All Episodes
Previous Next
Dec. 24, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:10
December 24, 2008, Wednesday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
I don't know if it's possible or not.
Maybe.
I mean, hard to say.
Well, all right, here's the question.
You've heard of burning somebody in effigy.
Would it be possible to freeze Al Gore in effigy?
This is, talk about, you know, when hell freezes over.
I'm about as close to the North Pole as you can possibly get.
This has been a frigid winter already in the great Northland, the upper Midwest.
In fact, all over the country, we've had, what, snow in Vegas?
We've had snow in Seattle.
We had snow in New Orleans.
We have had below normal temperatures throughout the Southeast.
But trust me, the world is warming.
I can just hear Al Gore.
You're going to believe me or your own eyes?
Well, Al, I think I'll take my own eyes.
This is really, this is really a challenge for the Republicans, I think.
If there is one thing that I could implore people on the right to do for 2009, it would be finally engage in a full frontal assault on the environmental movement.
Because I'm telling you, friends, the environmental movement has nothing in common with what we call life on Earth.
In fact, they degrade humanity.
They have a bias against humanity.
Humans come second.
This whole fiction, the idea that in 40 years' time worth of 40 years of records, that can determine the entire climatological trend on Earth is laughable beyond belief.
Only the intelligentsia would believe that.
I mean, it's so out of control, too.
We are now set for what, the second year in a row of below normal temperatures, 2007, 2008, I do believe.
At least the office over there at the Hadley Climatological Center in UK suggests that.
And yet, we're still electing people based on global warming.
I'm a little confused here.
You ask the average Joe or Sally in the street, and they'll tell you, yeah, yeah, it's a bunch of hype.
And then they turn around and vote for Barack.
They turn around and vote for every liberal you can find based on what?
We're going to impose a cap and trade system.
Now, the problem for the Republican Party is there is no opposing voice.
We nominated a candidate who was a global warming acolyte, John McCain.
We've got the Republican Governors Association, half of whom are on board with Al and Jimmy Carter.
Their idea of an energy plan is energy conservation.
That's a euphemism for you living with less, turning down your thermostats, paying five times as much for a light bulb.
You want a poster child.
You want a microcosm of whether or not the Republican Party is going to be serious going forward and offer the voters a choice and not an echo, which got them into this problem.
I think you couldn't do any better than this bizarre regulation coming out of the 2007 energy legislation mandating mercury-laden CFL light bulbs in your house.
By the way, there are a number of studies now.
The CFL bulbs, which cost four times as much as the cheap incandescent bulb, but by law, you will be a criminal if you don't have them in your home in 2012.
If, in fact, you don't willingly spend four times as much for a bulb, I hate to break this to you, pardon the pun.
They don't last three, four times as long.
In fact, there are a number of studies now that show if you put in a CFL bulb and you don't put it in with the screw end down below the bulb end, it's upside down like in your ceiling for a lamp, they don't work.
They don't last.
If it's too cold, they don't work.
They don't last.
If you turn them on and off, they don't work and they don't last as long as the hype.
Let me just tell you, I'm going to give you a litmus test flat out because this drives me nuts.
If we are now throwing in the towel on all of our liberties to the extent that we're being told by the federal government what light bulbs to screw in, and trust me, they'll send out four bureaucrats to do it.
How many bureaucrats does it take to put in your CFL?
It'll be four, five, and we'll call that a stimulus package.
Look at all those people we're employing.
If we can't stand up as a conservative movement and repeal this ridiculous, outrageous piece of nanny state garbage, then there is no conservative movement.
There ought to be a front and center assault on this notion that by 2012, the incandescent light bulb is banned because we have to conserve energy in the name of global warming.
That isn't happening.
Follow the money.
Who was behind that?
The light bulb manufacturers.
Who's behind the wind turbines, which are throwing off sheets of ice as projectiles every place they're tried, in danger of maiming people?
The wind turbine manufacturers.
Follow the money.
Who's behind the global warming hype?
People that are going to make billions off carbon exchanges.
Like Al Gore and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who formed a venture capital company to trade in carbon offsets.
Hmm, surprise, surprise.
That's the new capitalism.
Get a government regulation that mandates people buy your business, and voila, you're a capitalist.
I guess the days of the independent, self-reliant, freedom-loving businessman or woman are over, except for small and medium-sized businesses.
These big corporations are part of the problem.
They're getting in bed with the government.
They're going to Washington hat in hand.
Please bail out my company and I'll do anything you say, even though you drove us in the ground to begin with.
Thank you, Detroit.
Or you get these long-standing companies that love cap and trade because they think they can get a benefit from it when it comes to renewables, the ethanol subsidies, the ag subsidies.
Hey, honk your horn if you're not getting a subsidy.
It really is Christmas in Washington.
And now flying out of San Francisco International Airport, get this.
This is living proof we haven't won the war on drugs.
That's what this is.
We like people to stop and consider the impact of flying, says the executive vice president of a group called Three Degrees, a San Francisco firm that sells renewable energy and carbon reduction offsets.
So what you can do in San Francisco and where else, you can take your credit card and before you hop on the flight, obviously you're guilt-ridden.
You can swipe your card and buy a carbon offset.
The traveler could swipe the credit card and help save the planet.
Of course, this group is going to benefit, as are anybody else trading in this nonsensical notion of carbon offsets.
But pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
This is for the good of the planet.
You've got to be kidding me.
We're allowing the federal government to dictate light bulbs.
How about a light bulb freedom of choice act?
There was legislation introduced from a congresswoman here in Minnesota to that effect, whether it will go anywhere now because of the Democrat control.
But I'm telling you, remember the snake cut up into pieces that was a sign on the colonial flags fighting the Revolutionary War?
Gustan United, all of those little symbols.
Well, the incandescent light bulb ought to be our symbol for 2009.
If the Republican Party can't stand up and just use that as a poster child of environmentalism run amok, I don't know what they can do.
That is, and by the way, these mercury-filled light bulbs.
I mean, you need a hazmet team to clean them up.
If they break, the mercury comes out, and you don't just sweep it up.
You've got to cut out the carpet where the mercury spilled.
You've got to keep the kids away.
Under the name of environmentalism, they are importing mercury into your home.
Now, they will say, well, it's de minimis.
It's a small amount.
Well, aren't these the same people that run around and test rivers and streams for any trace amount of mercury?
Yeah, they are.
But it's just fine if they do it.
This is getting very, very strange.
And now this, where was this from?
This was from the register in UK the other day.
I think it was Steve McIntyre.
Wasn't he the guy, the Canadian statistician that blew up Professor Mann's hockey stick graph?
Remember the famous hockey stick that said that we had constant temperatures, as though anybody would know.
Our temperature data, by the way, only goes back 100 years.
So how do these people know what the Earth's climate?
Nobody who had a thermometer in the medieval warming period or the little ice age or what have you.
But regardless, this guy, Professor Mann, I believe it was, said, oh, well, the temperatures were constant up until the greenhouse gas era in the 20th century.
So he drew a graph and it looked like a reverse hockey stick.
Well, a couple of Canadian researchers, and I believe McIntyre was one of them, although I'm not 100% certain, just blew that out of the water.
His methodology, his data was bad.
He had to retract it.
It was a joke.
It's a little bit like NASA retracting 1998 as the warmest year ever, or October of last year as the warmest October ever.
They've had to retract both of those.
But we don't pay any attention to those.
Well, now this Canadian statistician, Steve McIntyre, has been tracking the changes that NASA has been making to their records.
And he's got it, I think, is on his website, climateaudit.org, called NASA is Rewriting History Time and Time Again.
And what essentially they're doing, according to this guy, is they're going back and they are reworking their temperature records.
And they're taking the older records and reworking those upwards.
And the older temperatures, excuse me, the newer temperatures upwards and the older temperatures downwards, which creates a greater appearance of warming.
Now remember, Dr. James Hansen, the Rasputin of Al Gore and global warming, has already admitted in Scientific American and elsewhere that he exaggerated the threat to get our attention.
They've already had to retract a number.
By the way, and now you've got the U.S. Senate Minority Report with 650 climatologists, scientists, some of you whom were on the UN Intergovernmental Climate Change Panel, the IPCC, saying it's all bunk.
It's a religion.
It's faith-based.
We're going through another frigid winter.
Temperatures have been flat or going down since 1998.
The records go back 40 years for greenhouse gas warming.
And we're making monumental decisions that will literally kill the economy.
The National Association of Manufacturers, as well as the American Alliance for Capital Formation, have issued a number of studies, but a big one recently, on what in fact would happen if we adopt a Lieberman-Warner cap and trade.
Now, cap and trade is essentially a tax.
If you're running a coal-fired power plant, our cheapest, most abundant form of energy, we are the Saudi Arabia of coal.
And if that's banned, look for your energy costs to skyrocket.
But if you're running that and you've got to buy carbon offsets, that's a tax.
Well, the Liebenman-Warner cap and trade will cost our gross domestic product $670 billion in the next 20 years.
Employment will go down 4 million jobs in the same time period.
Household income will decline by $6,700 in 20 years.
Electricity prices up 130%.
Gasoline prices up 145%.
So, are you willing to lead a lower standard of living?
Are you willing to do without and bequeath to your children less of what you have today so the Sierra Club can raise more money?
Where are the Republicans other than a few like James Inhoff?
I'm Jason Lewis.
Your call's coming right up Christmas Eve on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Don't go away.
We are back on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Greetings, conversationalists all across the fruited plain on this Christmas Eve, 2008.
I sure hope your Christmas and the holidays are shaping up to be good ones.
Certainly cold ones, that's for certain.
1-800-282-2882 to the phones we go this third hour, Rich in Tallahassee, Florida.
Welcome to the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Hey, Jason, Merry Christmas to you.
Same to you, my friend.
There is a very easy argument that you can give to the people that believe we're causing global warming, and that is show me the empirical evidence.
There is none.
There's all kinds of anecdotal stuff, and there's models, computer models, but there's no empirical evidence.
And I've had my students research this, and what you hear are things like the glaciers are melting or the polar bears.
That's anecdotal evidence.
Science is based on empirical evidence.
And if you can show me one study that links human activity to global warming, I would like to see it.
Even the IPCC is just based on computer models.
Well, not only that, the IPCC reports are not done by scientists.
The media have been lying to people, inferring that.
The summary report is done by bureaucrats and politicians.
And that's why so many scientists are now speaking out because their name has been appropriated for a false story, and they're getting mad.
Yes, sir.
And if you want to go with models, the best model, you know, models have to be predictive.
If anything, science should be predictive.
And the IPCC's models have never been predictive.
What's better are the sunspots.
I mean, those are the ones that are.
But that's an inconvenient truth because the inactivity of solar flares suggests we're entering a cooling period now.
Exactly.
Exactly.
But, you know, again, look at the history.
And, I mean, there's all kinds of empirical evidence to show that the Earth has warm, but that's happened since the last glacial ice age.
You know, 2,000 years ago.
One former intergovernmental panel on climate change member, the UN panel that is the gold standard, supposedly, one former member is so upset, he is speaking out, and he now says the climate models used to project global warming are a joke and only useful, quote, in explaining climate changes after the fact, close quote.
Well, that's not a model at all.
Plus, the whole thing is based on a false premise, and that is there is a normal constant temperature.
Right, right.
There has never been a normal constant temperature.
So the idea that we're getting temperature fluctuations now is not anything out of the ordinary.
Exactly.
And that's what I show my students is that, you know, here's a graph of what we can go back with oxygen isotopes and stuff.
And also with fossil evidence that, you know, how the climates change.
So where do you want to point your finger and say, okay, this is normal?
So explain to me, my friend, explain to me, you answer for, down there in beautiful Tallahassee, Governor Charlie Crist and his environmental obsession.
Well, he has bigger, I think he has bigger fish to fry, and this is the way that he can appease people.
That's the only answer I can give you.
And therein lies the problem.
If we allow the Sierra Club to educate people on global warming, no wonder people are going to be in the dark.
It is incumbent upon the Republican Party to offer the opposing view with vigor and courage, and the Republican governors don't have it, except for a few.
I agree.
Thank you for getting the information out.
I appreciate that.
Thanks, Rich.
You know, there's another aspect of this when you just take a look at the scientific method that blows it out of the water as well, Rich, and that is science employs or acknowledges contrary evidence.
So you've got a hypothesis.
Here's the evidence for it.
It mounts.
Here's some contrary evidence.
We'll take that into account and try to come up with an hypothesis.
Well, if you listen to the global warming lunatics out there, there is no such thing as contrary evidence.
So it can be an exercise in science.
That is to say, if the earth warms, it's global warming.
What about this cooling trend we've been under?
Well, that's actually evidence of global warming as well.
Snow in New Orleans, global warming.
Hurricanes, global warming.
What about lack of hurricanes?
Well, actually, that's a break in global warming.
That is not science.
And there is no such thing, as the late, great Michael Crichton said.
There is no such thing as a consensus in science, but there is a consensus in politics.
That's what this is about.
Yuma, Arizona, and Brian, you are up next on the Rush Limbaugh program.
What an honor, Jason.
Merry Christmas from Yuma, Arizona, where I can't imagine how much colder it would be without all this global warming.
But right to my question, I'm hopeful, and yet I'm frustrated.
What is it about Americans that have caused us to shift our attention away from the can-do spirit and attitude of companies to help us through economic hard times and our shift and focus on attention towards government?
Government is the savior, or so the collective mindset goes.
Why and how can we get out of it?
Well, let me invoke the gipper for that one.
When all of the liberals during the Reagan era would say that Reagan's solutions, which turned out to be correct, were simplistic, that the problems are more complex than these, Reagan would simply say, look, the answers are not complex, but they are difficult.
They are hard.
And the dirty little secret out there is that freedom and responsibility, when no one's going to be there from the government to bail you out, are hard.
That free markets where you've got to compete, where you've got to stand on your own two feet, is not easy.
It is hard.
And it is a fact of human nature that people like the easy way out.
And the easy way out is government.
And before I forget, let me just thank everybody involved putting together this program.
Working right up to the Christmas Eve clock here.
And my thanks to obviously Kit and Mike back in the EOIB studios in New York, everybody here in the Twin Cities, Jess and Steve, who helped put this together as well.
My thanks to all of you, of course, for listening on Christmas Eve of 2008.
And we never did get to the really important stuff.
We've got some more calls to take, 1-800-282-2882.
But, you know, the really important stuff, the best Christmas movies ever.
I'm hearing from Kit and Mike.
They're selections here, guys.
Let's see if we can agree on a couple of these, all right?
No one in their right mind could not choose It's a Wonderful Life.
Agreed?
All right.
A wonderful life is good.
All right.
A Christmas carol, except I'm making a little nuance here.
The made-for-TV movie with George C. Scott beats the hallmark in 38 and 51.
I think it was Oleister Sims, right?
I'm going with George C. Scott.
Ooh.
Ooh, sticking my neck out there.
And then let's round out the top five best Christmas movies.
Let's see.
We've got Christmas Vacation.
It cracks me up.
Cousin Eddie cracks me up every time.
A Christmas story where Darren McGavin is everybody's dad.
If you've ever, you know, with Ralphie, the Red Rider BB gun, Darren McGavin, I interviewed him years ago.
Wonderful guy.
It reminded me of my late father so much.
I just love that movie, A Christmas Story.
And I'm really going to stick my neck out.
Number five for me, the sub for El Rushbo, Jason Lewis, Elf.
Quit laughing back there.
Elf was a good movie.
So there you have it.
Sticking my neck out on Christmas Eve.
Scott in Arlington, Texas, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi.
Hey, how's it going, Jason?
You like Elf?
Did you like that movie, Elf?
You know what?
I'd put Elf on my top five.
All right.
My kids actually really like it, too.
Well, that's how everybody starts to watch it.
Then all of a sudden, you're sitting there with that third cup of coffee going, you know, I think I'll finish this movie.
You know, one that I would say is definitely not kid-friendly, but is definitely kind of a fun adult movie was The Ref with Dennis Leary.
I never saw that.
You got to go rent it.
Really, that's a good one.
Well, I mean, I wouldn't exactly put National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation on the kid movie list either, but that is just so fun.
That was the best vacation movie, by the way.
Oh, yeah, definitely.
The Christmas one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Anyway, what's on your mind?
Hey, two things.
Chris Dodd had a great statement when he goes, you know, I don't think the auto manufacturers or CEOs should all step down because they're part of the problem, but didn't make any comment to the fact that with the trillion-dollar debts and all the other issues that the government has, that they should step down because they were part of the problem to begin with.
One of the most infernally frustrating aspects to this economic malaise we're in, which started when the housing bubble...
Actually, there's been three big bubbles that have been perpetrated upon us by the government.
And it really started in the 1990s with the tech stock bubble, and then that collapsed.
And of course, 9-11, we had a downturn.
And then there was the housing bubble.
That collapses in really probably 06, 07, right in there.
And then we had the commodity bubble that collapsed earlier this year.
All of these were due not to market economics, not to the free marketplace.
They were due to easy money from the Federal Reserve, a classic asset bubble where credit was available to bid up the price of an asset.
It couldn't keep going up because people couldn't afford houses.
So it burst.
And when it burst, people started asking questions.
How did we get into this mess?
And the media, along with Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, got the spin out there that said, well, this is a byproduct, Scott, of unregulated capitalism.
Really?
Unregulated capitalism.
Now, let's see, the Community Reinvestment Act, Andrew Cuomo's quotas at HUD mandating more subprime mortgages.
We had all of these so-called regulations that didn't have anything to do with this.
And then, of course, we had Fannie and Freddie, the ultimate government-sponsored enterprise that was out there buying up $1.6 trillion worth of junk paper.
All of these were government actions, government interventions perpetrated by Barney Frank, who said, quote, people are exaggerating the problems from Freddie and Fanny so that we'll see less in terms of affordable housing, close quote.
He defended these corrupt institutions.
So did Chris Dodd.
They got sweetheart deals, or Dodd did, from countrywide, who then sold their junk paper to Freddie and Fanny, putting us on the hook.
And guess what?
Now we're bailing out Freddie and Fanny.
That's what started this mess.
Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, the Democrats were solely responsible, and they got away with murder on this because, quite frankly, of media bias.
I think you got me going on that one, Scott.
Pardon me.
Thanks for the call.
Atlanta, Bill, you're up next.
Hi.
How you doing, Jason?
I'm doing fine, sir.
How about you?
Good.
Merry Christmas, and a special Merry Christmas to the families who have soldiers anywhere in the world protected our country today.
Merry Christmas to all who are doing without their loved ones, no matter what the situation is.
It is a horrible time of year to miss somebody or to lose somebody.
And my prayers and thoughts are out there in a personal way on this year.
I agree.
I agree.
And by the way, one of the movies you should have on the list is Scrooged with Bill Murray.
You know, I've talked to people who liked that.
They liked it a lot.
I just saw bits and pieces of it.
Oh, you should watch it.
You like that one, huh?
It's a terrific movie and with a terrific story.
So it's interesting and fun to watch.
So what I was, I've been listening to you a little bit, and I listen to Rush quite often and other folks.
And, you know, one of the things that I think Rush misses is the impact of our education system on where the country is and where the country is going.
Do you have any kids?
Well, I'm very familiar with what you're talking about because I have been a thorn in the side of Education Minnesota on the air up here.
You've got to understand, once again, that the Democratic Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Education Association.
Have you ever wondered where the civil libertarians are when you need them, Bill?
I mean, that is to say, they say, we don't want government intrusion in the bedroom.
We don't want government to fight the war on terror, you know, a legitimate function.
We don't want government to impinge on free speech.
But then they're the ones that want to turn their kids over to K-12 government monopoly government schools for 12 years.
Right.
Well, and the worst part about that is the fact that the, again, that mostly Democrats control that whole system.
And what we've got, what's been going on, is a cultural shift and a cultural change.
I've got kids and grandkids, and whether they're in private school or public school, as it relates to global warming, as an example, there's a whole education process that you, a wave that you can't stop, that we can't stop, that's happening for the citizens of the future and the citizens of today.
Very much like if you looked at recycling, you know, 15, 20 years ago, you know, they come up with this, somebody comes up with this idea that it's a great thing to do.
Well, then they go into the school systems and they teach it and preach it.
And over time, you know, it becomes second nature to the.
Well, now, by the way, in a suburb of Atlanta, if you don't recycle the right way, you're going to be fined 500 bucks.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And by the way, recycling is great if it's voluntary.
If somebody can make money off paying me five cents a can, and I give them the can, they give me the nickel, and they can recycle and make money.
That's called voluntary recycling.
It was in effect before the mandate.
I'm all for it.
Once you start mandating it, we end up with, by the way, it is very energy inefficient because when you have extra trucks on the road, we've got extra recycling plants, and politics enters into it once again.
Well, in the question you were asking earlier about why you talk to people about global warming and yet they go out and vote for Barack Obama, I think the issue there is that the cumulative effect of not only the education system, but also the welfare system over the last 20, 25 years anyway, is that there is a, I mean, we've reached a point, unfortunately, I think, that I don't know how to turn it around where there are more.
I'll tell you how to turn it around.
A little political guts.
Ronald Reagan ran successfully, wildly successfully in 1980 on education platforms of A, abolishing the Department of Education and B, tuition tax credits.
The greatest single monopoly in the United States of America has nothing to do with private enterprise or big business.
It is K through 12 schools.
Period.
Until that monopoly is broken, you're going to get more political agitprop being spewed out to kids in the form of indoctrination than you can shake a stick at.
Right.
Well, that's a question is have we reached the point where so much of that has happened that there are more people who have been indoctrinated who've gone through the system that are voting versus the ones who haven't gone through that.
Well, I mean, eventually they get out of the system and they aren't divorced from reality forever.
They have to realize facts.
But you're right on your overall point, and I got to let you go, but you're right on this, that you cannot, as a conservative movement, create more government jobs, more government programs, a large government bureaucracy and monopoly, and because it's education, stand behind it and expect to grow the conservative movement.
When people go to work for government, they vote liberal.
I know from you conservative teachers, you're going to call me or email me and say, no, that's not true.
You are a minority.
The vast majority, look at your union.
People relying on government are going to vote for the big government candidates.
So we end up funding our enemies.
And then you've got the obvious conflict of interest that the same governors or the same state legislators that are negotiating with your state education system end up getting campaign contributions from the people, the union, they're negotiating with.
Well, which way do you think they're going to come down?
It's an inherent conflict of interest.
It is a corrupt system.
And I'm a radical on this.
I don't think there's a way to tinker around the edges with merit pay.
I don't think there's a way to tinker around the edges with charter schools.
I quite frankly think that people who choose to send their children to a different school, a private school, a Catholic school, a Protestant school, a non-denominational school, choose to homeschool.
I think it's an outrage that they are being forced by the monopoly to pay twice, not only for their property taxes and state taxes, for everybody else's education, their other neighbor's kids' education, but their own kids they have to fund as well.
There ought to be a tuition tax credit that says, I have choice.
If I want to go to the government system, I can go there and pay my taxes and use it.
If I don't, I get a tuition tax credit for the tuition I pay privately or the homeschooling costs.
That would do more to change the system overnight and more to change the dynamics of state politics than you could possibly imagine.
You could even get businesses into the mix, have a universal tuition tax credit, where if you work for a business, they could, in fact, pay your child's tuition at a private school and then they could get the tax credit.
There are a number of ways to do this, but that is the only solution over time because this bureaucracy, as you identify, $536 billion worth a year, larger than the defense budget, literally, it becomes nothing more than a liberal think tank for the Democrat Party.
I'm Jason Lewis on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Don't go away.
All right, time to squeeze in one or two more calls before we say goodbye in this Christmas Eve, 2008.
We've got some great Rush best of.
We've got Christmas music tomorrow on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Stay tuned right here for the Excellence in Broadcasting Network right through the Christmas holidays.
I'll be back a few days.
Walter Williams coming back next week.
I can hardly wait for that.
Mark Stein's going to sit in, so you don't want to go anywhere but the Excellence in Broadcasting Network in Laguna Beach.
Let's try, Randy.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program with me, Jason Lewis.
Hi, how are you?
Fine, sir.
How are you?
I'm good.
I just want to say, like, I hear I'm a Republican.
I'm 21 years old, first-time voter.
I did vote for Barack Obama, however.
And I would like to say that I hear this whining and complaining from the Republican side.
Oh, where are the Republicans?
What's going on here?
And it's plain for me to see, I did not grow up with Ronald Reagan.
So for me to hear all this talk about Ronald Reagan, it's kind of speculation to me.
The only people that I've seen are Bill Clinton, George Bush, and a little bit of George Bush Sr.
And from I gather is right now, the young culture associates the Republican Party with religious fundamentalism.
Completely.
Let me ask you a profound question, if I may.
Sure.
Why are you a Republican?
I'm a Republican because I believe in freedom of choice.
I believe that government is never the answer.
More government is never the answer.
Well, do you believe in freedom of choice when it comes to education?
Yes, I absolutely do.
I'm a little bit more socially liberal, and that's where this whole thing comes in.
Because the younger generation tends to be more socially liberal, they vote more on the social side rather than the economic side, rather than economic choice or economic freedom, because we're not educated on those things.
Well, therein lies the problem.
The problem with being a there are a couple of problems with this.
I'm a fiscal conservative, but I'm a social liberal.
Usually, that means I'm actually a fiscal liberal and a social libertine when it comes to practice because I know very few members of Congress.
Give me an example of a member of Congress that would be your quintessential fiscal conservative and social liberal.
That's extremely good.
He's not a member of Congress, but Alex Schwarzenegger is obviously messing a bunch of things up in California, kind of running on that fiscally conservative, socially liberal.
I'm talking about more socially issue-to-issue.
But my whole thing is this.
No, no, no, no.
You just hit the point.
Nine times out of ten, somebody becomes quote-unquote socially liberal.
I'm not talking about your generation, but politically in the political arena, because it's expedient.
They don't want to run up against the no-on prop 8 crowd.
They don't want to run up against the pro-abortion crowd.
So they're politically expedient.
Well, you know what happens?
Once you start to tailor your views out of political cowardice on the social side, you end up tailoring them on the fiscal side.
Welcome to Mr. Schwarzenegger's world.
It's as extreme as saying you're one side or the other.
I was talking about more socially issue to issue.
However, this election shows that people would rather choose economic fundamentalism and, like you've been saying, environmental fundamentalism over religious fundamentalism.
I think the Republican Party will be fine as long as they upcoming can target the younger generation and preach true small government, preach true freedom like you've been preaching.
If Johnny's been aware of the Tuesday during the debate, he would have had a much better chance.
Randy, you bring up some fair points, but you've got to understand that there's a difference between being a libertarian and a libertine.
And a lot of people, like Bill Maher, they advocate socially liberal views so they can continue a lifestyle that I wouldn't recommend for 90% of the population.
So we're all for freedom, but freedom is an avenue to virtue.
Now, I'm not suggesting the government should mandate this or that, but I'm just suggesting you need, and the younger generation needs to understand what you can do with freedom.
And it's not out there so you can do anything you want.
There's a natural law under nature's God that dictates how we live our life, and you can't repeal it, even if you believe the government has no say in it.
And that's just one thing.
The other thing is, the reason you don't get the Reagan thing, and you're quite right about this, is because we haven't had any good Reagan imitators, whether it's Bush 41 or quite frankly, the current incumbent on the fiscal side that has nothing to do with Reagan.
So naturally, the younger folks don't remember Ronald Reagan.
I got a break.
Thanks for calling.
More coming right up, and we'll wrap it up right after this.
Hey, Merry Christmas, everybody.
Pope Benedict had an interesting comment not long ago.
He said, reason without faith is empty materialism, but faith without reason is fanaticism.
Interesting thought on this Christmas Eve, 2008.
▲
Export Selection