Post by bogio on Sept 10, 2014 15:34:49 GMT -6
Neal Boortz was asked to give the commencement address but when he turned it in for review, his appearance was cancelled.
Neal Boortz is a Texan, a
lawyer, a Texas Aggie (Texas A&M) graduate, and now a nationally
syndicated talk show host from Atlanta . His commencement address to the
graduates of a recent Texas A&M class is far different from what
either the students or the faculty expected. Whether you agree or
disagree, his views are certainly thought provoking.
“I am honored by the invitation
to address you on this august occasion. It’s about time. Be warned,
however, that I am not here to impress you; you’ll have enough smoke blown
up your bloomers today. And you can bet your tassels I’m not here to
impress the faculty and administration. You may not like much of what I
have to say, and that’s fine. You will remember it though. Especially
after about 10 years out there in the real world. This, it goes without
saying, does not apply to those of you who will seek your careers and your
fortunes as government employees.
This gowned gaggle behind me
is your faculty. You’ve heard the old saying that those who can – do.
Those who can’t – teach. That sounds deliciously insensitive. But there is
often raw truth in insensitivity, just as you often find feel-good
falsehoods and lies in compassion. Say good-bye to your faculty because
now you are getting ready to go out there and do. These folks behind me
are going to stay right here and teach.
By the way, just because you
are leaving this place with a diploma doesn’t mean the learning is over.
When an FAA flight examiner handed me my private pilot’s license many
years ago, he said, “Here, this is your ticket to learn.” The same can be
said for your diploma. Believe me, the learning has just
begun.
Now, I realize that most of
you consider yourselves Liberals. In fact, you are probably very proud of
your liberal views. You care so much. You feel so much. You want to help
so much. After all, you’re a compassionate and caring person, aren’t you
now? Well, isn’t that just so extraordinarily special. Now, at this age,
is as good a time as any to be a liberal; as good a time as any to know
absolutely everything. You have plenty of time, starting tomorrow, for the
truth to set in.
Over the next few years, as
you begin to feel the cold breath of reality down your neck, things are
going to start changing pretty fast… Including your own assessment of just
how much you really know.
So here are the first
assignments for your initial class in reality: Pay attention to the news,
read newspapers, and listen to the words and phrases that proud Liberals
use to promote their causes. Then, compare the words of the left to the
words and phrases you hear from those evil, heartless, greedy
conservatives.
From the Left you will hear “I
feel.” From the Right you will hear “I think.” From the Liberals you will hear
references to groups — The Blacks, the Poor, the Rich, the Disadvantaged,
the Less Fortunate. From the Right you will hear references to
individuals. On the Left you hear talk of group rights; on the Right,
individual rights.
That about sums it up,
really: Liberals feel. Liberals care. They are pack animals whose identity
is tied up in group dynamics. Conservatives think — and, setting aside the
theocracy crowd, their identity is centered on the
individual.
Liberals feel that their
favored groups have enforceable rights to the property and services of
productive individuals. Conservatives, I among them I might add, think
that individuals have the right to protect their lives and their property
from the plunder of the masses.
In college you developed a
group mentality, but if you look closely at your diplomas you will see
that they have your individual names on them. Not the name of your school
mascot, or of your fraternity or sorority, but your name. Your group
identity is going away. Your recognition and appreciation of your
individual identity starts now.
If, by the time you reach the age
of 30, you do not consider yourself to be a conservative, rush right back
here as quickly as you can and apply for a faculty
position. These people will welcome you
with open arms. They will welcome you, that is, so long as you haven’t
developed an individual identity. Once again you will have to be willing
to sign on to the group mentality you embraced during the past four
years.
Something is going to happen
soon that is going to really open your eyes. You’re going to actually get
a full time job!
You’re also going to get a
lifelong work partner. This partner isn’t going to help you do your job.
This partner is just going to sit back and wait for payday. This partner
doesn’t want to share in your effort, but in your
earnings.
Your new lifelong partner
is actually an agent; an agent representing a strange and diverse group
of people; an agent for every teenager with an illegitimate child; an
agent for a research scientist who wanted to make some cash answering the
age-old question of why monkeys grind their teeth. An agent for some poor
demented hippie who considers herself to be a meaningful and talented
artist, but who just can’t manage to sell any of her artwork on the
open market.
Your new partner is an agent
for every person with limited, if any, job skills, but who wanted a job at
City Hall. An agent for tin-horn dictators in fancy military uniforms
grasping for American foreign aid. An agent for multi-million dollar
companies who want someone else to pay for their overseas advertising. An
agent for everybody who wants to use the unimaginable power of this
agent’s for their personal enrichment and benefit.
That agent is our
wonderful, caring, compassionate, oppressive government. Believe me, you
will be awed by the unimaginable power this agent has. Power that you do
not have. A power that no individual has, or will have. This agent has the
legal power to use force, deadly force to accomplish its
goals.
You have no choice here. Your
new friend is just going to walk up to you, introduce itself rather
gruffly, hand you a few forms to fill out, and move right on in. Say hello
to your own personal one ton gorilla. It will sleep anywhere it
wants to.
Now, let me tell you, this
agent is not cheap. As you become successful it will seize about 40% of
everything you earn. And no, I’m sorry, there just isn’t any way you can
fire this agent of plunder, and you can’t decrease its share of your
income. That power rests with him, not you.
So, here I am saying
negative things to you about government. Well, be clear on this: It is not
wrong to distrust government. It is not wrong to fear government. In
certain cases it is not even wrong to despise government for government is
inherently evil. Yes, a necessary evil, but dangerous nonetheless,
somewhat like a drug. Just as a drug that in the proper dosage can save
your life, an overdose of government can be fatal.
Now let’s address a few things
that have been crammed into your minds at this university. There are some
ideas you need to expunge as soon as possible. These ideas may work well
in academic environment, but they fail miserably out there in the
real world.
First is that favorite buzz
word of the media and academia: Diversity! You have been taught that the
real value of any group of people – be it a social group, an employee
group, a management group, whatever – is based on diversity. This is a
favored liberal ideal because diversity is based not on an individuals
abilities or character, but on a person’s identity and status as a member
of a group. Yes, it’s that liberal group identity thing
again.
Within the great diversity
movement group identification – be it racial, gender based, or some other
minority status – means more than the individuals integrity, character or
other qualifications.
Brace yourself. You are about
to move from this academic atmosphere where diversity rules, to a
workplace and a culture where individual achievement and excellence
actually count. No matter what your professors have taught you over the
last four years, you are about to learn that diversity is absolutely no
replacement for excellence, ability, and individual hard work. From this
day on every single time you hear the word “diversity” you can rest
assured that there is someone close by who is determined to rob you of
every vestige of individuality you possess.
We also need to address this
thing you seem to have about “rights.” We have witnessed an obscene
explosion of so-called “rights” in the last few decades, usually emanating
from college campuses.
You know the mantra: You have
the right to a job. The right to a place to live. The right to a living
wage. The right to health care. The right to an education. You probably
even have your own pet right – the right to a Beemer for instance, or the
right to have someone else provide for that child you plan on downloading
in a year or so.
Forget it. Forget those
rights! I’ll tell you what your rights are. You have a right to live free,
and to the results of 60% -75% of your labor. I’ll also tell you have no
right to any portion of the life or labor of
another.
You may, for instance, think
that you have a right to health care. After all, President Obama said so,
didn’t he? But you cannot receive health-care unless some doctor or
health practitioner surrenders some of his time – his life – to you. He
may be willing to do this for compensation, but that’s his choice. You
have no “right” to his time or property. You have no right to his or any
other person’s life or to any portion thereof.
You may also think you have
some “right” to a job; a job with a living wage, whatever that is. Do you
mean to tell me that you have a right to force your services on another
person, and then the right to demand that this person compensate you with
their money? Sorry, forget it. I am sure you would scream if some urban
outdoors men (that would be “homeless person” for those of you who don’t
want to give these less fortunate people a romantic and adventurous title)
came to you and demanded his job and your money.
The people who have been
telling you about all the rights you have are simply exercising one of
theirs – the right to be imbeciles. Their being imbeciles didn’t cost
anyone else either property or time. It’s their right, and they exercise
it brilliantly.
By the way, did you catch my
use of the phrase “less fortunate” a bit ago when I was talking about the
urban outdoors men? That phrase is a favorite of the Left. Think about it,
and you’ll understand why.
To imply that one person
is homeless, destitute, dirty, drunk, spaced out on drugs, unemployable,
and generally miserable because he is “less fortunate” is to imply that
a successful person – one with a job, a home and a future – is in that
position because he or she was “fortunate.” The dictionary says that
fortunate means “having derived good from an unexpected place.” There is
nothing unexpected about deriving good from hard work. There is also
nothing unexpected about deriving misery from choosing drugs, alcohol, and
the street.
If the Liberal Left can create
the common perception that success and failure are simple matters of
“fortune” or “luck,” then it is easy to promote and justify their various
income redistribution schemes. After all, we are just evening out the odds
a little bit. This “success equals luck” idea the liberals like to push is
seen everywhere. Former Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt
refers to high-achievers as “people who have won life’s lottery.” He wants
you to believe they are making the big bucks because they are lucky. It’s
not luck, my friends. It’s choice. One of the greatest lessons I ever
learned was in a book by Og Mandino, entitled, “The Greatest Secret in the
World.” The lesson? Very simple: “Use wisely your power of
choice.”
That bum sitting on a
heating grate, smelling like a wharf rat? He’s there by choice. He is
there because of the sum total of the choices he has made in his life.
This truism is absolutely the hardest thing for some people to accept,
especially those who consider themselves to be victims of something or
other – victims of discrimination, bad luck, the system, capitalism,
whatever. After all, nobody really wants to accept the blame for his or
her position in life. Not when it is so much easier to point and say,
“Look! He did this to me!” than it is to look into a mirror and say, “You
S. O. B.! You did this to me!”
The key to accepting
responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices,
every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or
failure, however you define those terms.
Some of the choices are
obvious: Whether or not to stay in school. Whether or not to get pregnant.
Whether or not to hit the bottle. Whether or not to keep this job you hate
until you get another better-paying job. Whether or not to save some of
your money, or saddle yourself with huge payments for that new
car.
Some of the choices are
seemingly insignificant: Whom to go to the movies with. Whose car to ride
home in. Whether to watch the tube tonight, or read a book on investing.
But, and you can be sure of this, each choice counts. Each choice is a
building block – some large, some small. But each one is a part of the
structure of your life. If you make the right choices, or if you make more
right choices than wrong ones, something absolutely terrible may happen to
you. Something unthinkable. You, my friend, could become one of the hated,
the evil, the ugly, the feared, the filthy, the successful, the
rich.
The rich basically serve
two purposes in this country. First, they provide the investments, the
investment capital, and the brains for the formation of new businesses.
Businesses that hire people. Businesses that send millions of paychecks
home each week to the un-rich.
Second, the rich are a
wonderful object of ridicule, distrust, and hatred. Few things are more
valuable to a politician than the envy most Americans feel for the
evil rich.
Envy is a powerful emotion.
Even more powerful than the emotional minefield that surrounded Bill
Clinton when he reviewed his last batch of White House interns.
Politicians use envy to get votes and power. And they keep that power by
promising the envious that the envied will be punished: “The rich will pay
their fair share of taxes if I have anything to do with it.” The truth is
that the top 10% of income earners in this country pays almost 50% of all
income taxes collected. I shudder to think what these job producers would
be paying if our tax system were any more “fair.”
You have heard, no doubt, that
the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Interestingly enough,
our government’s own numbers show that many of the poor actually get
richer, and that quite a few of the rich actually get poorer. But for the
rich who do actually get richer, and the poor who remain poor .. there’s
an explanation — a reason. The rich, you see, keep doing the things that
make them rich; while the poor keep doing the things that make them
poor.
Speaking of the poor, during
your adult life you are going to hear an endless string of politicians
bemoaning the plight of the poor. So, you need to know that under our
government’s definition of “poor” you can have a $5 million net worth, a
$300,000 home and a new $90,000 Mercedes, all completely paid for. You can
also have a maid, cook, and valet, and a million in your checking account,
and you can still be officially defined by our government as “living in
poverty.” Now there’s something you haven’t seen on the evening
news.
How does the government pull
this one off? Very simple, really. To determine whether or not some poor
soul is “living in poverty,” the government measures one thing — just one
thing. Income.
It doesn’t matter one bit how
much you have, how much you own, how many cars you drive or how big they
are, whether or not your pool is heated, whether you winter in Aspen and
spend the summers in the Bahamas, or how much is in your savings account.
It only matters how much income you claim in that particular year. This
means that if you take a one-year leave of absence from your high-paying
job and decide to live off the money in your savings and checking accounts
while you write the next great American novel, the government says you are
living in poverty.”
This isn’t exactly what you had
in mind when you heard these gloomy statistics, is it? Do you need
more convincing? Try this. The government’s own statistics show that
people who are said to be “living in poverty” spend more than $1.50 for
each dollar of income they claim. Something is a bit fishy here. Just
remember all this the next time Charles Gibson tells you about some
hideous new poverty statistics.
Why has the government
concocted this phony poverty scam? Because the government needs an excuse
to grow and to expand its social welfare programs, which translates into
an expansion of its power. If the government can convince you, in all your
compassion, that the number of “poor” is increasing, it will have all the
excuse it needs to sway an electorate suffering from the advanced stages
of Obsessive-Compulsive Compassion Disorder.
I’m about to be stoned by
the faculty here. They’ve already changed their minds about that honorary
degree I was going to get. That’s OK, though. I still have my PhD. in
Insensitivity from the Neal Boortz Institute for Insensitivity Training. I
learned that, in short, sensitivity sucks. It’s a trap. Think about it –
the truth knows no sensitivity. Life can be insensitive. Wallow too much
in sensitivity and you’ll be unable to deal with life, or the truth, so
get over it.
Now, before the dean has
me shackled and hauled off, I have a few random
thoughts.
* You need to register to
vote, unless you are on welfare. If you are living off the efforts of
others, please do us the favor of sitting down and shutting up until you
are on your own again.
* When you do vote, your votes
for the House and the Senate are more important than your vote for
President. The House controls the purse strings, so concentrate your
awareness there.
* Liars cannot be trusted,
even when the liar is the President of the country. If someone can’t deal
honestly with you, send them packing.
* Don’t bow to the temptation
to use the government as an instrument of plunder. If it is wrong for you
to take money from someone else who earned it — to take their money by
force for your own needs — then it is certainly just as wrong for you to
demand that the government step forward and do this dirty work for
you.
* Don’t look in other
people’s pockets. You have no business there. What they earn is theirs.
What you earn is yours. Keep it that way. Nobody owes you anything, except
to respect your privacy and your rights, and leave you the hell
alone.
* Speaking of earning, the
revered 40-hour workweek is for losers. Forty hours should be considered
the minimum, not the maximum. You don’t see highly successful people
clocking out of the office every afternoon at five. The losers are the ones caught
up in that afternoon rush hour. The winners drive home in the
dark.
* Free speech is meant to
protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no
protection.
* Finally (and aren’t you glad
to hear that word), as Og Mandino wrote,
1. Proclaim your rarity. Each
of you is a rare and unique human being.
2. Use wisely your power
of choice.
3. Go the extra mile, drive
home in the dark.
Oh, and put off buying a
television set as long as you can. Now, if you have any idea at all what’s
good for you, you will get out of here and never come back. Class
dismissed”
