RUSH: Bill in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, it’s great to have you here, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. It’s a pleasure to talk to you.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: I’m a 40-year registered Democrat. I’m not going to tell you I voted that way. I’m one of those guys that you talk about all the time. I guess you call them a moderate. I’m stuck in the middle.
RUSH: No, you’re a Democrat. You just said you’re a Democrat.
CALLER: (laughing) Oh, no. I voted Republican may more than I have Democrat, and I’ve been a member of a union, and I have caught it more than once from guys I work with. But I vote my mind, but I can tell you, I was telling the guys when I called in, ‘You need to quit whining so bad.’ I got this picture of all these hardcore Republicans. They call themselves conservatives, and I had this picture in my mind where these guys standing around with black glasses, a little tape in the middle of them whining and crying, and if anything goes wrong they run to their mama.
RUSH: Who are you talking about there, Bill? I don’t know anybody like that.
CALLER: Well, I hear these guys that call themselves conservatives crying so much.
RUSH: Who?
CALLER: They need to quit crying and go on the offensive.
RUSH: Who’s crying?
CALLER: I hear these guys whining all the time about, you know, ‘Well, what’s going on here and what’s going on there. How are we gonna do this?’ Quit whining about it after it. Attack it.
RUSH: What are you talking about?
CALLER: Now, wait a minute. Now, wait a minute —
RUSH: Wait a minute. You think I’m one of the people crying?
CALLER: I think you’ve got your… The tone of your voice has gotten on the defensive during the last few weeks.
RUSH: No, no, no, no, no. I am on offense here like I haven’t been in a long time.
CALLER: Let me tell you, I’m rooting for you. Now, as I say I’m a registered Democrat. I have been for years because you can’t get nothing done in my area without it, but I do go more toward the conservative end, but I’m not going to tell you I’m a hundred percent conservative. This global warming stuff, I am sick of this archaic carbon fuel technology that we’re on. It’s time to get off of it.
RUSH: Do you realize you’ve got no option in the presidential race on that issue?
CALLER: We’ve always got an option.
RUSH: You do not have an option. If Senator McCain is the nominee or Senator Clinton or Obama the nominee, you don’t have an option. They’re all espousing the same stuff; the stuff you disagree with.
CALLER: Uhhhh, not a hundred percent. There’s definitely a difference between McCain and Obama, and McCain and Hillary Clinton.
RUSH: Not on that issue! This is what I’m trying to say. You think I sound defensive. I’m imploring people to pay attention. I implore people to believe what I tell ’em on this. I don’t come behind this microphone and lie about things. When you are not going to permit the drilling of oil in your own country, and when you are going to start focusing on ‘carbon footprints’ and ‘carbon credits,’ you’re going to accept the premise that the left puts forth that the United States is to blame for destroying the planet — which, A, isn’t true, B, isn’t true, and you’re going to adopt their solutions to fix it. You’re going to devastate the economy. You’re going to lose some freedom. You’re going to lose some liberty.
CALLER: You talk about drilling in this country, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. That is archaic thinking. It’s time to get off carbon fuels. It’s time to get off of it! The technology is here. There’s a wide open market for new technology —
RUSH: Bill, Bill. I hate to disagree with you, but, no, the time has not come to get off of carbon fuels or fossil fuels. Whether you want to believe it or not, this is a world upon which freedom, democracy, and economic prosperity depend on one thing: OIL. There’s nothing to replace it. We’re nowhere near having anything to replace it. I hear people talking about the ‘tyranny of oil,’ as if ‘oil’ is some kind of a dirty word. It isn’t. It is a natural element, natural substance found on the planet. The planet continues to make it. We have put it to great use. We are not destroying anything. We’re creating prosperity — and there’s nothing to replace it. Let me tell you something. They keep making airplanes, don’t they? They keep building bigger and bigger airplanes and the guys in the United Arab Emirates keep buying them and adding them to their fleets. I guarantee you this — and they’re ordering airplanes 30 years out in the future. You gotta look at what people are doing and not what a bunch of empty suit people are saying. The real world will tell you what’s happening in the world of oil, and if you’re having people invest gazillions of dollars in equipment that runs on oil and its derivatives 30, 40 years down the road; you have to conclude — especially in the Middle East — they know they got enough. There’s plenty to fund fuel these airplanes and everything else they need to do. You can wish it away, but you’re dreaming. I deal in reality.
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RUSH: Now, let me review our last call. Nice guy from Kentucky, what was his first name, Mr. Snerdley? Forget his first name. Very nice guy. He’s a Democrat moderate Republican. Said he’s gotta be a Democrat to get things done there, but he votes Republicans sometimes, he’s a moderate, and he called essentially to whine about global warming after whining about whining, whining about fossil fuels now, we gotta get rid of it. Folks, sometimes I think I’m just based in too much reality. Sometimes I think the problems I have in communicating are not lack of skill, but rather some people just get all caught up in emotion and feeling and I don’t get caught up in that stuff. I get caught up in what is. I live in the moment. I’m not worried about next week because I have no clue what’s going to happen and I don’t tell myself I do know what’s going to happen. I don’t get caught up in touchy-feely New Age things.
Oil is good. Oil fuels our economy. Oil fuels freedom. Oil fuels democracy. Oil keeps us warm in the winter, keeps us cool in the summer, it enables us to travel. It’s used in manufacturing. It creates jobs. Thank God for oil — who, by the way, created it. If not for oil, there would have been no industrial revolution. If oil is this easily replaced, why hasn’t it been done anywhere in the world? If it’s so easy to replace it, why hasn’t it been done? ‘Because we’re addicted to it, Rush.’ Don’t give me that. That is pure sophistry. It’s like saying you’re addicted to food. It’s like saying you’re addicted to air. It’s like saying you’re addicted to water. If you want to live your life without oil and any of its derivatives, go ahead, show us the way. You freeze at night like they did in Oklahoma when they lost power. It was Bill in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. Nice guy, but a whiner, calling to accuse me of whining.
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RUSH: Another question for you anti-oil people out there. If another big government program can find a substitute for oil, why didn’t the brilliant Bill Clinton do it back in the nineties along with the brilliant Algore? Sometimes, you know, folks, it’s tough. It’s tough for me to maintain my composure in the face of certain kinds of ignorance. Well, it is.