that far-left Americans, secular progressives, are pushing the envelope now that a liberal has been elected president. In the months since Barack Obama won the election, we have seen violence over gay marriage, an atheist attack on Christmas, and various attempts to legalize marijuana as well as prostitution.
Now, in the Netherlands, perhaps the most liberal European country, the government is now shutting down pot shops and legalized brothels. Apparently, organized crime is controlling both over there.
With us now, FOX News analysts Monica Crowley and Margaret Hoover. OK. So you see where I'm going with this thing now, and we talked about it with both of you ladies. The far left has emboldened — the George Soros crew that wants all of this liberation — is going to push the same thing here. But over in Holland, it's a disaster. Am I wrong?
Click here to watch the segment.
MARGARET HOOVER, FOX NEWS ANALYST: It hasn't worked in Holland. They had really wonderfully naive ideas about teaching their children to have safe sex and smoke grass. And what's happened is all the criminals and drug addicts throughout Europe have gone and exploited that opening in Amsterdam, and it's absolutely run out of control, completely run amuck. It's not going to work here. Amsterdam is a mess. My friend, former Dutch parliamentarians say they should have done this a long time ago.
O'REILLY: Sure. Amsterdam now can't get tourists to go there, family tourists. It's full of undesirables.
HOOVER: The problem is the Dutch are very open. People are very proud of being open. What happened was they weren't enforcing the hard drugs. And as soon as — the criminals realized they could do hard drugs there as well. That's when the crime came out.
O'REILLY: It's more than that, Monica. It is the organized crime controls vice the world over.
MONICA CROWLEY, FOX NEWS ANALYST: Right.
O'REILLY: They're not going to say just because you legalize it we're going to retire.
CROWLEY: Right.
O'REILLY: They are going to say, "Oh, it's legal, good. We're running it, and if you don't like it, we'll shoot you in the head."
CROWLEY: That has always been the case.
O'REILLY: Right.
CROWLEY: Drugs, prostitution, organized crime.
O'REILLY: It's always going to be that way, and the people who seek those services are — I don't know what they are, but they're coming in large numbers.
CROWLEY: Right.
O'REILLY: So why can't the secular progressives get this?
CROWLEY: Well, in the Netherlands their experimentation with social tolerance, free love, free drugs, clearly has backfired. Amsterdam is a cesspool of corruption, crime. Everything is out of control. It's anarchy. And as you point out, you know, one of the great magnets for tourism in Amsterdam was this, except it has now crossed the line and gotten totally out of control.
O'REILLY: Right.
CROWLEY: The other day in New York City, Bill, I got into a cab, and I had an Albanian cab driver, a guy who'd emigrated to the United States legally from Albania.
And he said, "I can't believe what I'm seeing in the United States."
And I said, "Really?"
He said, "I left Eastern Europe to flee from socialism, from all kinds of structures. And now I see the United States slowly inching toward that."
O'REILLY: Slouching.
CROWLEY: Whether it's social policy, whether it's economic policy.
And he said, "I don't know what to do. I tried to flee this."
We're seeing the same thing in Netherlands. You know, they're coming to where the United States used to be. We've got cities like San Francisco now inching toward that.
O'REILLY: So they're going back. Right, right. The Dutch are getting more conservative, because it doesn't work.
Now, I'm tying this whole culture thing in here, and I'm saying to myself, look, if you have a Seattle situation where the governor says, "Yes, go ahead, mock and demean Christianity, religion, the baby Jesus, whatever. Go ahead," under the auspices of free speech, you're basically now losing control of the traditions of America. Again, am I wrong?
HOOVER: No, you're not wrong at all. But what I take issue with is this notion that because Barack Obama was elected, this is a direct result of that.
O'REILLY: You don't think that's emboldened the far left, that election?
HOOVER: Bill, you have been fighting against the far left as long as I have watched television.
O'REILLY: Aren't they bolder now...
HOOVER: Seattle, San Francisco, they've been doing this every Christmas season. It is not...
O'REILLY: No, no, no. This is the first time it's been done in Seattle, in Olympia.
HOOVER: But how often have you visited Seattle as a cesspit of secular progressives? All the time. It's not because of Barack Obama.
O'REILLY: There's more aggression. There's more aggression now on the part of the far left than there was. And look, I said it a million times: It's not Obama's fault. He doesn't have any control over it. But these people are emboldened now. They feel that their side, the far left, is gaining power and currency. And they've got the media behind them. They've got the media behind them.
HOOVER: The problem is the far left isn't very good at governing. So what happens is now they don't have an excuse. They can't blame Bush for everything.
O'REILLY: Now, they'll blame — no, they'll blame Bush for the next eight years. Haven't you seen an emboldening of it?
CROWLEY: Yes, we've seen an acceleration. I mean, the gay marriage…
O'REILLY: Look at NBC News. Look how that operation, Huntley, Brinkley, John Chancellor, spinning, spinning to this, to what they have now?
CROWLEY: I agree with you. It's not Obama's fault. But what Obama has represented is a liberation of all these forces that have had a lid on it for eight years because of President Bush that has now exploded and is using the opportunity of Obama coming in, you know, a far-left Congress coming in to make all of their agenda items out there, in the media. You know, we cover it on this show. We condemn it, but a lot of other media outlets don't.
O'REILLY: They encourage it?
CROWLEY: Gradual chipping away of traditional values. That's what's going on.
O'REILLY: All right. We appreciate the "Culture Warriors," as always. Thank you.
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