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May 25, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:23
May 25, 2010, Tuesday, Hour #2
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That is right, uh Johnny Donovan.
And for those of you just tuning in, you've missed the first hour, and in the first hour I put many issues of controversy to rest.
And so we proceed with the second hour, and we're going to put other controversies to rest while Rush Limbaugh is resting himself on vacation.
Hey, I want to talk about uh Tom Soles, uh my colleague, very very distinguished colleague and friend of mine.
Uh he wrote a column called Enough Money.
And this is uh May 18th.
And uh he says, he starts off by saying one of the many shallow statements that sound good, if you don't stop and think about it, is that as uh Barack Obama recently said, at some point you have enough money.
Now that has to be stupid, but for Americans to go along with this, it is incredible.
That is that is we have to recognize that politicians with the power to determine each citizen's income are no longer public servants.
What are they?
They're public masters.
And do we want public masters?
Tom doesn't ask this question, but I asked it.
Do we want public masters?
And uh Tom was pointing out in this column the moral bankruptcy of a notion that third parties can decide when someone else has enough money.
That's the moral bankruptcy of that is bad enough.
But the economic illiteracy compounds that problem.
Now you tell me, for example, Bill Gates is the richest person in this country, if not on the face of the earth.
Now, the rest of our country, our country is not poorer because of Bill Gates' fortune.
Or a century ago, the nation was not poorer because of Rockefeller's uh fortune.
Now, I I think that that we're we're miseducated.
When, you know, for example, uh Ida Tarbell, uh, she was a muckraker in her famous muckraking book, uh it's called The History of Standard Oil Company, said that Rockefeller should have been these are her words, should have been satisfied with the money he acquired by 1870.
In other words, Rockefeller should just not have made more money past 1870, because he should have been satisfied with the money that he made already.
Now, that is that is stupid, and for people to accept it is stupid.
Why?
Because a lot of Rockefeller's contributions came after 1870.
That is just one example that Tom Sowell uh points out.
One example was oil was first shipped in barrels.
That's why we still measure it in the number of barrels uh today.
But Rockefeller shipped his oil in railroad tank cars.
And what did it do?
It reduced transportation costs, and it reduced other kinds of costs, making oil more accessible uh to us.
And when Rockefeller uh got in and started marketing kerosene, what happened?
Kerosene prices fell.
Matter of fact, uh there's an interesting uh article in the Foundation of Economic Education, let's see, it's called uh trying to get these pages open.
It's called uh How Capitalism Saved the Whales.
Anyway, um in 18 in 18 uh uh 1865, kerosene sold for 59 cents a gallon.
And in 1895, it sold seven cents a gallon.
That's because of Rockefeller's ingenuity and his marketing.
Now, did he make Americans worse off by his activities that reduce the price of kerosene from what did I say from uh um 59 cents a gallon down to seven cents a gallon that I make American Americans worse off?
But even a more important thing for you environmental wackos out there, Rockefeller saved the whales.
Because how did he come save the whales?
Well, people are using whale oil for for lighting, for lamps.
And it and as we are growing economically, people are using more and more whale oil.
America had the largest whaling fleet, and they're slaughtering whales for whale oil and uh and other products as well.
But when kerosene came in and it became cheap, then people stopped using whale oil.
And so uh if it had not been for Rockefeller, we might not have had any of those cute little whales that the environmental wackles are so happy about.
Matter of fact, and Rockefeller ran into problems too, because along came who?
Along came whom?
Well, Thomas A. Edson.
And he started marketing the incandescent light bulb.
And it virtually ran kerosene out of business.
Well, just the idea that Tom Tom Sowell points out in his column, and I've added some things to it, that very idea that somebody can tell you how much when when you've made enough money.
I mean, that that is dictatorial.
Um, and and we Americans just let that slide by.
But you know, one of the things I'm a little more optimistic about my fellow Americans than I was, because with the Democrat control of the of the House of Representatives of the Senate and the White House,
these people have become so brazen in the attack on personal liberty that finally Americans are beginning to pay attention to the United States Constitution.
You hear more and more Americans talking about the Constitution.
That's what you hear in the Tea Parties, that's you hear a lot of talk radio, you hear conversations about the United States Constitution that I haven't heard in my entire life.
People are beginning to talk about the Constitution and the limits on the federal uh government.
And that is a hopeful sign.
But there's an there's uh some other things that and that many of you people in this audience, you support these things.
For example, I'm switching topics a little bit.
Down through the years, I've attempted to warn my fellow Americans about the tyrannical precedent and the template for further tyranny set by the anti-tobacco zealots.
You know, in the early part of the anti-tobacco campaign, there were calls for reasonable measures such as no smoking sections on airplanes, health warnings on cigarettes, they were successful with that, but in the 1970s, no one would have ever believed that such anti-tobacco measures would have evolved as they evolved today.
The level of attack on smokers, which includes confiscatory taxes, bans on outdoor smoking.
But see, here's what happened.
The door was opened.
That is, you told the federal government, you people who were into anti-smoking movement, and you people who went along with it, you told the government that whenever it has to do anything if anything has to do with our health, government has something has something to say about it.
Okay, so you set the template for government uh engagement in in any area of health.
And so America's tyrants have now turned their attention to salt.
The FDA plans to limit the amount of salt allowed in processed foods for health reasons.
Now, you have to ask the question, why do food processors put a certain quantity of salt in their products?
The answer is people who buy their products like it.
And as a result, the companies earn profits from satisfying their customers.
Now the FDA, and I believe the Obama administration has taken the position that what the American buying public wants is irrelevant.
They know what's best, and if you if you disagree, they'll fine, jail you, or put you out of business.
Now, as I pointed out many, many times on this show that tyranny knows no bounds.
That is, there's never been a tyrant in history that woke up one morning and said, I'm tired of tyrannizing people, I'm going to let people be free.
And so, here's what the FDA here's the FDA's agenda.
Let's say the FDA orders stofers to no longer put uh 970 milligrams of sodium in their roasted turkey dinners.
They can only put in 400.
Suppose Stofer's customers, assuming they continue to buy the product, suppose they add more salt.
Then what will the FDA do?
The answer's easy.
They'll copy the successful anti-tobacco zealot uh tempic template.
They might start out with warning labels on salt.
Congress might levy confess confiscatory taxes on salt.
Maybe lawsuits will be brought against salt companies.
State and local agencies might uh deny child adoption rights to couples found using too much salt.
Or before a couple can adopt a baby, they might have to take a blood test to determine their dietary habits.
Teachers might ask uh school children to report their parents adding salt to their meals.
All this, you might say, well, Williams, that's incredible.
They never go that far in the name of health.
Well, in 1960, you might have said the same thing about the cigarette Nazis.
Oh, they won't go that far in the name of health.
We'll discuss some of these issues when we come back.
We're back, and it's Walter Williams trying to sell his fellow Americans on the moral superiority of liberty and its main ingredient, limited government.
Um before we go to the phones, I'll just give you a quote by H. L. Mencken.
H. L. Mencken was a political satirist and he worked for the Baltimore Sun.
And he gave a description of health care professionals in his day.
And I think that their chest is uh description of health care professionals in his day are appropriate for many of today's health care professionals.
And here's what H. L. Mencken said.
A certain segment of medical opinion in late years has succumbed to the messianic delusion.
Its spokesman's its spokesmen are not content to deal with the patients who come to them for advice.
They conceive it to be their duty to force their advice upon everyone, including especially those who don't want it.
That duty is purely imaginary.
It's born of vanity, not a public spirit.
The impulse behind it is not altruism, but a mere yearning to run things.
That is to run other people's lives.
That's what we have in our country.
A desire to run other people's lives.
And we Americans, we Americans put up with it.
And I think Thomas Jefferson put it more simply.
He put it simpler in his notes on religion in 1776.
And he said, Laws provide against injury from others, but not from ourselves.
That is the salt Nazis.
They're trying to stop me from injuring myself.
Well, I belong to Walter Williams, and I can do what I want with Walter Williams, in my opinion.
Now, of course, if I belong to the United States Congress, then I just couldn't do the uh what I want with my body because it's not mine.
Let's go to the phones and welcome from Spring Valley, New York, Joe.
Welcome to the show, Joe.
Yeah, this Walter, how are you doing?
Okay.
Yeah, I spoke into Rush a few times in my conversation with him uh about Obama's mother-in-law example, is on Google with millions of hits, and I just get a letter from President Obama himself.
You think he's gonna implement my idea to create jobs, and he found out, you know, like I spoke to Russia, and that's when I get a call back from the White House.
It's amazing.
Do you think Obama can create jobs?
Well, uh he's trying to uh the and the this is what he said about the issue, you know, uh when you have made enough money, what he's trying to say is there has to be some fairness and take it take the case in point of uh this guy, uh Bill Gates.
I mean, this is like what you call referred to as greed on steroid.
Oh, come on.
He he he did achieve he did achieve substantial stuff.
But what he did was uh he in order to safeguard his assets, he started b Bill and Melinda Gate trust fund because uh his actions were predatory prior to that by taking Linux and That's incredible.
That's a look, yeah.
How did Bill Gates get how do you have any of his products?
No, of course I have I had Linux before and then it turned to windows.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute.
You purchase uh windows, did somebody come with a gun, did Bill Gates come with a gun and say, plump down four hundred dollars for this windows or I'm gonna shoot you.
No, no, he didn't come with a gun.
Okay, uh okay, now why'd you buy windows?
Because he like a gangster, he replaced uh uh Linux with windows.
I know, but why but you didn't have to buy windows.
But because he put the other guy out of business, you know this out of business.
You you could have bought Apple, couldn't you?
Okay, so that's the point I'm trying to come to.
The point is when he took when he tried to say why did he try to attempt to safeguard his asset by making Bill and Melinda get trustworthy, he gets three billion dollars from the treasury, and another thirty billion he saved from the lawsuits, and another three billion he makes, you know, uh wait wait a minute, wait a minute.
Whose money is it?
It's our money.
That that is incredible.
No, but no, he he made the money.
No, no, he didn't make the money.
He said he he cynically manipulated the system, and then he made the money out of gangsterism, sheer gangsterism.
That's what you mean you he he he to he took a gun and made people buy his products?
I I don't mean with a gun, but gang like by bullying, by but he can buy it.
Well, look, you know, Al Al Capone bullied people.
Uh that that did uh Bill Gates do say things like Al Capone.
Okay, so this is what Microsoft is about.
Instead of 400,000 jobs that Microsoft can create without making a dent on his balance sheet, he creates only lousy forty thousand jobs, twenty thousand of which are overseas.
That that w why why what do you have against people overseas?
America comes forth.
I came from overseas.
I came from one of the most miserable corners of this planet, slum dog millionaire.
I used to live one mile from the slums where this movie slum dog million dollars.
Okay, now where is that?
In in Mumbai, India.
Okay, right.
And and here's what you want us to do.
You want us to turn United States into India.
No, no, no.
You want you want it to be you want to be like Bombai, that is, where where the India where the Indian government controls things.
Okay, where the Indian government controls things.
And and the uh the there's there's socialism.
That's what this guy wants.
He he you flee, you you You ran away from socialism, you came here with in capitalism and did very well, and now you want to have socialism again.
That is, you want to do away with private property rights.
You want to say that the money that people earned, the money that people earn themselves belong to somebody else other than themselves.
That is utter that that is utter nonsense.
And I would like to know you you must have gotten your uh degree, if you say you're an economist, you must have gotten your degree in Bombay University.
Some place in India where they don't teach real economics.
But on this show, you're gonna get real economics.
We'll be back.
Walter Williams sitting in for the vacationing rush, and you can be on with us by calling 800-282-2882.
There's uh there's something else uh that um that I find a little bit disturbing, and that is uh a report that just came out by the the Tax Foundation, and they point out, according to the latest IRS figures for two thousand and eight,
a record fifty-two million filers, people who file income tax, that is thirty-six percent of the hundred and forty million who filed income taxes, had no tax liability at all because of credits and deductions reduced their liability to zero.
Okay, so you have some fifty-two million filers and their families have no federal tax uh liability.
Then you have a whole bunch of Americans who don't file at all.
And of course, they don't have uh a federal tax liability.
And according to the found the Tax Foundation, their website, roughly fifty-one percent have no tax liability.
Fifty-one percent of all Americans.
Now that's that's a problem, isn't it?
Now I I I'm I'm not one for taxes, but if you have no tax liability, the big problem with that is that these people become natural constituents for big spending politicians.
That is, if they don't have any federal income tax liability, what do they care about the federal income tax?
How high it goes.
Well, they care about tax cuts.
Matter of fact, that was one of the reasons why the so-called Bush tax cuts weren't very popular.
Because if you're not paying any taxes, how happy can you get over a tax cut?
None whatsoever.
So, anyway, I I wrote a column about it.
It did cause a bit of controversy, and here's what I said.
I just threw it off the top of the top of my head.
I said, Now, I think that every single American.
Well, here let's go back a little bit.
I was pointing out in this column that I have no say so whatsoever in what goes on in Ford Motor Company.
Why?
Because I don't own any stock.
I don't have any financial stake in Ford Motor Company, so I don't have a right to vote on anything that the company does.
Now, so I was thinking that that would when you make if you if you have any decision-making authority, or if you have any right to vote, then you should have some financial stake in it.
So what I was proposing in this column, and you think about it, I don't know w, uh how much sense it makes, that every single American should have one vote, plus one additional vote for each $20,000 he pays in income taxes.
That is, if he if he has a greater financial stake in the country, then he ought to have a greater say so.
And so I don't know.
I don't know where that's the well, but actually the founding fathers were worried about that because they said they wanted a property requirement.
That is, they wanted if you had the right to vote, you should have property.
You should have a stake in what you're voting on.
But anyway, let's go to the phone calls and talk to and welcome to the show.
Bing from Wacos, Georgia.
I knew a lot of guys.
When I was at Fort Stewart, Georgia, I knew a lot of guys uh who lived in Way Cross, Georgia.
You know where Fort Stewart is?
Oh yeah, I know where that's at.
Yes, in Hinesville, Georgia.
Hinesville, that's right.
That's right.
Well, welcome to the show.
Well, thank you.
Um your question posed was about how does the government creep into our lives.
Yeah.
I think that the majority of it happens because there's either a um momentous tragedy or there's an ongoing need that people see they say we need to do something about that.
Then along comes either a uh somebody running newly for office or a current politician who says I can help you with that.
And they use that as a promise to get elected, and once they're elected, then they begin trying to address that need.
And you left out the most important issue here is that the problem that they're gonna try to fix is a problem that they created.
Quite frequently, yes.
And and and and for example, no, almost all the time.
That is that is uh uh the Great Depression.
That was the Great Depression was caused by the by the Congress of the United States.
It was caused by the the uh the Smoot Hawley tariff and the Federal Reserve in uh uh unwise handling of the money supply in our country.
And then it was exacerbated by Roosevelt's new deal.
It made it worse.
That that is what Roosevelt did, his policy, very much like b uh Obama's policy, his policy made what would have been a two or three year sharp downturn in the economy, he turned it into a depression that was not over until nineteen forty six.
Yes, when when you said it's caused by themselves, you mean it's caused by the government.
Yeah, caused by the government, yes.
Yes, and and and this latest problem that we have is again caused by the government.
The name the the so the the idea that everybody should have a home, they with the subprime mortgages and the no dock loans and all the manipulation of the housing market, a lot of it's caused by the government or or the uh the the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates so low uh that uh cause people to think that the long term was better than it actually was.
And so most of the major problems that we have are the crisis caused by government.
Now, I I doubt whether you can say, well, the uh the attack by the Japanese in 1941, that was not caused by government, and the government's response was good.
They uh you know, go after the Japanese and make them surrender.
But uh most of the major problems that we have as a nation are caused by government.
But thanks thanks a lot for calling in.
Let's go to Jane in Joplin, Missouri.
Welcome to the show, Jane.
Thank you.
Glad to be here.
Well thank you for calling in.
Thank you.
Um, can I go ahead and start?
Oh y oh yes, you are.
You're talking to the man.
All right, you're gonna have a hard time stopping me.
I'm telling you, I am so mad I could hardly stand it.
And and I'm so glad I got through.
Uh I I want to tell you a story about my grandmother who escaped over here when the Bolsheviks took over in Russia.
Okay, you have to be quick, we're up against clock.
He settled in Colorado.
And when the hippies were all moving out into the mountains, she said, This is how it starts.
We said, What are you talking about, grandma?
She said, I tell you this is how it starts.
You work, they don't, they come and take what you have.
This is exactly what's happening to us today.
And it's absolutely frightening that the leaders that we have now have no respect for our country, have no respect to us as Americans, have no respect for anything that is good.
Well, I I think a lot a lot of lot you can you can blame the leaders for a lot of our problems, but look, uh Jane, we have to blame the American people because for the most part, these so-called leaders are doing precisely what the American people elect them to office to do.
And what do we elect politicians to office to do?
We elect them to office to use the power of their office to take what belongs to one American and bring it Back to them.
And yes.
And we we we uh we elect politicians to do what if we did privately, we'd go to jail.
Well right now we're wanting to tell a politician, leave us alone.
We have our uh my husband and I both had a small business too, and the one caller earlier was carrying on about how you're supposed to do what the public wants to because you open your doors to the public, excuse me.
Did he work eighty, ninety hours a week trying to get that business started?
Did he work there when he would get paid?
People that we employ get paid but it was low on money and Jane, we didn't they don't have a lot of understanding, they don't have much understanding on that at all.
So but but thanks for calling in.
Let's let's take a break now and we'll be back with more of your calls after this.
Walt Williams here, uh pushing back the frontiers of ignorance.
And uh you know, by the way I wrote w in my column on uh on salt tirings.
I I got some mail and people say, Well, look, Williams, if you eat too much salt, that's you hurt yourself, you don't hurt me.
But if you're smoking aha, you hurt me.
Well well the the EPA study is fraudulent, but let's assume that they're right about the secondhand smoke.
Well, the issue isn't whether I hurt you or not.
That's completely irrelevant.
The issue is private property rights.
That is, if it's my property, then I determine how it's used.
That is, if it's if it's my house and I want to permit smoking, uh that's my right.
If it's my restaurant and I want to permit smoking, I think that's my right.
Maybe I should put a sign out there saying that the smoking is permitted.
And on the other hand, if it's your restaurant, you have a right to say, well, no smoking.
If it's your house, you have the right to say, no smoking.
Now, so pri that's one of the roles of private property rights.
It determines who may harm who in what ways.
Now, what a lot of people do, they have contempt for the ideas of liberty associated with private property rights.
That is, they want to be able to forcibly impose their preferences on other people.
Now they want to be able to use the law to force restaurant or bar owners who are satisfied allowing smoking in their establishment, they want to force them not to allow smoking.
Now, how would these same people feel if the smokers had the pilot political power and you had a restaurant that you did not want smoking in and they force you to permit smoking, how would you feel?
You'd feel you'd feel that would be unjust.
Well, it works the other way too.
And that's the role of private property.
But what the heck?
You know, most Americans uh or Americans are increasingly uh forming a contempt for the ideas of private property.
That is who owns it ought to make the decisions.
And once you say, well, the government can come in and determine how private property should be used, including your body, because that's private property as well.
Well, you invited the government, government in, so they can tell you, well, you can't uh uh have so much fat or you can't eat uh uh Phil and Yong unless you trim all the fat off of it.
You uh can't eat so much salt.
Once you invite government in, you tell government okay, yeah, you have a foot in the door, they're gonna put the whole body in the door, and then you're gonna complain about it, but you have invited them in.
Let's go to Deanna in Grass Valley, California.
Welcome to show.
Thank you.
Um I wanted to speak to the salt issue.
Okay.
I have a kidney disease uh that requires my kidneys flush out all the sodium from my body.
And so I need to take uh extra thought.
Um I'm on a regular um I have to take regular basis, yeah.
Yeah.
Uh of uh medication for that.
And uh these people that are doing this uh have no clue about we're not doctors, and they have no clue about what they're doing.
Well, well they they like me.
They have no respect for personal liberty.
That's right.
And you know what they'll do.
I think they would feel sorry for you, Deanna.
I think they'll feel sorry for Deanna, that uh they would probably say, Well, um, let's have a prescription for salt.
You go to the drugstore and get, you know, here's a prescription and yeah, or a subsidy.
Here's a prescription for salt.
They give you a break.
Okay, let's welcome uh let's see, let's welcome John from Orangeville, California.
Dr. Williams, how the heck are you?
Okay.
Very good timing.
My uh wife just came in and made me lunch after she was mowing the grill yard.
So good.
You have you have her you have her under control.
Absolutely, absolutely.
I guess you've learned a lot of things from me.
I've been listening to you for a long time.
She does a lot more chores now than she used to.
So I appreciate it.
Okay, yeah, right.
I and I believe in keeping wives under control.
You you're a good man, you're a good man.
Okay.
Hey, listen, out here in uh this area, we're in the Sacramento area, the the big thing out here is um the American with Disability Act.
And there's a couple of lawyers, and all they do is go around and they pick these businesses apart because the law says that certain things have to be done.
And uh and and they're shutting these b poor businesses down, these guys get in, they open these businesses.
There was a a business here that h hosts birthday parties, and they have an upstairs facility and a downstairs facility, and the uh uh the people came in and said we want the party upstairs, and the gentleman was in a wheelchair, they said, Well, we don't have access to that, but we have a wonderful facility downstairs for you to use.
He said, No, I want to be upstairs.
They said we have a wonderful facility downstairs.
They sued him and they shut the business down.
Yeah, yeah, that's uh I and I think that the Americans Disabilities Act, I think it's uh it's it has gone too it has gone entirely too far.
And many times uh you have you have um you have facilities when they're not even disabled people.
That's exactly right.
And what you said is that that they take these things too far, and that's what happens.
We as the American people, it's just they get their foot in the door and then it gets worse and worse and worse.
And pretty soon you just you know they're telling us how to raise our kids, how to drive our cars, what to do, where to go, how to eat.
And see, if if Americans would tell these people up front that uh they cannot do anything, or they are we we just refuse to go along with the program, then I think that the government would be back down because they can't put three hundred million of us in jail.
We'll be back to your calls after this.
Walt Williams sitting in for the vacation rush uh limball.
The next hour, uh folks.
Here's my question I'm gonna ask the next hour.
If one group of Americans prefers government control and the management of people's lives, and another group of Americans prefers liberty and the desire to be left alone, should they be required to fight?
Should they be required to antagonize one another, risk bloodshed and loss of life in order to impose their preferences, or should they be able to peaceably part company and go their separate ways.
That's the question for the next hour.
And then also I'm gonna ask the question, because free markets or capitalism gets such a bad name.
I'm gonna ask, are free markets or capitalism or laissez-faire, is it pro-rich or pro-poor.
That is, do free markets favor the rich or do they favor the poor?
I believe that they favor all of us, but I'm gonna tell you precisely why in the next hour.
But um, in this hour, we're just kind of finishing up that on the salt tyrants and the enough money for those of you who messed up, and so you'll you'll have to go to Tom Soul's website to see um enough money and my website, Walter E. Williams.com to read about the salt tyrants.
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