"You know," --his tone is all mild and conversational, drawl making the words hang heavy in his mouth for longer than they have any real right to -- "I'll give you that things are pretty different here, but as far as I know they're still pretending it's a free country."

He could be pointing out that there's plenty of open booths farther away from the literal cloud over this one, but apparently Rust doesn't think any idiot jumped up enough to put himself next to something that offends him deserves that particular brand of charity.