Where Does The Constitution Say a Company Can’t Move?

RUSH: This is Barbara in Coulterville, Illinois. Thank you for calling. You’re next on the EIB Network.

CALLER: Well, hello, Rush. Welcome from southern Illinois. I’m just glad to hear you. I’m a first-time caller, but not a first-time listener.

RUSH: Great. It’s nice to have you with us.

CALLER: Well, thank you very much, sir. I’d like to comment on the Halliburton. I’m so tired of these companies leaving our country, and I think it’s about time they clamped down on this and either cut off their contracts or give ’em no more and make ’em pay back some of what they’re taking out of the country.

RUSH: You can’t be serious.

CALLER: Yes, I am.

RUSH: When you say they ought to be made to do this and they ought to not be able to get their contracts, and they ought to be stopped —

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: — who’s going to do this?

CALLER: We the people.

RUSH: No, ‘we the people’ are not going to do that.

CALLER: No, we need to stand up for our rights. We have a constitutional right, and it’s about time we stood up and fixed it.

RUSH: Where does it say in the Constitution we have a right to tell a business where it can move?

CALLER: I think I have the right to voice my opinion to all of my lawmakers, which I do quite regularly.

RUSH: We most certainly do. You can voice your opinion all day long, but we don’t have a constitutional right.

CALLER: Well, I’ll tell you what. All these companies that are making goods outside of the United States cheaply and are sending back inferior products, I am just not for that. They’re running out to get out of paying their due share of what’s due here in the country, and we’re going to have to do something because these other countries are going to take us over if we aren’t careful.

RUSH: Those other countries don’t have a chance in competition with the Democrat Party of taking us over.

CALLER: With the Democrat Party, we’re supposed to be under a Republican [sic–republic], not a democracy, but a republican. Look at your Constitution, guys. You’re under a democracy, I agree, but that’s not what we’re guaranteeing.

RUSH: This is not a democracy. It’s a representative republic.

CALLER: I don’t agree with you. Well, you yourself said the other day that we’re under a democracy.

RUSH: What do you mean, you don’t agree with me? You can disagree all you like, but if you’re wrong, you’re wrong — and you’re wrong. You are wrong about everything you’ve said. It’s sad.

CALLER: I don’t think so.

RUSH: You are so misinformed. It’s no wonder the Democrats are having the success they’re having, when you think that they can go get Halliburton and punish them and bring ’em back. Who is ‘they’? You obviously want the government to step in and tell Halliburton what it can and can’t do and where it can and can’t go.

CALLER: Okay, who is the government? It’s ‘we the people’ who are the government and it’s time we got up and faced the facts.

RUSH: Well, it’s Civics 101.

CALLER: But if you keep letting these companies go out of the country… My son works at a place that’s closing and going to Mexico.

RUSH: I’m going to explain this to you one more time in the strict business sense. Halliburton is a global company. Halliburton is in the oil services business. They don’t have oil wells; they’re not part of Big Oil; they don’t drill for oil; they don’t bring it up; don’t refine it. They don’t do anything. They’re in the oil services business. They do a number of things related to what Big Oil needs in order for them to do their business. There just isn’t much business in the oil related industries in the United States, and it’s not because Big Oil has moved, Barbara. It’s because your precious government, led by leftists and Democrats, has made it impossible for them to do business here. They cannot drill in this country. We can’t drill in ANWR — even though we have all these energy shortages and crises, ostensibly. Although we’re so dependent on foreign oil, we can’t go get any more of our own than we already have. China is going to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Mexicans in the Gulf of Mexico just found a huge field. We can’t tap it. We have environmental restrictions. We can’t upset nature. We can’t do anything of this sort. Halliburton, most of their business is in Asia where they are going like banshees to try to find more oil. There is a worldwide need for it because the world is forever growing and more and more people are having access to sources of energy that, because they’ve been poor and downtrodden, has been denied them. This means that there’s a need for it. You can do all the corn and ethanol you want. You can do all the alternatives you want. You can do all of the windmills you want. It’s not going to satisfy the world demand for energy. You could do nuclear power plants here and save a lot of problems, but of course the left won’t let us do that, either. Ever since the movie The China Syndrome, we can’t have nuclear power in this country. So Halliburton has a business. Most of it is in Asia. It’s much cheaper to go to where your business is located if you’re based in Dubai than it is if you’re based in Houston. But they’re not leaving the United States. They’re still going to be a US incorporated business. They’ll be paying taxes in the United States. They’ll still be subject to subpoenas from Democrats of the US House of Representatives and the Senate. They’ll still be investigated and so forth, but it’s a clear business decision.

They’re a global concern. I just love this, all these leftists who have been blaming Halliburton for being part of the giant conspiracy to take over the world’s oil supply, particularly Iraq, as part of Cheney and Bush’s effort to enrich their oil buddies. Now Halliburton is moving out and it’s (crying), “You can’t do that! You’re taking our jobs!” Most of Halliburton’s jobs are overseas because that’s where their business is! There’s only, I think, two or three companies in the world including Halliburton that do what they do. One of them is in France, Schlumberger. Barbara, I hate to say this, but you need to start learning. Get rid of all these preconceived misconceptions that you have and stop reacting like a robot to whatever sources of information you tune to and start using your brain. I know it’s hard. Sometimes it can be hard to think. It takes effort. It’s much easier to react, to get all angry and so forth and vent your frustrations, but start thinking. Too many of you people out there are just absolute reactionaries based on whatever preconceptions that you have based on the pabulum that is being puked at you by the Drive-By Media and your precious little Democrat Stalinists.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Look, folks, even you people who are stupid can think more than you are. You don’t have to sit out there and just be the silly little sponges for whatever incendiary rhetoric comes at you from the left. You can think. Everybody can think. Well, I just got a couple of notes: “Rush, this is a lost cause. You’re talking to the wrong people. Stupid is stupid.” I do not have that condescending view. Yes, there are differing degrees of intellect and so forth, but everybody can think if they’re just taught to. Everybody can be taught to be a skeptic. Perhaps, ladies and gentlemen, I am too optimistic. But I have seen these changes take place in people that many have thought to be lost causes.