RUSH: Kara in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hi, Kara, welcome to the Open Line Friday edition of our big broadcast.
CALLER: Hello, Mr. Limbaugh. How are you?
RUSH: Fine. I’m
CALLER: It’s such an honor to speak with you. I’m a Rush baby, and it was great to talk to Mr. Snerdley, too. You have a wonderful team.
RUSH: Thank you. I appreciate that.
CALLER: Well, we just got done digging out of our second storm in under a week.
RUSH: Yeah, and in fact National Public Radio in Minnesota was going to do a giant seminar on global warming, and they had to cancel it because of the blizzard.
CALLER: Further proof of global warming.
RUSH: Yeah. I have it here in the Global Warming Stack. There’s a big story here about Mars, by the way, getting a lot hotter. Here it is. ?Minnesota Public Radio presents ?Global Warming, The Home Front,? a public insight forum.? It was supposed to happen last night but they canceled it because of a blizzard.
CALLER: Well, I’ve been out shoveling doing my Doritos [sic] offsets.
RUSH: Well, good for you.
CALLER: My husband and I have been married for about a year and a half, and he wants to move to Florida. I am conservative. He is not. Since Minnesota has become a wannabe socialist state, it’s starting to look more and more attractive to move away — and get to a place that has more agreeable tax rates. I was wondering what you think of moving to Florida.
RUSH: Well, I did it.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: And on only a few occasions have I regretted it, for reasons that have nothing to do with Florida or its taxes or its climate. I say, “Come on down!” It’s not nearly the liberal state people think, depending on where you live. You can find counties that are totally liberal down here, but you can find a lot of — and most of Florida is not. It’s basically south Florida that’s dominated by the libs, but you can find plenty of places in this state, especially the Left Coast, Naples, a number of places, all the way up to Tampa, where you’ll be totally at home. Now, your husband might not be. He’s the one that wants to move to Florida?
CALLER: Well, yes. He wants to move someplace more tropical, someplace that’s on the ocean — and of course Minnesota is not.
RUSH: No, but you have a lot of lakes there. You know where those lakes came from, by the way?
CALLER: No.
RUSH: Minnesota is known for 15,000, 16,000 lakes, the land of lakes. The Los Angeles Lakers were originally the Minnesota Lakers, the Minneapolis Lakers. They were named after the lakes. The lakes came when the last glacier retreated from the last ice age. That warming happened long before humanity was building SUVs and so forth. That’s why you have all the lakes there. So you do have bodies of water but you don’t have an ocean, that’s true.
CALLER: That’s correct.
RUSH: Now, I don’t know that it’s relevant to the story, but I’m intrigued. You mentioned your husband is a liberal and you’re not. Does that have anything to do with moving to Florida?
CALLER: Well, no. It’s strictly climate change for him and not the human created kind.
RUSH: Are you both Minnesota natives?
CALLER: No. Neither of us is. He is actually not from the US. I’m from the Midwest, but not Minnesota.
RUSH: Where’s he from?
CALLER: (Pause.) A small country in Asia.
RUSH: A small country in Asia. Well, which country would that be?
CALLER: (Laughing.) Nepal.
RUSH: Nepal.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: All right. Well, that’s understandable that he’d want something closer to home, tropical and all that. Does the ideology disparity between the two of you affect the relationship in any meaningful way?
CALLER: Extremely meaningful ways, yes.
RUSH: It does? Did you know that he was a commie before you married him?
CALLER: Not commie, no, but I certainly knew he did not enjoy hanging around Republicans, and I consider myself a conservative first, so that didn’t bother me.
RUSH: You know, love is blind. Now, it can work if both of your ideologies are not the defining characteristics of your existence. There’s no strife in the marriage here, right? This move has nothing to do with that?
CALLER: There has been a lot of strife but we’re making a lot of progress and working out the differences and I have a lot of respect for him. I would be so happy to bring joy to his life, so moving may be part of that.
RUSH: (sigh) You know, you’re gonna… Number one: do you want the brazen, blunt truth?
CALLER: Of course.
RUSH: You can’t “bring happiness” to his life or anybody else’s except your own — and that’s how you do it, by being happy yourself. But it’s up to
CALLER: True. I’m having some influence on him, anyhow.
RUSH: Well, I know. You’re a wife. I mean that happens. But, look, this is none of my business. I’m just trying to get the whole picture here because sometimes a geographic move — while looked upon as a solution to relationship problems and so forth — really won’t matter a hill of beans. You’re thinking he’ll be happier?
CALLER: Yes, and I refused to move during the time when we were having our worst troubles, but since we have come together so well…
RUSH: Well, if you’re not from Minnesota and you’re from somewhere in the Midwest, why were you so ardently opposed to relocating?
CALLER: Well, I’ve been here since ’98, and I love the people here.
RUSH: They’re a bunch of libs up there!
CALLER: But not, my friends. My friends are wonderful.
RUSH: Well, that’s tough. Moving and leaving friends and making new ones, that’s tough. I don’t know what your economic circumstances are. A lot of people (800 people a day) are moving to Florida, and depending on where you go, property values are up or down. It depends on what part of the state that you choose to live. Do you guys own a house now or do you rent?
CALLER: Yes. We own a house.
RUSH: You own a house. All right. Well, and you would seek to do the same here?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Does your husband work?
CALLER: He does.
RUSH: Amazing. He’s a liberal and works. Okay.
CALLER: Well, he’s in the immigration process so he has his work permits and we’re renewing that for another year.
RUSH: You just keep adding cherries to the top of this ice cream cone. Well, let’s get back to the root question. I would encourage anybody who wants to move to where they want, to go to do it. Most of the limitations we place on ourselves, Kara, are self-imposed, and the biggest self-imposition that we have on ourselves is where we choose to live. I tell this theory of mine to as many people as ask me. A lot of people complain about their opportunities are not all that great.
I say, ?Where do you live??
?Well, I live in a small town.?
?Okay. Do you like living there??
?Yeah, I do.?
?Well, you’re going to be bound by the limitation, then, of choosing to live there.?
There is all kinds of opportunity in the country, but it may not be what you want where you live. You have to be willing to
CALLER: True.
RUSH: So if it’s just a matter of fear over change and your husband wants to and his happiness is important to you — the relationship, that’s important, and you really have no objections to it — you can find any number of places here to live where you would love the lifestyle.
CALLER: Good enough for me.
RUSH: And you’ll find plenty of economic opportunity here. There are all kinds of people moving here, and there are opportunities expanding here to accommodate them.
CALLER: Well, we may run into each other on a golf course someday.
RUSH: You play golf?
CALLER: (Laughing.) Not as well as you. Of course, I don’t smoke cigars while I golf either.
RUSH: I don’t play that well. I just like being out there: fresh air, the green grass, the manure, fertilizer. No, it’s a fun state, and you live outside and they have outside activities year round.
CALLER: Yeah. We do up here. They’re just different types.
RUSH: Yeah, the ice festival and that sort of thing. Yeah. But you know what I’m talking about, where you wear shorts year round.
CALLER: Yeah. You wouldn’t want to do that here.
RUSH: No. Except indoors. All right, Kara, I have to run, but all the best.
CALLER: Thank you, sir.
RUSH: My fingers are crossed for you here.
CALLER: Appreciate that.
RUSH: Take care. Adios.