1982 - Rush Limbaugh Home
Around 1978 I began frequenting a health food store in Bonita owned by a lady named Carol whose husband Wes Templeton had similar political beliefs to mine. I noticed he subscribed to the Spotlight newsletter and we both had an interest in abolishing the Federal Reserve System. We became friends and his wife soon moved her store next door to my computer store. Wes began accompanying me to some of the local LP party meetings.
Around 1982 Wes acquired a radio talk show in Ft. Myers. I began to call in and he and I got into some real radical stuff. We got into the Federal Reserve System and counterfeit money substitute creation back when it wasn't popular to talk about it that much. I call it counterfeit because there is no such thing as paper money. The paper is only used as a convenience to carry rather than the real money, therefore the paper is not money but only a money substitute. But if the paper can no longer be turned in for real money then it is now a counterfeit money substitute.
On Wes' show I was proposing that the Federal Government sell off most of the property it owned to begin to pay off the national debt. What I didn't know at the time was that since Abraham Lincoln first made fiat money the official U.S. currency in 1862 that paying off the debt would destroy all the counterfeit money substitutes that were created out of nothing when the debt was taken out and would leave no currency left in circulation. So the debt can never be paid off anyway, but that's another subject. I pointed out how the statists always point to the good done by their programs without considering the good that could have been done with the same resources if they had been left in the hands of the taxpayer.
At that time we were still governed by the "Fairness Doctrine" that required broadcasters to "balance" their broadcasts. I pointed out how that tended to stifle discussion and said that there ought to be a free market in ideas and people could tune into the ideas that they like and let the market decide. I said someone should write a book "The Way Things Ought to Be" explaining how things could work without all the government interference in the economy. I also liked to use irreverent humor to poke fun at the illogic of some of the government programs and left wing logic. I mentioned that there seemed to be a surplus of liberal comedians but very few conservative comedians. I said that was a shame because some of these government programs were so illogical that they would make a good target for humor.
I was arguing for free trade and there was a lady named Marylyn who would become infuriated by my arguments and would call in to argue for protectionism. One day Wes asked me if I would let her come in on a three way conversation and argue her position with me. At the time I subscribed to Science News magazine and had been reading about the new right brain, left brain theories and I got a little cocky and said "Sure - I could do that with half my brain tied behind my back."
One time somehow Wes asked me something about losers. I thought it was a little strange that he brought it up but I said that I had never seen a winner yet that wasn't a loser before he or she was a winner. Wes asked me what I meant. I said that everyone had to lose a few before they could become a winner. It was what you learned in losing that made you a winner. I wouldn't understand why Wes brought that up until some years later.
Then there was the day Wes said he noticed I occasionally smoked cigars. At the time I had gotten into the habit of smoking the small cigars. I just got into the habit of having one in my mouth. I didn't inhale. Wes starting asking about cigars as if I were some kind of expert or something, but I knew nothing about them and I told him so. This was another example of Wes bringing something up that I wouldn't understand why till several years later.
One day Wes asked me when and how I had become a libertarian. I explained how I had been influenced by the leftist indoctrination on the campuses but started to move to the right economically as soon as I crossed the Mason-Dixon line and was influenced by several conversations that I had. One of the conversations that came to my mind was the one I had in the bus station in East St. Louis in 72 with the man named Rush Limbaugh.
After awhile Wes told me that there were some people in Ft Myers who liked what I was saying and wanted to talk to me. I was into my computer business at the time and wasn't interested in getting into politics which is what I figured it was about. But later I learned that someone was thinking about letting me have some time on the radio for my own show. I really didn't think I would be very good at that as I felt I was a better listener than talker so I didn't show too much enthusiasm. Also my business was starting to take off. Wes said someone would be contacting me. I said OK, but I didn't really expect it to happen.
Around that time I was getting pretty serious into my drum set and was playing just about every night. Sometimes I would play with earphones and sometimes without. When I played without I had to turn the stereo up real loud to hear it over the drums. I had been doing it for 6 years or more so the neighbors had apparently gotten used to it cause I never had a problem and I sometimes played till 10:30 pm or so. When I got into a grove it was a natural high and I didn't like to be interrupted.
One night in between songs I heard this loud pounding on the door. It sounded like someone was trying to knock the door down. I figured that it was either the police or someone I didn't know, because no one I knew would knock that loudly. When I got on the drum set and got into a grove I didn't like to be interrupted, so I figured I'd take a chance that it wasn't the police. If it wasn't the police and it wasn't someone I knew then I figured it just might be those people from Ft. Myers who wanted me to be on the radio. So I just yelled out - "I CAN'T - YOU DO IT! - THE NEXT SONG IS FOR YOU!" The next song to come on the radio was an instrumental that I had never heard before in my life. I liked Bob Seger, Tom Petty, Dire Straits, Bruce Springsteen. This instrumental was a little tame for me, but I determined to play it well, because I had someone at the door listening. So I was careful to give my best effort to the song. When the song finished I heard a car door slam in my driveway and a car pull out and take off. I never got up from my drum set to check it out. I didn't even hear the car pull up while I was playing drums and didn't know there was a car in my driveway until I heard it pull away.
I never mentioned the incident to Wes and sometime after that Wes brought up the subject of mental telepathy on his show and asked me what I thought about it. I told him that I believed that humans were developing this ability and that some were better receivers and some were better broadcasters. I told him that I thought I was a better receiver because I occasionally had these thoughts pop into my mind that I knew were thoughts someone else was thinking at the time. It usually only happened when the broadcaster was someone I knew pretty well and sometimes I thought I could receive the thoughts of close friends when I concentrated on trying. At the time one of the words that kept popping into my mind after I talked on the radio was "Ditto." I understood a person used that to signify that they thought the same way so I assumed it to mean that I had someone out there who agreed with me.
Some time in the mid eighties I was on the line waiting to talk to Wes when this gentleman who had never called in before to Wes' program called in and seemed excited and nervous about being on the air. He told Wes that he was going to start a national radio talk show in the near future. Wes just said "OK" and didn't pursue it any further and the caller didn't give too much information about himself or the proposed show. After he hung up and I came on the line Wes asked me what I thought of that. I said that I hoped his show would be a force for doing something about the size of the runaway federal government. Not long after that the station that Wes' program was on had financial difficulties and his program was canceled.
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