Today Rush Limbaugh's Stack of Stuff Quick Hits Page leads off with an article that is titled "Nanny State," about one of the biggest product recalls in consumer history.  Approximately 50 million window blinds are being recalled, because the strings pose a strangulation hazard.

Rush's reaction?  He sneers.

24 children have been strangled to death by window cords, a number which Rush pooh-poohs as being minimal.  Like a rounding error.  "So 24 kids have died," he says, "a whole industry needs to have a product recall?"

This is an excellent example of Rush's failure to understand things from anyone else's point of view, or to consider the welfare of anyone but himself.  I would bet cash money that if Rush had children (he is childless) he would have been campaigning against these "death traps" years ago.  He probably would have pinned the blame for those kids' deaths on the liberal elite using the dangling strings to weed out the uneducated.  I don't know.  Don't ask me to explain how his mind works.

All I can say is, anyone who thinks that more than 24 kids have to die before a product needs to be recalled could really do with an empathy check.  How many kids would have to die before Rush would consider the product to be truly worthy of a recall?  Interestingly enough, he doesn't say.

Rush pitches this as "big business being hurt by the bleeding heart liberal nanny state."  But consider, Mr. Limbaugh, how easy it would have been for the blinds manufacturers to make break-away cords.  In fact, numerous consumer groups have been advocating in favor of break-away cords for years now.  However, the blinds industry (I can't resist calling it "Big Shutter") refused, on the grounds that it would be too expensive.

I wonder how expensive those 24 kids' parents thought it was?  How expensive is the death of a child, compared to a small safety device?  Well, I guess the blinds industry learned today, when they were finally forced to recall and destroy all of those blinds, didn't they?

This is a ridiculous line of reasoning, even for Rush Limbaugh.  The key to mocking the Nanny State is to choose something ridiculous.  Trans fats are an excellent example, since you can cast doubt on the trans fat studies just by saying "I have doubts about these."  (You don't have to offer any scientific reasoning, not if you're Rush Limbaugh.)

Instead, he chooses to tackle a product which, as he thoughtfully points out, killed 24 little kids.  I wonder if the parents in the audience had second thoughts about Rush when they heard this?  I wonder if anyone called in and gave him "big dittos"?  

I wonder if any of the 48 parents of those 24 dead kids called in?  I for one would have liked to point out that the damned cords don't really need to be a loop, anyway.  They could, for example, be braided together such that they wouldn't strangle a toddler.  This would have been cheap and effective, but if you don't care, then any expense is "too expensive."  Just ask Rush.