Neal Boortz
Texas A&M Commencement Address -
The students gave a standing ovation;
the faculty were deathly silent!
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"