Good Life Advice
Written
by Neal Boortz, a Texan, a lawyer, a Texas Aggie (Texas A&M) graduate, and
now a nationally syndicated talk show host from Atlanta.
This commencement address was written as though it was delivered to the graduates
of a recent Texas A&M class. It was
never spoken at their commencement. It
would have been far different than either the students or the faculty would
have expected. Edited slightly for
improved readability by Citizen Stormo. 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, and 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, just 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
unimaginable power 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 individual’s 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 well from an unexpected place”. There is nothing unexpected about deriving well
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"
