RUSH: Francis, Nashville, Tennessee, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: I’m trying to stop laughing after that one. You may be able to help me, Rush. Most people I know are absolutely convinced that I’m a full-fledged conservative because I’ve been listening to you for about ten years, and I agree with you about 98 and a half percent of the time —
RUSH: Well, that pretty much seals the deal.
CALLER: Well, see, I only disagree with you on the rare occasions that you’re wrong, but, you know, I grew up in a very liberal Democratic background and what I’ve learned especially in the last ten years or so is that everything I was taught to believe about liberals and conservatives turns out to be exactly the opposite. When you grow up being a liberal, you think that liberals are in favor of individual liberty and freedom and are opposed to oppression and tyranny and all that, and what I’ve learned more and more is that it’s really just the opposite. If somebody had said to me in 1992, ‘Rush Limbaugh,’ I would have said, ‘Oh, he’s just some right-wing nutcase, isn’t he?’ Of course I had never actually listened to you in 1992 and I think that one of the things about liberals is they kind of parrot stuff that they’ve been taught almost robotically without ever questioning it or analyzing it.
RUSH: Oh, yeah, there’s no question about that.
CALLER: So here’s where I need your help. This is the question. Can I be a conservative and yet be opposed to amending the federal Constitution to prohibit abortion and to prohibit homosexual marriage?
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I can?
RUSH: Yeah, conservatism is not something that excludes — there’s no litmus test here. I tell you, abortion, the only choice that the Democrats and the left are going to allow before it’s all over is abortion, it’s the only choice they’re going to allow. But, you know, gay marriage, both of those things are not going to be solved by amending the Constitution and nobody is trying to. Those things are going to be solved or dealt with at the state level, and they’re not going to be pleasing to people. Those are cultural issues, the so-called social issues which a lot of Republicans want nothing to do with. But still, those are things the people of the country ought to vote on via the elected leaders that they send to various state legislatures around the country. We’ve never voted on abortion. You know, abortion does not nearly roil the British society like it does ours because they voted on it there. It was not imposed by a Supreme Court, nine people wearing black robes. Gay marriage, there’s a political issue behind gay marriage, the militant homosexual community has been pushing the envelope on a lot of things, but the way to deal with all of these is to have the people of the country or various states vote on them, and that’s —
CALLER: Yeah, I agree with you at the state level, not at the federal.
RUSH: Right. Of course you’re going to get people arguing, ‘Well, if one state allows gay marriage and 48 don’t, are you saying every gay that wants to get married has to go to that state?’ Well, yeah, at some point. That’s what the practical end result of it would be. It’s still going to be a controversial issue because where the states that have voted to make it illegal the gays are going to continue to press and force the issue so that they can change the vote there, which is what the country is all about.
CALLER: Okay. Well, you’ve relieved me. Just tell me one other thing. Why is it called conservatism, and not conservativism, we don’t have liberism, we have liberalism.
RUSH: Well, that’s just word structure, that has nothing to do with changing the meaning or deflecting it or hiding it, it’s like why do we call the Democrat Party the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party not the Republicanic Party?
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: See, I call the Democratic Party the Democrat Party, and they get ticked off because they like the illusion of Democratic. Democratic Party, Democratic National Convention. So I call ’em Democrat Party, Democrat National Convention and they get livid about it all the time.