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April 19, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:44
April 19, 2012, Thursday, Hour #3
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And it's hour number three on the Thursday Rush Limbaugh Show.
Uh we're at the EIB Northern Command, where it's a beautiful 70-ish sunshiny day in midtown Manhattan.
Be here tomorrow as well, and Mary Madeline filling in for Rush on Monday.
Rush will be back on Tuesday.
All look forward to that.
I have been looking forward to this particular hour.
Because it's an opportunity to talk some Reagan about a guy who knows more than a little about it.
If we are in a season where President Obama himself is going to try to co-opt some Reagan imagery in order to make himself look uh you know, less socialist, whatever.
Uh any time he's gonna call the Buffett rule the Buffett rule, you could call it the Reagan rule.
Uh I mean my skin, you you could probably hear my skin crawling from wherever you might have been.
So let's talk a little bit about how Obama might try to invoke Reagan, how Romney might try to invoke Reagan, hopefully how Romney will try to embody and emulate Reagan.
That would be good.
And who better to do this with than the author of Rendezvous with Destiny, Ronald Reagan and the campaign that changed America and Reagan's revolution, the untold story of the campaign that started it all, Reagan biographer, Reagan uh scholar, Craig Shirley.
How are you, sir?
Mark, how are you?
I am absolutely fantastic.
It's so nice to talk to you.
We've we've spoken and met, and uh it's just a joy to have you in this time when oh gosh, thirty-two years uh after that election, it still resonates.
It is still something that is inv invoked usually by Republicans, but let's talk about the degree to which I think a switch slipped when President Reagan passed away.
Then even Democrats found it safe to admit that his was an amazing and visionary presidency.
To what extent do you find it curious that Democrats seek to invoke him now?
Well, it it's interesting because uh only after a period in which they tried to uh destroy his legacy, uh, and actually uh even before he was uh elected president tried to uh uh undermine him at every term.
But it Reagan is such an indomitable figure mark.
Uh his shadow looms so uh large over American politics is that the the Democrats have decided, you know, the old adage if you can't beat him, make him into one of ours.
Uh and that's what they're attempting to do.
You know, it's curious as that they're invoking this Buffett rule, but let me throw this quote back at them, what Reagan said in early eighty-three.
He said, We did not come to Washington to raise the people's taxes.
We came here to restore opportunity and get this economy moving again.
We do not face large deficits because Americans aren't taxed enough.
We face those deficits because the Congress still spends too much.
Now, two things.
One, that utterly refutes uh Obama on the ish issue of uh Buffett.
Number two is that you notice Reagan always said we, not I, me or my.
His uh preference for uh pronouns was vastly different uh than President Obama's.
When I knew you were coming on the show today, I uh there's something I wanted to do, because between you and me and members of this audience, we could have a wonderful nine or ten minutes just uh uh i it immersing ourselves in nostalgia and the greatness of Reagan, and it would be and it would be time well spent.
Believe you me, it would be time well spent.
But you know what I'd really like to do?
I want to take a look at a few things in an attempt to really understand those years better and maybe look through the haze of memory and and even the haze of affection and talk about a couple of things that might actually come up if we're about to enter into a presidential campaign where everybody's gonna be talking about Reagan.
Tell so number one, let's talk about Reagan and immigration.
Uh what happened in the era of Simpson Mazzoli.
What happened was was that uh there was uh in 1986 the issue would come up about uh a growing problem of uh ill illegal immigration.
Uh Reagan was not a uh absolute hardliner, and this came up briefly in the 1980 campaign with George Bush, although he took a uh harder line on it uh in a uh debate with uh then Ambassador Bush uh uh uh as far as work visas and permits and things like that.
But he thought that there should be some type of intellectual flow.
We also have to put ourselves in the context of the era.
It was the height of the Cold War.
We needed uh allies against the Soviet Union.
We needed them in Central America, we needed them in uh in the uh in the Pacific, we needed them in the uh uh, you know, the uh other places uh including Mexico.
So the idea was uh Reagan wanted to have as uh good a relations between Mexico and the Central and South American countries as uh as possible.
There were very strict uh uh edicts that came out of Cincent Missoula regarding language and citizenship and back taxes.
Problem was the bureaucracy never enforced them.
And we're also at the time dealing with a lot of people who had come to the United States to escape communism from Cuba and from uh Central America.
So they were uh in Reagan's mind, they were political refugees, not just simply coming here for uh economic opportunity, but it was a far fewer number that had come in nineteen uh by nineteen eighty six than have come illegally of the last uh ten years.
There is an enormous lesson in in those ninety seconds from you right there about how complex it can be to actually govern.
Reagan, Reagan on any given day like any conservative, like any American, does not want to have a flood of illegals pouring across our southern border.
But if indeed, I mean we got to remember what everything was about in in the in the time of Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas and Nicaragua and and and Soviet footholds in so much of Central America, it was not an easy time and maybe not even a smart time to be a Tom Tancredo style Duncan Hunter style hardliner about our southern border because it would have antagonized some people that we really needed to befriend.
And and and not only that he also proposed in the 80 campaign a North American accord which would stimulate the economies of not just the United States but all the Americas, Canada, Central and South America, Mexico, so that if you had growing in Vibert economies in all of these countries, then there would be no need for uh for people to to migrate illegally from one country to another let's go to something else.
Let's talk a little bit about spending if there's anything that we love about President Reagan it is that he reformed our tax structure but anybody you know the aliens landing from space and looking at the actual outlays of government will recognize that even during Reagan government got bigger.
It just did now it would have gotten far larger under a Carter second term or or a Teddy Kennedy presidency in there somewhere, but government got bigger.
And this leads me to the following the the following observation, which I've heard and I know you have too that if you take if you take Reagan's persona and his name and his magic away from it and just give somebody a template of his views, his actual views, actual record, actual everything, that it might not pass Tea Party muster today.
What do you think?
Reagan was in fact was the original Tea Party candidate you remember when he ran in Gerald for against Gerald Ford and uh the for the seventy six nomination when he announced in 1975 he held a press conference and said his reasons for running for president was against big government, big labor, big business and the Washington buddy system that was using the uh the the uh the taxpayers money to feather its own nest.
Uh Reagan was always a a revolutionary you know, you know we Reagan was the head of the national government for eight years and yet you nor your listeners nor I would ever think that Rao Reagan was a part of the Washington Buddy system.
He was always in a perpetual state of revolution.
On the issue of spending, yes, government grew although it grew far more slowly on his watch than it had previously or since but I love this question because it because the the people who use this against Reagan look at these things statically and it's like the argument against the Louisiana purchase.
If you say yes Thomas Jefferson violated his small government conservative precepts and and uh uh acquired the Louisiana purchase from uh France you would say yes he violated his principles but if you look at it another way in that he doubled the size of the govern of the country with a stroke of the pen but he didn't double the size of the government.
So therefore he diluted the influence of the national government.
Reagan grew in eight years the national economy sixfold so by in so doing he diluted the influence of the national government.
We're talking to a Reagan historian Craig Shirley last uh area let let's let's go back when you talk about Reagan you go to nineteen eighty and that's fantastic because that's when it all well when when his presidency began but in our last couple of minutes, Craig, I want to go back to nineteen seventy six because there are echoes of that today at least coming from some.
In 1976, you had Gerald Ford about whom there was only middling enthusiasm along came a more conservative, more vibrant, more exciting challenger in Ronald Reagan and it just didn't work out.
There are a lot of people, most of them in Santorum country I'm thinking, who believe that this is being played out again that in playing it safe and going with Romney and and and not having the guts to go with the edgier, the more conservative the uh you know to go for the three point shot when things seem darkest, uh we made a mistake in seventy six and it gave us Carter.
Some folks say we are about to repeat that mistake, etc, etc, etc.
But take me rather than settling that one right here, take me back to seventy six and that crazy convention and because we're only a couple of years past Nixon's resignation and you know Republicans why listen we're of similar age.
Was that the first election you voted in?
Uh well, it was the first national it was the first presidential election.
Exactly.
Yeah, we're the same age.
And I and I very proudly, I proudly voted for President Ford.
But I remember thinking, oh man, I you know, I I don't want, you know, I don't want Jimmy Carter, but Ford wasn't exactly floating my boat either, and God bless us.
I remember the full election there was great discussion in my family.
We were all uh conservatives, and uh of course, you know, Carter ran as a reformist conservative in many ways.
He was going to clean up Washington, he was going to uh change the tax code, he was going to uh reduce the size of government he promised a middle middle class tax cut.
He was uh he in many ways ran as a as a uh a populist reformist uh democrat who was really in many ways outside the uh the democratic mainstream of the time of uh of uh liberalism.
So there were a lot of people I knew on the right who had a real hard time uh deciding between uh Governor Carter and uh and President Ford.
Uh and and some of them actually did, some of these conservatives did vote for uh for Jimmy Carter.
But that convention itself was the first time uh since 1952 where delegates gathered in a city uh as with Eisenhower and Robert Taft and uh Chicago 1952, not knowing who the nominee of the party was going to be.
And every it was a front it was headline news whenever a delegate uh an uncommitted delegate announced that they were leaning toward Ford or leaning toward uh Reagan or they were becoming unlean to toward Reagan uh and it was just it was covered uh pretty much twenty-four hours by the three networks,
uh breathlessly, uh and it came down to there were the night of the nomination, two thousand two hundred and fifty-seven ballots were cast, uh, and Ford won the nomination by only fifty-seven ballots more than the one thousand one hundred and thirty he needed for uh to be nominated.
If Reagan had stopped Ford from getting the nomination on the first ballot, the delegations in Kentucky and uh North Carolina and other states were free to vote their preference on a second and third balloting, and Reagan probably would have been the nominee if it had gone to a second ballot.
Last thing, and I I I love bringing this up because a lot of people don't even remember it.
Did did Ronald Reagan hurt himself in nineteen seventy-six with a gesture to attract liberals and centrists in the party with his pledge, his his pledge to name Senator Richard Schwiker of Pennsylvania as his running mate.
No.
Uh actually it was a it was a brilliant stroke, Mark.
Uh, and I've talked to Senator Schweiker about this extensively, and also to John Sears, who was Reagan's campaign manager at the time.
Uh at the end of the primary period in June, there were still two months to go before the August convention in Kansas City.
Uh and Jim Baker, the very uh respected estimable Jim Baker, uh, was in charge of the at the time of the delegate operation for uh for uh Gerald Ford, and he had all the power of the White House and incumbency and Air Force One and State dinners and all these other things to woo about 150 uncommitted delegates, and slowly there was a trickling of delegates who were leaving the uncommitted camp and going into the Ford camp.
CBS News along uh this time in in mid-June had done a meticulous, meticulous count of all two thousand two hundred and fifty-nine delegates and had come up with a story that they were Walter Cronkite, it was gonna be the lead story, that they had by their count, Ronald uh uh Gerald Ford had enough b delegates for a first ballot nomination.
If he had reported that story, it would have spread like wildfire throughout the media and throughout political circles, and Reagan's challenge would have been effectively over.
The selection of Swiker, uh uh Senator Schweiker, uh uh basically threw the cards in the air, and everybody had to pick up fifty-two cards and deal from a fresh deck because uh nobody knew the impact the Schweiker choice would have on the delegations in Pennsylvania and with moderates in Maryland and New York and other places.
It kept the Reagan campaign alive to Kansas City so that Reagan and Sears and company could try to figure out how to win the nomination.
It was actually it was a master stroke.
Craig, this is tremendous.
Uh I could read books about this, and thankfully you have written them.
So let us let us refer people to uh Reagan's Revolution, the untold story of the campaign that started it all, and Rendezvous with Destiny, Ronald Reagan and the campaign that changed America.
And uh do you mind if I send people to Craig Shirley dot com, which I've yet by all means, please do.
Craig, C R A I G, Craig Shirley.com, uh writing, thinking, remembering Ronald Reagan.
Pleasure, sir.
Thank you very, very much.
Thank you, Mark very much.
Tell you what, let's do.
In our remaining, oh, forty-one minutes or so on the Thursday Rush Limbaugh show.
Uh let's now with our heads full of all kinds of good Reagan stuff.
Let's first of all, uh can we stipulate they always say that we're we're looking for the next Reagan.
We will never find him.
We will never find him.
He does not in fact exist.
But that's okay, because you're not going to find the next Grover Cleveland, the next Rutherford B. Hayes, the next Clinton, the next I know, insert your own joke here.
Everybody's different, every president is different.
To what extent can we expect Romney to begin emulating portions of the Reagan legacy?
And we'll also, since I'm up here in New York, which is always it's always a joy to visit this great city.
It is a a city of great um of great energy and great paradox, because i it it's the biggest city in a country that has embodied freedom since its birth, and yet in Michael Bloomberg's not the only mayor who's done this.
New York can throw you some of the strangest regulatory things, and you know, Rush talked about the cigar dinner and all of this and how crazy it is to not be able to allow smoking at a cigar dinner for crying out loud.
I mentioned that one of the things that Romney needs to go after, the Obama failed presidency and the attacks on our liberty.
A lot of the attacks on our liberty come in the form of overregulation.
Over regulation of things that just should not be regulated.
People say that and they use that word a lot, but what are some examples?
Well, uh obviously smoking laws, anti-smoking laws are one of them, and Rush had one that involved your pool and spa.
And we'll have a little memory of that from March, and so we'll weave that into our remaining minutes as well.
And the rest of it, the only remaining part of the uh of the equation, uh that's that magical element called whatever occurs to you.
All righty, here we go.
1 800 282, 2882, Mark Davis in for Rush.
It is the Thursday Rush Limbaugh Show, Mark Davis in for Rush.
All righty.
Let's head to Crofton, Maryland.
John, how are you?
Mark Davis in for us today.
Welcome.
I do, Mark Davis.
Doing good.
Did you uh go to school here in Montgomery County?
I well, the short answer is no.
I am a product of Prince George's County, just to but I am uh, however, a proud graduate of the University of Maryland, 1979.
Oh, okay.
That's probably what I'm thinking of.
There you go.
Yeah.
I the reason I called you is I know you have a talk show down in Texas, and I keep on getting these nightmares that there's going to be a third party uh uh that's gonna take votes away from Romney, just like in I think it was nineteen ninety-two uh you had Ross Perot, another guy from Texas, and now this time you got a guy from Texas named Ron Paul.
And I'm wondering what your feeling is on whether this is gonna be a nineteen percent problem like it was in nineteen ninety two.
In other words, it's gonna be deja vu nineteen ninety-two.
It will not for the following reason.
Number one, uh Ron Paul will not run as a third party candidate because it would make life very, very difficult for his son Rand, who is a very up and coming Republican, and he does not want to give his son a conflict of whether to vote for his party's nominee or his dad, Ron Paul will not run in a third party.
And you know, the reason I ask is because uh I think Hannity has tried over and over again to get some commitment out of uh Ron Paul that he won't do that, and I think the best he ever got was uh at this time I don't plan to do it.
But that that's what people do.
I mean, nobody really telegraphs exactly what they're gonna do or exactly what they're not gonna do.
Just everybody watch him and see what he does.
Ron Paul will not run as a third party candidate, and I don't believe anybody else will either.
Uh I mean there may be some, there'll be other parties.
You're Greens and your constitutionalists and your you know Hamanahamina Party or whoever else.
But nothing that really amounts to anything.
Uh, because you know what makes those things work?
You know what made Perot really work is there were a lot of people who were just kind of eh on Bush and a lot of people that were just kind of eh on Clinton.
Here's here's the little secret.
Is is you can listen to to the Rush Limbaugh show, Sean Hannity show, Mark Levin show, you know, and And think that just everybody hates Obama, but they don't.
There are millions of Americans who will be thrilled to vote for him.
I hope it's not enough to help him win, but there are plenty there's plenty of enthusiasm for Obama.
Here's the other thing that's about to roll out.
Enthusiasm will build.
It will build for Romney.
Once everybody's over the battles of the last few weeks and months, once everybody's done with that and realizes he's the only human being that can beat Obama, then there will be enthusiasm for Romney.
So ultimately, about ninety-five percent of all voters are going to be just fine voting for either Romney or Obama.
They're going to be locked and loaded for that, and thus this notion of nineteen, twenty percent of people just desperately looking for a third option isn't going to exist.
So I don't think and and Trump won't do it because he doesn't want to be the most hated person in America for giving us a second term of Obama.
So let's lose the third party talk.
We got enough to worry about.
Mark Davis in for Rush.
It is the home stretch of the Thursday, Rush Limbaugh Show, the final half hour.
I'm Mark Davis filling in.
And I live in and have traveled here to New York from Texas.
And I am going to invoke a guest host privilege and bring a story from the hometown, because whenever I'm guest hosting from down there, there's always something in Texas that makes national news or something that resonates in a certain way.
And with Russia's story yesterday about the cigar dinner that would not in fact allow smoking.
So one of my absolute favorite issues, not because of my desire to smoke in a restaurant.
I don't ever want to smoke in a restaurant.
I'm not I'm not technically even really a smoker.
I'm an occasional cigar guy, and maybe that would be in a sports bar watching the Rangers.
How about those Texas Rangers?
Thank you.
And uh, you know, so I got that going on.
But it's about liberty and not about smoking.
People say, yeah, Mark, you're a big smokers rights guy.
No, I'm not.
I'm a business rights guy.
In the world of restaurants, here's the way it ought to be.
A restaurant wishing to ban smoking would be allowed to.
I open a restaurant and I don't want to allow a single human being to smoke in there.
It's my restaurant, my call.
But if I choose to open a restaurant and allow people to smoke, that is quite literally my business.
And who is anyone from government to a disapproving customer to tell me what I can and cannot permit in my own business?
Then people say, but Mark, what about those who do not wish to dine around smokers?
Or what about those who who do not wish to work in a smoky environment?
Well, liberty has the answer.
It's called go somewhere else.
Work somewhere else.
Eat somewhere else.
Smoking is a dying practice.
The number of uh restaurants that are going to be no smoking is on the increase, and the number of restaurants seeking to permit it will be on the decrease as fewer and fewer people light up.
This this is going to work out fine.
In the meantime, toward that path, we do not need to have and should not have government telling restaurants what their smoking rules should be.
Now, so there let that be the template there.
It's about business rights.
Now, am I all right with, for example, a no smoking rule, having invoked the Texas Rangers?
Let's say I was watching those those mighty Rangers at the ballpark in Arlington.
Am I okay with smoking being banned there in the in the in the seats at Ranger Stadium, as it obviously is at Yankee Stadium, as it obviously is uh down there in that crazy uh park they got for the Miami Marlins?
Of course that's all right.
Of course that's all right, because if you want to see your local baseball team, there's only one place to do it.
That's in that stadium.
So of course you can have a no smoking rule there, because you gotta sit there in section twenty-seven, row nineteen, six seat five, and if there's somebody just blazing up in front of you, you're screwed.
Of course that's fine to have a no smoking rule there.
That's fine.
Here's something else that's fine.
If a city wants to say he can't smoke in parks, think about it, think about it.
Whose restaurant is it?
A private businessman or woman.
His call.
But who really owns the public park in a city?
The city, which is to say The taxpayers.
And if the taxpayers elect people who say no smoking in this public park, okay.
It's the will of the people.
And if they don't like it, they'll vote out the people who ban the smoking in the public park.
If they want smoking in public parks, they will elect people who will allow smoking in public parks.
Are you following me here?
All right.
Well, follow me to Fort Worth, where they are considering banning smokers as employees.
It is possible in the very near future.
Smokers looking to work for the city of Fort Worth need not apply.
City is seriously thinking of telling any smoker wanting a city job.
I love this story.
To get lost, no ifs, ends, or buts.
Ha ha ha ha ha humor.
Now, can they do that?
Of course they can.
Of course they can.
Cities with the rules that cities make in the private sector, if you have a business, it's your business, your rules.
If it's a city, the rules come from elected officials who are put there by voters.
And if the voters don't like the rules that the elected officials uh enact, then they should get rid of those elected officials and install people who will make better rules.
So can the city of Fort Worth enact something that says we're not going to hire smokers?
Of course they can.
It would be stupid.
But of course they can.
Now why would it be stupid?
I understand the logic.
Well, first, well, this is kind of the logic goes that nonsmokers are healthier.
Are they?
Have you seen some non-smokers lately?
They tend to strike me as scrawny hippies.
I'm being a little bit hyperbolic here.
But here's what I mean.
I know some people who are non-smokers, and they're not real healthy otherwise.
I also know some people, you know, they might uh smoke three or four night, you know, while they're sports bar watching baseball or something like that, and they're otherwise thoroughly healthy.
It is a ridiculous overgeneralization, an absurd overgeneralization.
I I think that that cities and companies who ban smokers as employees are doing something idiotic.
Uh take it on a case by case basis.
Somebody shows up and they just seem to they're they're you know coughing and wretching all over the place during the job interview, find a way to get them out of there.
But but the this kind of heavy-handedness tends not to be smart.
But can a city do it?
Sure it can.
Sure it can.
Now, let's segue from that into a little story of overregulation involving your pool and your spa.
And this is the kind of thing, I don't mean he needs to be telling this story fourteen times on the campaign trail, but the two things I said that Mitt Romney can use in order to go at the Obama agenda in this kind of mindset.
One is the the f the abject failure of it all, the economic failure, uh the uh the the just the overall societal failure of this administration, and the other one is the notion of lost liberty, of government regulations that remove freedoms that you simply ought to have.
And let us go back to March 15th and the Rush Limbaugh morning update of that day in which he described poolmageddon.
March fifteenth, the Ides of March, the day Julius Caesar stabbed to death by Roman senators for American trial lawyers, this March 15th is Pool Mageddon, jackpot day.
Last year, owners of public pools begged Obama's Justice Department to clarify a ruling under the Americans with Disabilities Act, requiring each water element to have a lift to move disabled people from their wheelchairs into the water.
On January 31st this year, the regime ruled that pools and spas accessible by the public have to be in compliance by March 15th.
That's giving the entire nation a month and a half to obey, and if a facility has both a pool and a spa, each of them must have a lift.
Now these lifts can cost between three and ten thousand dollars.
Add another five to ten thousand for installation each.
There just aren't enough lifts or installers to equip all three hundred thousand public pools in America.
The regime says that they will not fine establishments right away, but the trial lawyers can sue.
Kevin Marr, VP of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, warns that a lot of drive-by lawsuits will be coming from firms set up to file spurious ADA claims.
Such firms don't even want compliance, he says.
They just want a quick cash settlement to go away.
So if your local gym, local motel, or homeowners club pool Is suddenly closed.
You now know why.
It's just more destruction of the American lifestyle by the Obama regime and the lining of Democrat pockets.
That was the rush update for March 15th.
Pool Mageddon.
It took something that is praiseworthy, the notion of if you have a pool, should it have a lift that would enable disabled people to go from their wheelchairs into the water?
Is that a good idea?
Of course it is.
Of course it is.
So many good ideas, though, are turned perverse and counterproductive in the hands of the left once they take on the heavy hand of government edict.
Just to sort of complete the trifecta here on an overregulation Thursday, uh this was brand new in today's headlines.
Beginning in 2015.
Let's play a little good idea bad idea.
Beginning in 2015, all new cars in the United States would need to be fitted with the data recording black box, similar to what you find in aircraft.
The U.S. Senate has passed this.
I figured dies in the house.
The primary function of the black box device would be to record and transmit data that could be used to assist a driver and passengers in the event of an accident.
I can absolutely see ways in which such a device could be helpful.
Might even want one in a car that I were to uh that I would want to purchase.
Uh it would back up my story if I'm a good driver, it would back up my story, and in the case of I've got some crazy person saying I did this, the black box would prove otherwise, and the black box would thus be my friend.
But I'll tell you what's not my friend.
The notion of of the increased cost and the increased inconvenience to auto manufacturers of telling auto manufacturers that they have to have this.
If this is something that the public wants, oh it'll happen.
If this is something that the public demands in their cars, the black box, oh makers will start installing them.
But this is a small, small potato up against the backdrop of a country where most of us don't even care that we tell automakers what mileage their cars can get.
Which is the greatest insanity of all.
If you want to drive around in something that weighs, you know, four, ten hundred and get seventy-five miles per gallon, good for you.
Congratulations.
But if you want a big honking pickup that gets about twelve MPG, you also have that right.
It's your vehicle, it's your money.
But no.
We have laid down and allowed ourselves to be steamrolled by a government concept that's a cafe standards, corporate average fuel economy, it's called.
Government telling automakers the mileage their cars and trucks must get.
If you're not outraged by that, you're not thinking enough.
All righty, let's do some calls when we return.
Mark Davis in for rush on the EIB Network.
It is the Thursday Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Mark Davis doing this uh today and tomorrow, and Mary Matelin will be in for rush on Monday, and Rush returns on Tuesday.
So let's see what kind of excitement we can pack into the waning minutes of this broadcast.
We are in Effingham, Illinois.
Tracy, hey, Mark Davis in for Rush, how are you?
Okay.
Um I believe that the uh smoking is a hygiene issue.
Okay.
Um as are many things.
Excuse me?
As are many things, like how much perfume you're wearing, how frequently you bathe, you know, stuff like that.
But we don't go, you know, telling people they can and can't uh go into restaurants because of certain things or or allow certain things in restaurants.
Usually it's taken care of by simple human consideration, like, hey, could you not wear as much perfume or hey, could you take a shower?
Or, hey, do you mind not smoking?
It's worked that way pretty well for decades.
Okay, got a point there.
Thank you.
But perfume doesn't kill you.
Well, yeah.
Good point.
Uh smoking is, I guess I think the old saying is that smoking is the one cigarettes are the one product which, when used properly, harm you.
Fair point.
Uh, that is a good argument for telling people they should not smoke.
But that's not the point.
The point is, should government tell a restaurant what its smoking rules can be?
And that answer is no.
If a restaurant wants to allow smoking and you and I don't want to go there, we don't have to go there.
But restaurants are regulated with OSHA.
Well, OSHA is about worker safety.
I mean, don't have uh, you know, a guillotine hanging over the head of people who are making tortillas.
Uh well, no, the OSHA also regulates the the clean environment.
Absolutely.
And you shouldn't have, you know, a bunch of fecal matter in the back where the butter is stored.
Absolutely true.
That's a universally true.
But there are people who wish to smoke after eating or during eating or before eating.
And if a restaurant wants to allow them to, they should be able to allow them to.
Well, they can go outside and do that.
They shouldn't have to.
It's my restaurant if it's my restaurant.
It's my rules.
Who is the government and who is anybody else to interfere with that sacred contract between entrepreneur and customer?
Well, I guess that's where we get back to the Constitution and where you injuring me makes a difference.
I'm not injuring you.
If I have a restaurant, your smoke injures me.
Then don't then don't come into my restaurant.
If I have a restaurant that allows smoking, you have all the liberty in the world to avoid me.
To go somewhere else.
But if you have really good food, why shouldn't I have to not?
Because it's my because it's my restaurant.
It is mine.
It is my business.
The rules are mine.
If I have the best steak you've ever tasted, you have a decision to make.
Is the steak so good that you will tolerate the occasional smoker?
Or nope, can't do it.
And if so, understand.
I totally understand.
But at no point, at no point can your love for my steak may give you the right to tell me what my rules in my restaurant can be.
It's called liberty.
That that may be true of a restaurant.
What about a hospital?
Okay.
Ah well, you ah, the pivot to the hospital.
Ha ha.
Well, obviously, if you're in the hospital, uh the that's that's where you are.
You're probably not there by choice, and there's a whole other set of rules that kick in.
The the restaurants have a there are there's zillions of them.
There's plenty of choice, and that's something where it ought to be purely the entrepreneur.
That's all.
That's odd.
It's okay.
It's called Liberty.
It works out.
It works out well.
It wor I wish that more people were in the mood to to try it.
All right, sweet.
Very, very good.
In fact, there's a billboard campaign.
It's kind of there's a billboard campaign.
I don't know if it's national or if it's just in Texas.
There are two of their two billboards.
Uh the the theme of the billboard is some people can't avoid secondhand smoke.
That's the theme of the billboard.
Some people can't avoid secondhand smoke.
One billboard features a baby with a big cloud of smoke around his head.
That's a good billboard.
It's right.
Don't be smoking on your baby.
What are you?
An idiot?
Because that baby can't avoid the secondhand smoke.
The other one features a waitress with a tray in her hand.
What?
Do we have some some kind of of of Honduran sweatshop restaurants where waitresses are forced to work there against their will?
Guess what?
You can avoid the smoke.
Work somewhere else.
This liberty thing is so tricky, so tricky for some.
And yet it's so simple.
Kind of like as simple as taking this last break on time.
Let's do it.
Mark Davis in for rush.
Well, this has been nothing but fun.
Mark Davis in for rush, and I've got just a crazy wacky idea.
How about we do it again tomorrow?
And then I have another idea.
Let's have Mary Madeline do the show on Monday, and then the best idea of all, let's have Rush come back on Tuesday.
This has just been a joy.
Great to be around Bo and Mike and Allie with a call screening.
It's just been great to be up here at E. IB Northern Command.
So uh tomorrow we'll have everything from the campaign trail, uh, other arenas of news.
We started today's show talking about the death of Dick Clark and just how weird it was to be in Times Square and then learn of the death of Dick Clark in view of the significance and the iconic connection between Dick Clark and that stretch of American turf.
Well, his connection to an enormous stretch of American history is beyond doubt.
In nineteen fifty-two, I mentioned that Dick Clark was a radio guy.
1952, he was a disc jockey at WFIL in Philadelphia.
They had a TV station too, and there was a show called Bob Horn's Bandstand.
Bob Horn was let go in 1956, and then that show went into the hands of Dick Clark and America on that day.
Changed forever.
God bless you, Dick.
What a life.
What a guy.
And what a wife, Carrie, who supported him so much in these recent years.
So appreciate it.
Thank you, Rush.
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