On March 7, 2011, Rush Limbaugh warned about how smart meters that energy companies were starting to install in residential homes, could be the first step in the rationing energy in private citizen’s homes.

In Russia, back in the Communist days – and probably still today for that matter – heat was controlled by the state, and everyone who lived in apartment blocks had their heat turned on on a particular day in the winter, and turned off on a particular day in the spring. It didn’t matter what the temperature was outside, the heat went on on this day, and off on that day, and that was all there was to it.

Similarly, in the US, on air bases, if you lived in dormitories instead of your own houses, the same thing happened. Your heat went on on a specified day, and off on a specified day, and that was that. Now, it’s going to happen in individual people’s homes – at least in the UK, and do we doubt that it’s going to happen here?

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, some of the greatest stories, finest reporting is coming out of the UK today, and I marvel at how on-point a lot of it is. Here’s a piece that ran on Sunday in the UK Telegraph by James Delingpole entitled “There’s Nothing ‘Smart’ About Rationing Electricity,” and this generally is about the practice in Britain that we have in some places already here called “smart meters,” which gives the government the power to wirelessly control your heat, your air-conditioning, your water flow, your electricity, all from the cozy central office. Think death panels in your home, and the ultimate method of nagging. Mr. Delingpole writes about the circumstance in the UK.

They’re already offering smart meters in certain parts of the country with certain financial incentives, like, “We’ll reduce your electric bill X-number of dollars per month per year in exchange for putting this thing in” and so forth. What you’re doing is signing up for losing total control over your use of electricity and other forms of power within your own domicile — and his point is: For the UK to go along with this, how much guilt must there be? How much must our people really now have been convinced to hate ourselves to throw away this kind of freedom? Just how much guilt do we have that they’ve forced on us that we think, in order to get back in the good graces of everybody, we have to punish ourselves this way.

Should Americans be concerned that a federal government agency is now suggesting recommended room temperatures for private citizens to set their thermostats at in their private residences?