RUSH: No. The league is concerned that somebody’s gonna get killed. That’s what this is about. Folks, I’m having a conversation here with somebody that is not over as the commercial break ends. Somebody asked me about the suspension of James Harrison of the Steelers. It’s the first time that a player has been suspended for a tackle in a game since I forget who it was that body slammed Jim McMahon of the Bears. It was back in the back in the eighties. But I’m gonna tell you something, folks, very briefly about this. I should probably should spend more time on this at some point, maybe on Open Line Friday. But I visit a lot of football websites as you know and I have taken to reading some of the comments from readers of these websites, and I am struck by a number of things.
A, the coarseness and the overall what I think is just general culture decline of manners. It’s just an endless parade of human debris on these things. But there’s also an endless parade of liberals on these things, and this whole notion about helmet-to-helmet hits and the games too rough. I’m gonna tell you what’s going to happen. I’m gonna make a prediction for you. The league is going after this Harrison business and helmet-to-helmet hits because they are genuinely afraid somebody’s going to get killed on the field. Carson Palmer a couple of years ago is a quarterback symposium said the same thing. The league is genuinely worried that’s gonna happen.
As these guys get bigger and faster, the size of the field doesn’t change, and there’s a lot of cultural stuff going on here as well. If that were to ever happen — if somebody were to get killed and die in the game, not in the hospital later, die in the game? I’m gonna make a prediction to you. Even without that, it’s not going to be long before the wusses, the New Castrati in our society are going to be suggest that football be banned, that tackle football be banned. (interruption) No, I’m not kidding. I’m dead serious. Not next year or the year after that. I’m just telling you it’s coming. I see this. It’s just like when the SUV, back when the Sierra Club said, “We gotta start targeting it and get rid of the SUV, it’s polluter,” it’s the same thing here.
I’m convinced there are gonna be a bunch of do-gooders who are gonna suggest banning the game as it’s played because it is too dangerous. If you just look, were trending in that direction everywhere else in our culture, and it’s going to happen — and once the proposal is made… The league is falling right in line with this, by the way, I think. The league is making that possible, and when I read some of the comments some of these blogs that I read, it’s amazing what a bunch of “sheeple” there are regarding this. Twenty-five years ago when this kind of stuff happened on the field, it’s just like everything else in our culture.
You know, nothing in the fifties, Leave It To Beaver was never as great and peaceful, painless, and idyllic as people’s memories make it. But there were things about the past that were worth preserving that aren’t being preserved. We have a genuine cultural rot taking place and an overtaking of our culture — the chickification and the New Castrati and so forth. I’m just telling you, it’s gonna happen. Somebody is going to propose banning football as it’s played, whether that thing the league fears or not happens — and it may even be a member of the media that suggests it. If that happens… (interruption) It’ll be too late for ratings, but if that happens, that would change things in ways that people can’t even imagine.
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RUSH: I am dead serious about this, Snerdley. I read these blogs, and I’ll tell you where we’re headed here. The left is trying to take the risk out of everything. That’s where this is rooted. It’s too risky, and playing football is gonna end up being too risky. They’re doing studies on what players are like at age 40, 50, how many of them are dying and all this from probably head injuries. There’s no scientific evidence that that’s the reason, but they’re all making these assumptions that playing football kills you 20 years earlier than your life span, in the National Football League.
I’m just telling you that these pantywaists who want to try to take the risk out of everything in life are gonna focus on football at some point and they’re gonna try to get it banned. Well, the players take the field knowing all this can happen. They’re willing to take the risk. But now they’re being told that they don’t know what’s good for ’em, that they’re the last people that we should listen to, and they get their bell rung and they want to go back in, they don’t want to lose their jobs, but no, we need independent neurologists on the sidelines that are not related to the team, we need independent neurologists on the sideline to make sure somebody hasn’t suffered a concussion and can’t go back in, can’t be put back in by a coach that doesn’t care if he injures a player. I guarantee you, I know who I’m talking about; I know who the liberals are; I know how they want to control things, take the risk out of everything this life in life and under the premise that nobody will ever die. Guaranteed.